I came up with this idea last night and thought it would be worth a try. What could it hurt? My professor in college, Ron Carlson, was lecturing on scene and talked about how the items in someone's room or car or home or purse demonstrate character. You don't just want to put any sort of random detail in your description of a room. You want the descriptions to reflect on the character or situation.
One of his examples was what is on people's fridges at home. Is your fridge clean or is it a home for a family of magnets?
As a way to collaborate with each other, I thought it would be a fun experiment for everyone to post a list of what is on their fridge at home! We could use the ideas for inspiration for characters in our own writing. Free gleaning! And it might just be interesting to see what comes out in that list. So, either post your list as a comment on this post or post it onto your blog and post a link in the comment section! A way to share...from one writer to another.
On My Fridge, I have...
1. a letter from an Italian restaurant with a coupon
2. a recipe for steak with garlic butter
3. a 2 year old photo of my 8-year-old cousin
4. an old Christmas card from 2010
5. a giant green Christmas stocking (the kind you get from the 99 cent store!)
6. a grocery shopping list
7. a turtle magnet that I got in Hawaii on my honeymoon
8. a whole bunch of empty clips
9. a free credit card magnet
I hope you participate, glean, and enjoy!
Showing posts with label Writing Exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing Exercise. Show all posts
Monday, April 2, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
At Noon
A Exploratory Profile
In one of his five pinstripe business suits, Jacob ate his lunch in the car. The windows were up, even though it was seventy-five degrees outside. The stuffiness didn't bother him. He just hoped no one could smell his lunch on him after he was done. He didn't want anyone knowing that he ate alone every day.
Today, like every Wednesday, it was a $6 turkey deli sandwich on a rosemary bagel from Breugger's down the street from the office. The peppered bacon here was his favorite. And it was inexpensive. Randy Simmons always went to lunch at the restaurant on the base floor of the office building. A burger there was $15 plus tax and tip.
He tucked the napkin methodically into his collar above the knot of his tie and spread it out to protect the maximum surface area. Last week, he had dropped a dab of mustard on his light gray tie. It had cost a fortune at the dry cleaners to remove the oil stain.
When he was done, he wrapped his trash neatly into the napkin that protected his shirt, saved the extra napkins in his glove compartment for dinner, and returned to work. His most flavorful lunch of the week was done for now. Tomorrow was Thursday, and he was back to sack lunches in the corner of the break room until next Wednesday.
In one of his five pinstripe business suits, Jacob ate his lunch in the car. The windows were up, even though it was seventy-five degrees outside. The stuffiness didn't bother him. He just hoped no one could smell his lunch on him after he was done. He didn't want anyone knowing that he ate alone every day.
Today, like every Wednesday, it was a $6 turkey deli sandwich on a rosemary bagel from Breugger's down the street from the office. The peppered bacon here was his favorite. And it was inexpensive. Randy Simmons always went to lunch at the restaurant on the base floor of the office building. A burger there was $15 plus tax and tip.
He tucked the napkin methodically into his collar above the knot of his tie and spread it out to protect the maximum surface area. Last week, he had dropped a dab of mustard on his light gray tie. It had cost a fortune at the dry cleaners to remove the oil stain.
When he was done, he wrapped his trash neatly into the napkin that protected his shirt, saved the extra napkins in his glove compartment for dinner, and returned to work. His most flavorful lunch of the week was done for now. Tomorrow was Thursday, and he was back to sack lunches in the corner of the break room until next Wednesday.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Life Lessons
You guys are probably sick of reading about weddings. I'm sick of thinking about weddings! But alas, in this special and unique period of my life, I find myself without time to write and learning a gazillion life lessons. As a result, I feel I must record some of these changes and transitions. They are too valuable to not get down somewhere.
So, here are some tidbits of what I've been learning recently, complete with writing prompts for fun (since life lessons = good stories).
#1 - It's your big day, AND it's not all about you.
If you notice, there is a comma before the conjunction in that sentence, meaning that the two statements are independent clauses. That is true because I feel like these two ideas are the most popular wedding mentalities present in today's brides.
The fact of the matter is that they are both true. The day IS your big day and you should plan it as it will make you happy. If you just have to have that photobooth or you'll always wonder how fun it would've been, book it. However, it is also not just about YOU getting married. The purpose of a wedding is to give your guests (who are super excited for you) the opportunity to celebrate your marriage. Believe it or not, they are there for you (at least most of them). Honor them and respect them with a ceremony & a reception that demonstrates you appreciate their love, affection, and best wishes.
Note: Show honor and respect to your family members, especially mothers and grandmothers. It means a lot to them.
PROMPT: A bride-to-be and her mother are on opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to these two ideologies. Write a conversation in which they are talking about wedding details/plans. Try to not have the characters specifically mention their ideology but instead have their own agenda come through their dialogue.
#2 - Listen and understand to what people are saying.
As I've mentioned before, a wedding is both a celebration and a grieving process for family members. The bride and groom create a new family and leave their old ones on their wedding day. Because there are so many transitions going on, there is a lot of joy and pain. There is a lot of stress. While the stress is inevitable, how you deal with it is key. Listen and understand where people are coming from. You will not regret it.
PROMPT: Your first-person narrator is mute. Write at least two pages of your narrator interacting with someone close to them.
#3 - Be specific.
After you're done listening, be specific when you voice your own opinions and emotions. Don't use words like always or never. Even something like "most of the time" should be avoided. Say how you felt at a specific time because of a specific action.
PROMPT: Character 1 said something to Character 2 that hurt his/her feelings. Write about how Character 2 approaches Character 1 about the situation.
So, here are some tidbits of what I've been learning recently, complete with writing prompts for fun (since life lessons = good stories).
#1 - It's your big day, AND it's not all about you.
If you notice, there is a comma before the conjunction in that sentence, meaning that the two statements are independent clauses. That is true because I feel like these two ideas are the most popular wedding mentalities present in today's brides.
The fact of the matter is that they are both true. The day IS your big day and you should plan it as it will make you happy. If you just have to have that photobooth or you'll always wonder how fun it would've been, book it. However, it is also not just about YOU getting married. The purpose of a wedding is to give your guests (who are super excited for you) the opportunity to celebrate your marriage. Believe it or not, they are there for you (at least most of them). Honor them and respect them with a ceremony & a reception that demonstrates you appreciate their love, affection, and best wishes.
Note: Show honor and respect to your family members, especially mothers and grandmothers. It means a lot to them.
PROMPT: A bride-to-be and her mother are on opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to these two ideologies. Write a conversation in which they are talking about wedding details/plans. Try to not have the characters specifically mention their ideology but instead have their own agenda come through their dialogue.
#2 - Listen and understand to what people are saying.
As I've mentioned before, a wedding is both a celebration and a grieving process for family members. The bride and groom create a new family and leave their old ones on their wedding day. Because there are so many transitions going on, there is a lot of joy and pain. There is a lot of stress. While the stress is inevitable, how you deal with it is key. Listen and understand where people are coming from. You will not regret it.
PROMPT: Your first-person narrator is mute. Write at least two pages of your narrator interacting with someone close to them.
#3 - Be specific.
After you're done listening, be specific when you voice your own opinions and emotions. Don't use words like always or never. Even something like "most of the time" should be avoided. Say how you felt at a specific time because of a specific action.
PROMPT: Character 1 said something to Character 2 that hurt his/her feelings. Write about how Character 2 approaches Character 1 about the situation.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Disclaimer
There is the phrase that goes, "Be careful what you do around an author. You may just show up in their book someday." or..."Don't ever date a writer. They'll turn you into literature." Something like that. I'm sure there are bumper stickers out there or something.
The phrases are true. I'm sorry, but what else are we to glean from? Our imagination can only go so far. And even then, imagination is only creation based off of things that we've experienced. For characters, any character we create contains bits and pieces of people we've observed or know. It is not necessarily an insult or an honor to be portrayed in this way; I almost guarantee at least 80% of the time for the average writer the use of your character traits is entirely subconscious.
I wrote this for a writing exercise in college, and the paragraph still means a lot to me. The exercise was to write a disclaimer for something, so I wrote a disclaimer for books or writing.
Have fun gleaning information from people's lives (with respect and discretion, of course). Ron Carlson used an entire lecture devoted to teaching us how to write examples from real life but disguise them so that the people involved won't be able to tell. Asking permission is always great, but sometimes you just can't do that. So change everything, every detail. If it was set in the summer, put it into the winter. If it involves a boy named Robby, rename him Edward. If she has three kids, give her one. Change all the details.
I think, if one has to define it, creativity is taking pieces of what God has created and fiddling around with them.
The phrases are true. I'm sorry, but what else are we to glean from? Our imagination can only go so far. And even then, imagination is only creation based off of things that we've experienced. For characters, any character we create contains bits and pieces of people we've observed or know. It is not necessarily an insult or an honor to be portrayed in this way; I almost guarantee at least 80% of the time for the average writer the use of your character traits is entirely subconscious.
I wrote this for a writing exercise in college, and the paragraph still means a lot to me. The exercise was to write a disclaimer for something, so I wrote a disclaimer for books or writing.
I have to warn you. Most people think that when people write stories, they are fake, fiction, figments of zealous imagination. But I’m telling you, and perhaps ruining the grand secret: our stories are most often based on truth. Well, yes, we have to change that one thing, toss in new names, and flip that one pathway around, just to disguise the fact that we aren’t really all that creative but just intrigued by life and its intricacies. But the hard part may be, for some of us, that our life really isn’t that interesting, so we take these nuggets of truth, little instances and moments, small handfuls of human existence, and try to contain it inside the confines of the written word. So, what I guess truth in this story is that there is no such thing as pure fiction.I don't want to debunk fiction or to make it any less of a creative art. Its just that I write because I love life. Everything is so intricate and complex, yet increasingly simple at the same time. The world is a paradox unto itself, and holds so many mysteries. I like to create and to make up worlds that don't exist and people that don't exist but somehow are just as real to me as the chair that I am sitting on. And yes, that was entirely cliché, but hey...I like well-timed clichés now and again.
Have fun gleaning information from people's lives (with respect and discretion, of course). Ron Carlson used an entire lecture devoted to teaching us how to write examples from real life but disguise them so that the people involved won't be able to tell. Asking permission is always great, but sometimes you just can't do that. So change everything, every detail. If it was set in the summer, put it into the winter. If it involves a boy named Robby, rename him Edward. If she has three kids, give her one. Change all the details.
I think, if one has to define it, creativity is taking pieces of what God has created and fiddling around with them.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Snippet
The
father watched his only daughter climb out of the car and walk down the cement
pathway lit by ankle high solar lamps stuck in the flowerbeds that lined
it. She walked down the path to the
unfamiliar doorway that the father did his best to avoid. Her backpack of school books and homework was
slung over one shoulder and her duffle bag of her gym clothes, soccer gear, and
other necessities swung from the opposite hand.
She
reached the bottom step of the porch and turned around to wave. The father felt a squeezing pain and caught a
breath. He was glad he was in the car so
she couldn’t see the tear that had managed out of the corner of his eye. He waved back at her and turned the key in
the ignition to drive away before the woman that was now a stranger opened the
door to let her daughter in.
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