2 posts tagged “writer”

When you have one of those days when nothing wants to go on the paper, this is a good way to loosen things up. It only take a few  minutes and works surprisingly well.

To start: You need two characters and a basic setting. Do this fast, without giving yourself too much time to overthink it. The point is to try to get the rhythm of it. When I first set this down, I don't even attribute the lines, just basic dialogue & a few bits of setting. Have fun!

1. Character A speaks. Must be less than 6 words.
2. Character B does not speak; instead, describe an action that he/she performs.
3. Character A speaks one line.
4. Character B responds less than 3 sentences.
5. Character A answers one line.
6. Character B responds less than 3 sentences.
7. Character A gesture.
8. Character B speaks less than 3 sentences while performing some action.
9. Character A speaks a line beginning with "I remember . . . "
10. Character B responds with less than 2 lines.
11. Character A asks a question.
12. Character B speaks a line beginning with "I used to believe . . . "
13. Describe character A and some object from the setting, either A is doing something, or the object relates to A somehow.
14. Character A speaks one line.
15. Describe Character B's actions when he/she doesn't respond.
16. Character A speaks a line beginning with "I never" or "I always."
17. Character B speaks one line.
18. Character A speaks one line; describe the action while he says it.

There you have it. Easy-peasy. As Anne Lamott tells us, all first drafts are shitty, so here's my shitty first draft. Later I'll post revisions, and we'll see how we progressed from this to that.

So, here's the exercise:

A: "I thought you weren't coming."
    Jane dropped her bags in a heap on the floor and flopped into the chair, covering her face with her hands.
A: "Looks like you had a fantastic day."
B" "My God, Neil. My life is turning to shit and I can't seem to get myself out. I've been fighting with Bill all day over the phone."
A: "Do tell."
B: "Oh, it's really the usual. His inability to commit, his lack of attentiveness, his aversion to family and convention. Really, you must be tired of hearing this?"
    Neil cleared his throat.
B: "I'm sorry to bore you." Jane leaned forward in her chair, taking Nail's hand in hers. "You're perfect. Tell me the secret of finding a perfect, normal man."
A:   "I remember you before you met him. You weren't so keen on convention then, remember?"
B: "But I love him, Neil. That's the difference. Now I want to be utterly conventional."
A: "Don't you think you need a c onventional man for that?"
B: "I used to believe that eventually I'd find someone who was perfect for me, you know? Now I'm beginning to doubt it."
    Neil picked up his pen from the table between them, holding the tortoise-shell barrel between his pale fingers. "Want me to write you a happy ending?"
    Jane gave him a wan smile and sighed. She slid her ring over the knuckle and then back, over and over as the silence stretched out.
A: "You'll never guess who I saw at the farmer's market this week. I went to get some arugula and tomatoes,and I happened to see your sister. She was buying goat cheese."
B: "You never met my sister . . . did you?"

Anyway, that's my shitty first draft :)

Assignment: Write a quick sketch of a character using only the voice of your main character to relate a situation. This should, of course be in the first person point of view, and it should lend deeper insight into the character, perhaps deeper than even the character realizes.

You show me yours, and I'll show you mine! :D

Here's mine, and I hope you'll forgive me for reading Dashiell Hammett, because my character seems like he wants to be one of his characters:

    About seven o’clock, I told Harry to pour me one more for the ditch. He snickered at that – Harry always says I’m one hell of a wit – and poured me another Scotch. “Gonna be late for dinner again,” he says to me. What a cut-up, that Harry.
    “If you think my wife tells me where to shoulder the wheel and when to push, Harry, you better think again,” I says. “You just better think again.” It was an inside joke, see? All us regulars down at the Harbor Lights – Howard, Stewie, Frank, Ray, and me, Jack – worked hard, and by God, if a man wants a belt at the end of another day, then he'll have one, and who in hell is his wife to tell him  any different? “My wife,” I snorted.
    Now I didn’t say this to Harry, because this was before his time at the Harbor Lights, but my wife used to think just that way, just the way he said. Of course I never stood for it, never changed my ways, but she kicked up a fuss for a while, always with her nagging, always on about my drinking. “I earn that drink, Irene,” I says to her then. “You want to run this household? Want to take a turn working every day? Let's just see how you like waiting tables at the Rise ‘n Shine, wetting your panties if someone leaves you a quarter tip. Maybe you can even sell Avon if people ain’t too scared of your ugly phizz. Or,” I says, “maybe you can learn to shut your effing pie hole for one lousy second, put the goddamned dinner on the goddamned table, and act the way a wife is supposed to act.”
    Of course, she saw it my way. Deep down, see, she knew I was right. I may not be a saint, but I gave her a good house, a good life, and she never had to dirty her hands with no job neither. “Hell,” I told her, “I should be so lucky!” Plenty of times I wished I could tell that idiot boss of mine, Louie Carmichael, that I was quitting his lousy job. There’s plenty of work for a guy like me, twenty years in city maintenance. But did I do that? No. And why? Because I had an obligation to her and the kid. Everything I did was for her and the kid, and all I asked was dinner on the table and a quiet evening in a clean house. Is that too much to ask? Is that too fucking much to ask? I didn’t think so.
    When my drink was gone, I got my coat and left. The damn car would be cold now that it was dark, but the house wasn’t far, and Thursday night meant chili – proper chili with no beans in. Backing out, I saw a note she’d left on the seat of the car that morning. It said to pick up hamburger. “Ha!” I says to myself, “What?! I’m your fucking errand boy, now? I’ve gotta take time outta my busy day for this?” Well, Irene, my sweet, I wasn’t stopping anywhere, and woe is you if my supper wasn’t ready because of no hamburger. Woe is you.
    But usually we got on fine, just fine. There was that time with the busy body neighbor of ours though, the one who couldn’t help sticking her nose in our business. She was one of those women’s libbers, see? She took a mind to get my Irene to join up, always inviting Irene to women’s libber meetings or trying to drag her to classes at the junior college or asking her out to lunch. Well, of course, I had to put my foot down, didn’t I? My dad's day, women knew their place. Nothing but trouble, all these stirred-up women nowadays. “Absolutely not,” I tells her. “No wife of mine is going to a women’s lib meeting. You don't know how good you got it, Irene. I give you everything you need, and you still want to run around all day playing liberated woman. Well, Irene, play just a little bit more and you’re gonna be so goddamned liberated that you won’t know which end is up! Now, get my dinner.” And who could argue with that? Really, who could argue with that, now?
    I parked in the driveway and saw that Irene had forgotten the damn porch light again. “Monkeys is easier to train,” I says to her, time and time again. “Can’t you just remember the light? How’s it look when a wife can’t even be bothered to leave a light on for her loving husband when he works late?” She always swore she'd do better. “Irene!” I hollered. “What? I can see in the dark? Turn on the light now, Irene!” Nothing. Christ. I'd never raised a hand to her, but God knows she tests me. I dug around in my pocket until I had my keys, but as I grabbed the door handle to unlock it, the door pushed right in. “What the fuck?” I whispered. This wasn’t right, not right at all. “Irene? Answer me, Irene!” My God, what if we’d been robbed? Irene wasn’t bright enough to call Emergency, not strong enough to fight anybody off.
    And, ah God, I was right! Robbed! Everything was gone, everything. I stood in the middle of the family room, turning around and around, speechless for once. The place looked like the day Irene and I moved in, all white walls and green shag, before we had a life here. Or anywhere. I yelled again, but she wasn’t answering. Maybe she was hurt! Maybe tied up! But I walked from room to room, and all the rooms were the same – empty. There was one thing left though. In the kitchen, I saw a bottle standing up on the counter, and I knew right away what it was – Dewar’s Scotch – and that it shouldn’t be there. No thief would leave Scotch behind, but there it was. Underneath the Scotch was a note, in Irene’s handwriting. After all I’d done for her, it had come to this. “I don’t believe it,” I said. “I just don’t fucking believe it.”
    Up in the cupboard, I saw she was kind enough to leave one highball glass, thank you so much! So I pour myself a double. Why not? No need to stand on formality now, was there? Who was going to complain about my drinking now? Just who was going to complain? I sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by that God-forsaken Cathy® wallpaper that Irene loved so much, scotch in one hand and crumpled note in the other. And this is where I’m going to stay, too. When Irene comes back, and she will be back, I’ll be sitting here at the table, waiting for my dinner. And woe is her when she gets home. Woe is her.