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Writing Exercises
Sheri
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, since I'm taking this creative writing class, we are reading a book that gives lots of suggestions for exercises to spur creativity. I figured that maybe a thread to share these exercises and their results might benefit the WB.
For this exercise, open your dictionary to a random page and point. Take the word you are pointing to and freewrite for about 10-15 minutes, with it as your starting point.
Here's my first try (please ignore any typos, I typed it up very quickly):
Word: newfangled
It was one of those newfangled whatchamacallits, all metal and full of technology. Of course, to Emar everything was whatchamacallit, if she couldn't remember what you called it -- a whisk, the dog's collar, my favorite blue scrunchy, they were all whatchamacallits. It was a wide category, encompassing pretty much everything in existence, except humans. They were whatshisnames or whatshernames, depending, at least for Em, not on what was between their legs, but on the length of their hair. She never did like the idea of boys with ponytails.
This newfangled whatchamacallit was different, though. It wasn't something she couldn't remember the name of, it was something that had not yet been named. It must have been like when she had just had my grandmother and was trying to decide on what to call her. Em eventually decided on 'Sherry,' maybe because she was sweet as cherries, or maybe because it was Emar's favorite drink. This whatchamacallit was an infant, newborn, unnamed. It, too, was Emar's baby, her pride and joy, her invention. She had taken the motor from a toy boat and wheels from my RC cars, covered it all with a toaster with the bottom cut out, and strapped a Dust Buster to the front. It was a self-propelled automatic cleaning system, but that wasn't a very catchy name. It also wasn't very good. If it hit a wall head on, and it did, it would bounce itself off the wall for hours, until the AAs inside sputtered to their deaths. By then there was a considerable dent in the wall, not to mention flakes of paint falling away. Mom was furious, not about her wall, but about her toaster.
For this exercise, open your dictionary to a random page and point. Take the word you are pointing to and freewrite for about 10-15 minutes, with it as your starting point.
Here's my first try (please ignore any typos, I typed it up very quickly):
Word: newfangled
It was one of those newfangled whatchamacallits, all metal and full of technology. Of course, to Emar everything was whatchamacallit, if she couldn't remember what you called it -- a whisk, the dog's collar, my favorite blue scrunchy, they were all whatchamacallits. It was a wide category, encompassing pretty much everything in existence, except humans. They were whatshisnames or whatshernames, depending, at least for Em, not on what was between their legs, but on the length of their hair. She never did like the idea of boys with ponytails.
This newfangled whatchamacallit was different, though. It wasn't something she couldn't remember the name of, it was something that had not yet been named. It must have been like when she had just had my grandmother and was trying to decide on what to call her. Em eventually decided on 'Sherry,' maybe because she was sweet as cherries, or maybe because it was Emar's favorite drink. This whatchamacallit was an infant, newborn, unnamed. It, too, was Emar's baby, her pride and joy, her invention. She had taken the motor from a toy boat and wheels from my RC cars, covered it all with a toaster with the bottom cut out, and strapped a Dust Buster to the front. It was a self-propelled automatic cleaning system, but that wasn't a very catchy name. It also wasn't very good. If it hit a wall head on, and it did, it would bounce itself off the wall for hours, until the AAs inside sputtered to their deaths. By then there was a considerable dent in the wall, not to mention flakes of paint falling away. Mom was furious, not about her wall, but about her toaster.
Sheri on
Posts
Some
...and that word is lame, so I just took a couple minutes to find my dictionary:
Hegemony (preponderant influence over others)
And awaaay I go...
His hegemony impressed her each time she visited. But being that he was the Priest-King For Live of the city-state of Relarsko, that shouldn't have been a surprise. His long purple robe stated it, demanding respect through exquisite designs and gold trim. The red cloth on his hand was the clearest indicator of his position, however - a coiled, complicated, beautifully woven masterpiece, each one took fifteen years to complete - the Hafara, the Mark of the King and Spiritual Leader.
He looked up from the scroll he was reading, and smiled at her. At this, the rest of those in the throne room lightened as well. "I am glad our parents have arranged our marriage," he said. "For long have I-" Suddenly, a thunderclap rang through the halls of the palace, and a roar that shook their skulls screamed by.
"Norkians?!" cried one of his advisors. The princess rushed to the window. Indeed, Norkian battlecraft were zooming past, their stubby, green frames propelled by jet flares twice as large.
"Stay calm," the King-Priest said sternly, his mere tone and demeanor turning fear to grim determination. "War, unfortunately, is one thing our people excel at. Rouse General Advis, and ready my fighter."
An advisor looked as shell-shocked as if he had been hit by the last strafing run. "But, sire," he protested, "surely you won't risk yourself in such a dangerous battle!"
The King-Priest smiled. "What would my new princess think of me, were I to cow from war?"
(I don't really know what to make of this. Took 8 minutes.)
When it came down to it, it was all a matter of his predilection. Susan had watched him closely for the past few months. He tended to pick men more than women, blondes more than brunettes, lazy workers more than hard workers. She’d memorized his predilections. She adjusted her helmet- her hair needed to be redyed. As he walked by, steel toed boots twanging on the metal balcony, she looked up at him. If you avoided it, he picked you. Predilection. He turned his gaze toward her, and she brought the steam press down with a hiss and a burst of heat. She thought about sliding a hand in there. That would give her reason to run away, and he wouldn’t waste the effort to choose her then. Out the window, she could see the latest poor sap prepare for the Odyssey. Tall guy, dark hair, used to wear a nice vest. He had always wanted that vest. Predilection. He reluctantly climbed into the bronze-plated vessel and the torch was brought down onto the fuse. In a moment, the vessel was sent whirring through the air haphazardly, spinning awkwardly as it soared. It was out of sight in seconds, disappearing over the horizon. Some said that flakes of silver rained from the sky, in the Destination. Some said the gods lived there. Still others believed that it was the edge of the world. She had her own theories, and that’s why she memorized all the subtle predilections.
“Susan Bakerâ€, he said, “congratulations. You’ve been selected for the next departure.â€
It’s only a tendency, after all.
First, this thread is NOT for serious criticism and critique, it's for giving yourselves (and others) ideas. That said, if you really like something someone wrote, let them know. If you think it could be expanded into a story, say so. Just like the rest of the WB, try not to just submit, try to help, too.
Second, in this first exercise, you don't have to use the word, you just need to let it inspire you. I realize I used the word, but you don't HAVE to.
Third, the way this exercise was presented was as a daily thing -- because, the author insists, you should write daily. So feel free to do this exercise as many times as you want and post them here.
Last, if this goes over well, I may post a few more exercises; depending on how long this goes, they may be new threads or they may be in this thread (new threads would be more organized, though).
Uh, I think that's it. Keep going!
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
Hi Sheri
Captain, we are detecting massive amounts of Creepitons. They're...they're coming from...you...
Word: conversation
She sat back in the boot and spread her arms wide across the back of the bench, fingers drumming an incessantly mindless rhythm. He, across a table as wide as the Sahara, buried his face in the menu. A huge, ridged steak stared out at her from the cover, along with a rather arrogant lump of mashed potatoes. Her menu, as giantly oversized as his, sat closed on the table. They had been here frequently enough to know their orders by heart, although not frequently enough that Alice, the friendly older waitress with dark roots and a slight moustache, knew their names. But she did know their orders. He'd had his menu open for ten minutes, during which they sent Alice away twice, flipping between two pages and muttering about the cholesterol content of a chicken breast versus smoked salmon. There was nothing wrong with his cholesterol.
She saw Alice come around the corner from the kitchen, open notebook in hand, following a direct line down the aisle to their booth. She kicked him slightly and he finally lowered the menu enough to look at her.
"Would you just pick something?"
He shot a death stare across the vast expanse between them just as Alice stopped at their side.
"What'll it be?"
Giving Alice the tensest, widest smile he'd ever mustered, he crooned, "Alice, we'll have the usual."
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
reproach (I used the definition that implies blame)
"It's all your fault!" She pushed the heel of her hand against her left eye, as if trying to force the tears back inside her head. Her nose had already turned the familiar shade of red that anger-inspired tears always created. The color made the end of her nose resemble a bulb, as if a cherry tomato had been stuck on it. Vaguely, he thought of clowns.
"Honey, it was an accident, it was no one's fault." Kneeling, he carefully picked up the various bits of broken glass, a puzzle with clear pieces splayed across the living room carpet.
"Shut up! You always defend her, you never side with me anymore!" His daughter glared up at him with eyes full of spite, brimming over the clearest blue irises. Her mother's eyes had been the same color. "Mom would have agreed with me." The corners of her eyes dipped, as if saddled and dragged down by an immense sadness. He carefully put the palmful of glass shards on the table and scooped her up in his arms.
"Honey, I can buy you another fish."
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
draft
It was always cold. The window hadn't shut properly since he'd thrown the Si-So volume of the encyclopedia at it three months ago. She shuddered and pulled the blanket tighter. The ten o'clock news was on. A mother had been arrested for putting arsenic in her children's food, convinced that their deaths would save them from the filth of the world. She wasn't even crying.
The phone rang. She didn't jump, as she had the first few times. It rang, jingling four times (she counted, one-Mississippi, rest rest rest, two-Mississippi, rest rest rest) before her own voice, alien and higher-pitched than it sounded in her head, "Hi, this is Samantha, leave a message after the beep." The voice that followed the beep, unlike the phone's ring, sent a chill down her spine every time.
"Hey Sam, it's me again. Baby, come on, pick up, I know you're there. I'm sorry, didn't I say I'm sorry? Goddamnit, pick up the phone or I swear, I'll fucking. . . " He'd hung up. She exhaled. A young boy had beaten his parents to death with a baseball bat because they wouldn't let him play Little League. She knew he'd call back. In ten or fifteen minutes, she'd hear that unassuming ring again and he'd beg, with that ever-present anger rumbling in the bottom of his throat.
The phone beeped again. She leaned across the armrest and looked at the answering machine. "Tape full." She changed the channel.
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I swear.
---
It was then he realized that blue Kool-Aid and skin didn't seem to mix. Rather, they did mix well; so much so that his first three layers of skin seemed an azure hue rather than the delicate peach he'd been accustomed to. The water continued to flow out of the tap and ever-so slowly rising the level in the basin. Whatever was clogging it just enough to keep the water rising was pissing him off as well. Water was out to get him, it seemed.
The average human was 80 percent water, he'd recalled from his elementary school teachings. Or was it just something he'd heard on Friends from Ross? As he worked a small bar of soap over his hands against the scalding tap water, he wondered just how much knowledge was from fact-checked sources and how much from sitcom characters. Flinch. He'd noticed his hands were now turning violet from the hot water easy-boiling his mitts.
"Good god, I look like I strangled Telly Monster and don't want CSI to find out about it."
but you need to be able to read first
"Good Lord," the doctor said, peering through the microscope at the spectacle before him.
"What is it, Dr John?" said the shorter, more common sensical man, walking briskly to the other side of the laboratory.
"Come, come see this chemical reaction, Dr. Smith!" Dr. John said, stepping back from the microscope with a look of shock on his face. Dr. Smith glanced at him questioningly before lowering his eye to the lens.
"Is this the G14 isotope?" he asked. He did not need to hear any response but his peer's silence - he knew from experience that Dr. John had become so excited he was nodding without considering that his associate was not facing him. "Wasn't that volatile when last we checked?"
"Yes," Dr. John said, talking rapidly, "But I decomposed the theatrium components by adding a few milligrams of X-29-13-C."
"You're saying the X-29-13-C negatively reacted to the output of the G14, seemingly breaking its carbon diohydrate molecules into more volatile YT's..."
"...which then reacted to the condensing air pressure around the G14 and created Element M!"
"Artificially?" Dr. Smith said in surprise, rising from the microscope to face Dr. John.
"Yes!" Dr. John replied, his excitement mounting. "And, now that the problem of adding Element M to the G14 extranium compound has been solved..."
"...you've created the theoretical Extravagant-H-28-28-Ectoplasm Remarkabalism!" Dr. Smith finished. "AKA, the Big Momma of Chemical Reactions! But wait," he continued, bending back toward the microscope to study the ongoing reaction. "how do you know what to expect from an H-28 squared and X-29-13-C cross?"
"I don't!" Dr. John said, almost giggling as he clapped his hands together in glee. "We're on the cutting edge of technology! The frontier of scientific knowledge! We'll probably win the Nobel Prize! I can already see myself on the cover of all the national scientific journals."
"Wait!" Dr. Smith said suddenly. "The compound is turning purple! Oh, Lord, no! It's glowing! We have a Type 6 fissure crack in the Big Momma compound! It's going to-"
word: méconnaissable (unrecognizable)
Charles paced the bridge spanning the Seine, flicking cigarette ashes into the overflowing waters below. He didn’t even smoke; that was the thing that bothered him the most. He just came to Paris, looking for himself, and what he found was somebody who starting buying a pack of cigarettes every two days even though he hated everything about the vile things.
The other thing was, he felt like he had learned something about himself. He had learned that there was nothing there. Nothing but billowing clouds of alpha particles inhaled from burning nicotine.
He took a drag on his current cig and watched the embers fade from red hot to black. A young couple on the opposite side of the bridge held hands as they watched a tour boat cruise by. Tourists waved to the couple; the couple waved back.
Charles snorted. Paris, City of Lights and Romance, but not for him. Not that he had expected it to be. He didn’t know what he had expected, but certainly not that.
After once last drag, he tossed his cigarette into the river and wrapped his coat around himself against the chill wind.
kingpin
Sammy ruled the playground. Every recess, he stood at the very top of the jungle gym, or at least on the second level -- the recess monitors kept yelling at him for standing on the roof. Still, it came to about the height of a standing adult, making him feel as if he were standing on their heads.
Sammy was a big kid; his mother liked to tell the other mothers at PTA meetings that he was "husky." He wasn't necessarily taller than any of the other second graders -- lanky Bobby Lawrence stood a whopping four feet tall and resembled the Jolly Green Giant's skinny, geeky, clumsy brother -- but everyone knew that Sammy would win any fight simply by sitting on his opponent. He wanted to be a football player.
From high above his sprawling kingdom of metal, plastic and woodchips, he watched the peons below. Michael Boyle and Hank Miller ran back and forth across the wobbly bridge of the wooden playground set, looking for all the world like two buccaneers raging against a wild sea. Alex Bianchi ate woodchips while Margaret Applewood swung forlornly far from the bustling streets of Sammyton. Ah, Margaret -- with her chocolate-brown hair and eyes the color of almonds, she was Sammy's first and only love. Once, at lunch, he had tried to sit next to her to eat and instead threw up in her lap. When she fled crying, he finished her lunch -- a jelly sandwich and vanilla pudding. He didn't even like vanilla pudding. In the cafeteria he was nothing, but surely here, in the land he towered over from on high, he might win her heart. Just as he made up his mind to woo young Margaret, a wrinkled face peered up at him from his shoelaces.
"Samuel Q. Mitchell, you come down from there right now. Recess is almost over."
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tea
Steeping, seeping, it dangled over the edge of a white mug proclaiming in an adult-created child's hand, "#1 Uncle." She had picked it up at a yard sale for ten cents, even though she had no brothers or sisters. Unpainted fingernails drummed rat-a-tat-tat, tiny machine gun racket from her fingertips. Tea took forever to steep and she, being of little patience, began to sip far too soon. It tasted like hot water, which was not much different from how it usually tasted. She didn't even like tea. She drank it because it seemed the thing to do, and she liked coffee even less than she liked tea. The surface of the water stared back at her, all wild, wavy hair, dark eyebrows and tiny flecks of floating tea leaves from a hole in the bag. They made it look as if she had freckles, which she did. If she connected the dots, she could see a boat, a dog with its tongue out, a three-headed hippopotamus wearing a tutu -- the entire cloud-filled sky in her mug.
"Are you listening to me?" She looked up into a face gray and lined like an elephant's hide, glaring back at her indignantly.
"Yes, Mom, I'm listening."
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He remembered something about assassins in the middle ages using hemlock. They'd slip it into a noble's wine at a feast, and some petty usurper would take the throne. Until he had a refreshing swallow of hemlock tea, of course. The circle of life.
Nate smiled at the comparison. No, this was far more satisfying than assassination. He searched the shelf long and hard for the most vile-sounding label; there! A house brand, sure to have the most unpleasant side effects. He snatched it, tossed it into the cart.
He felt gleefully criminal already, and decided to use the Self Checkout lane to avoid any devious attempts to stop his plan. Two boxes of mac and cheese, a six pack of Coke, and one bottle of powdered laxative. Nine seventy-two. Twenty-eight cents back from his ten.
His only fear was the taste. What if his brother stopped mid-swallow, sensing something strange about his drink? To this end he decided to use the forty-dollar bottle of imported rum his parents had stashed way back behind the rest of the liquor collection, something strong enough to mask the taste. Or at least he hoped it would. Weren't good rums mild?
This would be a party to remember. A strategic sabotage of the downstairs toilet, and a properly timed visit to the bathroom just as Paul felt the first rumblings of intestinal distress. Nate would take his time, call out his most sincere apologies for hogging the can.
Paul would think twice before escalating sibling rivalry next time.
when the indigo children come
>.>
I definitely wish you'd included what the previous attack was. Or at least some subtle hint as to what it was. If you like it enough to turn it into a short story or short short, I'd definitely recommend that.
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
Flake
It was something he anticipated all year; the first snowfall of winter. There was something he couldn’t describe about it. He hated snow. There was nothing that made him more miserable than trudging across campus with the icy cold creeping up his legs. After a little reminiscence, he figured it was all for nostalgia’s sake. A friend had told him once that if he ever wanted to make a girl feel special, he should take her dancing in the rain. At the time he had brushed it off as something silly and preposterous. But wasn’t it kind of the same thing? He had had some memorable times.
The snowflake came to rest on her nose and she winced a tiny bit. It gave him a warm feeling inside that he couldn’t really describe. Her long dark hair was slowly becoming covered in white. He ran his hand through to brush some of it out but froze when he reached her face. Her cheeks had turned a slight shade of pink that accentuated the light freckles around her nose. She moved her hand over his wrist and leaned ever so slightly forward. Her lips were warm. He couldn’t help keeping his eyes open.
She had been so beautiful to him back then. There was a fresh layer of fresh white on the ground.
I timed myself exactly five minutes to write that piece, and after the timer beeped I immediately opened up a text file and started clacking away on the rest :lol:
when the indigo children come
I usually just look at 10 minutes as my minimum. I want to write for AT LEAST 10 minutes and if I don't feel the urge to keep going, I stop. But for, like, the kingpin one, I wrote for about twenty minutes because I just kept going.
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
EDIT: Edited a little bit.
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
vile
It was filthy, a pile of waste that came to her knees. Lumped in a recessed doorway, it heaved ever so slightly with the even breath of the creature beneath. She could see, just below a fast food bag, grease long dried across smiling, printed faces, two closed eyes and a dark smudge of nose. She stopped to gawk, pulling her coat tight against the frigid breeze. This poor creature, down on his luck, how had he fallen so far? What had he once been? A lawyer, working pro-bono for those who could not afford a defense, until he had spent all his savings treating his homeless clients to lunch? Perhaps he had been a factory worker, unable to find a new job after his asbestos plant closed. Now here he was, freezing beneath a pile of rags while she, all silk and diamonds, high heels and mink coat, stopped on her way from the opera to her car and stared. Slouching the coat off her shoulders, she laid it heavily atop the pile and, arms bared to the breeze and the world, walked on in her dress.
EDIT: Wow, it seems really short. I swear, I wrote for 10 minutes. D:
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It fell like a hammer. No - like a mallet, like an asteroid, like the whole fucking earth itself crashing down. Like the entire human race dying out in a second, like the first atomic bomb, like becoming death, destroyer of worlds.
The first moments of violence were the worst. They came from the shadows, the shadows that we lived in for so many years, and their reign was not of water but of bullets. Johnny Urth was the first to die. His body was at first before us, and at second gone, replaced by a spray of red. The young ones fled, their screams, squeels and shrieks filling the tunnels. I was quick to my arms, but their rain was a hurricane, and mine a drizzle. I joined the Earth in a crumpled heap. It couldn't have been long, then, before everything was gone. Nothing could last against this lightning storm, although blitzkrieg was our method of exploitation before the invaders were even a dream.
Boots stomp past my head, and I accept it. We are dead.
They leaned overhead, trees straight out of one of those childrens tales where the kids get lost in the woods. Lost, until the witch finds them anyway.
He adjusted the rifle on his shoulder and tried not to think about it. Couldn't do it; there was a palpable menace to the forest. The branches, claws scratching at an ice-gray sky, trapped him out of the sun's reach. Roots and rocks made devious snags at his feet, and the scraggly branches of shrubs along the game trail plucked and grasped at his fur. His leather tunic was encrusted with burrs, his fur cap wreathed in dry leaves. Raindrops splattered him, rivulets of water pouring to the ground like liquid stalagmites from branches above.
He walked slowly through the innards of the woods, trying to watch his step while keeping an eye out for game. Deer tracks peppered the mud of the trail. Enough signs to keep him going for the past two hours, but he'd seen nothing.
The trail crooked around a low boulder and he stopped to get his bearings. He wanted to skirt the overhunted lands west and south of the village but now he was in unfamiliar forest too far north, too close to Indian territory. Dusk was fast approaching.
He turned and began truding back to way he came, switching the long rifle to his left shoulder and adjusting the pouch of cartridges at his side. A breeze strummed the branches above, whistling shrilly all around. The forest had driven him back and now laughed at his failure. He gritted his teeth and kept walking. One foot in front of the other. Ignore the trees.
A crunch of dead leaves to his right brought him to one knee, the rifle gripped tightly in both hands. He saw it easily, a massive elk with a rack of antlers as large as the rest of the animal. Not ten yards from the path along a rocky trail which led further into the forest.
He swiftly drew a paper cartridge from his pouch and ripped the end off with his teeth. He jammed it into the barrel, his eyes never leaving the elk. The ramrod wouldn't come free from the barrel, and he began to panic. He'd lose his chance.
It ripped loose with a screech of metal on metal and the elk looked up. It saw him as he rammed the bullet home, and it charged.
He swiveled and took aim, his belly frozen in fear. Five yards. His numb fingers fumbled at the trigger. Two yards.
The shot rang deafening in his ears, and he heard the angry screams of the trees in the echo.
when the indigo children come
Visage
The arrows hit with a wet thunk. For a moment the boy looks down at the shafts of wood protruding from multiple points of his body, the blood beginning to drain from the holes that have just been added to his anatomy. In a moment he will die, but before that he has to come to terms with his death, a death for a king he has never met, for a kingdom he was born into by chance not choice, and for a glorious cause he never understood. The enemy uses this moment of the boy’s revelation to make sure he doesn’t get back up, a second volley lodges three more arrows into the boy, dropping him onto his back, where he spends his last breath coughing up blood and looking at the treetops of the forest he’s dieing in burn with unnaturally destructive flames. After that, he doesn’t think anymore, because he has passed on, to meet those who went before him on both sides of this conflict.
The team I have just recently been assigned too is stunned, shocked, this is the first taste of combat, the first death of a comrade, and with the way things are going, it won’t be the last.
I look into the dead boy’s eyes; they’ve already glazed over, gone dark. The contrast of his dark eyes, and bloodied lips to his pale and dirty face gives me pause. This boy couldn’t have been more than fifteen, and already dead. For myself I am but nineteen and I lived as a peasant on a farm until m conscription. None of us had killed before, and yet here we were, being killed, and presumably killing, though we never stayed looking in one place long enough to watch someone die. Not until now.
As my team looks on, I pull the boy behind the tree where I am taking cover. Around us the forest rains flames from the fires raging in the treetops. I look down at the boy, staring at his dead visage as I reach down to his chest and wrap my hand around one of the arrows. I yank the arrow from his body and watch as blood spurts up from the newly opened hole. I repeat the process with a few more arrows, leaving only the broken arrows in place.
My team is shocked by my actions, but we don’t have a limitless supply of arrows, and they’re still perfectly good, albeit a bit bloody. I knock one of them in my bow and spin around the tree letting it fly across the no-man’s land without really aiming. I hear a scream and tell myself it hit. In rapid succession I let loose the rest of the arrows I have pulled from the boy’s body. I sit back down and put my head in my hands, and only then do I realize that my hands and forearms are covered in the boys blood, and I’ve just got it all over my face.
I vomit into the ground, and realize that someday someone will be pulling arrows out of my body and reusing them.
Sheri: for a short piece, it (kingpin) works pretty well. One thing, though: I'm guessing that the last line is supposed to be a bit of a punchline, showing us that Sammy really has no power at all within the playground. However, by the time you've gone through his failed affair (um. well, you know.) with Margaret, it becomes a bit redundant. It feels as if there should be a greater division there, so that the final line has more effect.
[edit: minor syntax fix-up
As I said on the other page, there's really no time limit -- just give yourself a minimum (I usually do 10 minutes), and write until. . . well, you feel like stopping.
I'm not critiquing, I am just making observations, if that's okay (if not, I will totally shut the hell up): These writing exercises are usually a good way to get examples of how people write in general. Mistakes you see in the exercises are usually (but not always, of course) repeated in bigger works. That being said, I would just suggest that you watch what tense you are writing in. I have that problem all the time, which is why I tend to stick to past tense (I never seem to fall out of past tense, but I fall out of present very easily). But you shift between tenses a few times here, so you might want to watch it in your larger writings.
I am so glad people are going with this, I find it really fun.
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
Hah, the first paragraph instantly reminded me of Anne McCaffrey's short story, "The Ship Who Sang" (which is also the first chapter of the book of the same name, but I didn't read the book, so screw that), where the main character is painting an exact replica of The Last Supper on the head of a screw. And since I am always entertained by things that remind me of other things I've read/seen/heard, I was entertained.
I see what you mean about the last line. It's there as it is because, well, I was wrapping up a writing exercise. What suggestions would you have? And, well, what do you mean by 'greater division'?
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
A little new to moving things along with dialog, but I tried.
Are you going to add any more exercises? Maybe one a month? Or two? I'm definitely going to do this one a few more times though.
What? Yes, you dolt. This chair IS taken. It's taken by ME, jackass. I'M sitting here. What's that? Yes, fine, you can sit in that chair across from me... no... the OTHER across from me. So what? You want to exchange life stories? Okay, I'll go first.
I studied for seven years, and this is what it got me. It seemed like an easy undergraduate degree - a BSc in "How not to be seen."
You're probably thinking it was a weird major - both for someone to take, and for a college to offer. The story goes that a wealthy donor to the campus was a big fan of Monty Python, so he handed over almost three billion dollars - yeah, with a 'B' - on condition that they offer an undergraduate degree in "how not to be seen."
I figured "Why not?" After all, who wouldn't want to slink around in the shadows, privy to all the dark dealings of mankind? Hell, I could take a graduate degree in sociology and be... I dunno... some sort of shinobi sociologist or something.
Hey, would you wave at the waitress for another round? She's not looking at me. Thanks, buddy.
My first year started out simply enough - camouflage, lighting, stealth techniques, and "Hide and go Seek" as a Gym requirement. I was getting pretty good - straight As.
It just went downhill from there, man. By the fourth year, they'd stopped taking attendance. In fact, the teacher wasn't there half the time anyway - or was he? I don't know. All I know is I was in too deep.
After graduation, I was hooked. I wanted to not be seen, so I went in for three more years and got my MSc in "How not to be seen."
...
I was an idiot.
I actually had to write in for my diploma, despite the fact that I was STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DEAN.
...
Sorry. I didn't mean to yell. Did I spit on you? Sorry, I do that. Hey, you could at least LOOK at me when I'm talking to you.
Anyway, I figured I could make some money as a private detective or something. So I packed up my things, left a note for my landlord (he kept opening the door and looking around as if someone had "dingled and ditched"), and moved to Chicago.
Look, I'm getting tired of talking and I really gotta take a leak, so I'll cut this short with an example.
Do you know how hard it is to find a place to live when people don't even acknowledge your existence? I couldn't get a loan, lease, or a god damned cardboard box - nothing.
So listen, do you think it would be okay if I followed you home and crashed in your house?
...
Say absolutely nothing if you agree to let me sleep in your house.
...
Good. I'll see you tonight.
Thank you, Rubacava!
I sure will. I just wanted to give everyone a chance to try this a few times, see how they like it, maybe continue to use it in the future. When I get bored (probably in the next few days or so, who knows), I'll switch to another exercise. The great thing about this exercise is, because you get a new word every time you do it, it's pretty easy to stay entertained. Anyway, just keep checking this thread for new exercises.
Sheri Baldwin Photography | Facebook | Twitter | Etsy Shop
pen
Her bag was endless. Arm buried deep in its gaping mouth, Sarah fumbled around as if a clumsy Mary Poppins. Instead of a beautiful tasseled lamp, she was searching for a pen which, due to its small size amidst the clutter of the bag, seemed less likely to be found. A million things engulfed her hand, keys jangling between fingers, tampons sliding past her wrist, a lonely earring hooping around her pinky. She touched metal: a ring, a quarter, tweezers. She jammed her finger on something sharp and howled.
"Ms. Jordan, may I proceed?" All graying hair and frown lines, she glared down at Sarah from behind narrow lenses. They were the kind an elderly female professor would be expected to wear, with a thin gold chain hanging around her neck. They magnified her eyes and her poorly-painted makeup to enormous size.
"Sorry, Dr. Mantel." Sheepishly, Sarah stuck one hand into her pocket, produced a pen as if by magic, and bent to take notes.
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Well, the last line is pretty much perfect as it is. If you intended it to be a punchline, though -- and apparently you didn't -- it would work better if the story had been more sympathetic to Sammy until that point. Right now it's not so much a humourous reversal as it is a continuation of what the story had established: Sammy isn't really a kingpin, and he's actually pretty pathetic.
:lol:
Agreed. I'd love to see that turned into a short story of some kind.
when the indigo children come
Thank you, Rubacava!
http://www.zokutou.co.uk/randomword/
Holy cow, that is so handy for when I want to do this and don't want to carry my dictionary with me.
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