Exercise 2
This one was interesting, a composite character. I wrote a
list of six people, either famous or known to me, and listed six things about
each of them. I went for
Job
Appearance
Sense of humour
Item of clothing
Place
Mannerism
Having listed these, I rolled a dice (in fact a
random number generator using atmospheric noise to pick numbers) to choose which answer
to use from each person. My selections left me with:
A footballer (From Jimmy Bullard).
Mediterranean looking (From Davide, my daughter’s swimming
instructor).
Good but weird sense of humour (From my friend, Francois).
Wears lots of rings (From Debs, an actress we know).
Associates strongly with university (From David Mitchell).
Points a lot and is cocky (From Usain Bolt).
I am then to write a paragraph about them in a mundane
situation, okay…
I immediately think of a situation where all of these characteristics
overtly combine in a single wild scene.
Holly dribbles her
football down the university hall. She’s trying to catch the lift. Another
student gets in the way. She slams his face into the wall, scratching him with
her many rings as she does so. She can see the doors starting to close and redoubles
her effort, black hair flowing behind her. Ten meters to go, the doors are
halfway shut but she has time. Flying past her tutor’s door, she cocks a finger
and respectful nod at him. Her fingers jam into the closing door and it reopens.
At the astonished group in the lift, who witnessed the whole thing, she offers
a winning smile and says ‘Going down?’
On second thoughts, maybe I’m being asked to describe the
scene and allow the character to respond naturally. After a bit of contemplation
(and wondering if maybe I want a re-roll [or re-generate] on which of Usain Bolt’s
characteristics I want included), here's what I've got.
Holly doesn’t lose her
cool easily but this could be an exception. After the essentials there was
rarely any money left for a luxury. Essentials included money for bus fare to Uni,
books when she couldn’t borrow them, pens when she couldn’t steal them,
drinking, smoking and taxi home on a Saturday night.
‘Where is it?’ she
asked her housemates, the three of them looking at her with innocent
bewilderment.
‘What?’ asked Kelly.
‘My drink…’ more blank
looks ‘from the fridge’
‘That yoghurt?’ this
was Macie.
‘Yoghurt drink, if it
was a yogurt, it wouldn’t have come in a bottle.
‘A yogurt drink’s
still a yogurt.’
‘No, it… okay, I’ve
just realised that I don’t care what it’s called, its present location is of
far more interest to me.’
Leshawn took her
attention away from her phone for long enough to ask Holly why she played
football when she was too clever for it. Holly ignored the question, assuming it to be rhetorical, Leshawn was already looking at her phone again anyway.
‘Right, I’m going out,
any of you lot’ she roved a finger around the room ‘feel you need to replace
it, now’s your chance.’ With that Holly went out.
It's an abrupt end I know but it was also only supposed to be a paragraph. Starting work on question 3 now.
It is however, only one book out there in a large market and I will now get
on with starting a new one. I have gone for 'Back to Creative Writing School'
by Bridget Whelan and will endeavour to avoid the same issues again. Largely by
not sending a polite enquiry to the author and also by continuing not to quote
from or giving away too much of the book. Let’s face it, if anyone has the
stamina to read weeks of my blogs to try to glean the essence of a writing
course and all for the sake of saving the cost of a book then good luck to
them. My recommendation will always be to buy the book if you like what you see
here.
