Category: Writing Exercise

Writing Exercise: White Box

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Master isolated images at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Dialog happens. It snaps, madcap, overlap. Wondrous.

In a blank room, with no action by the unnamed and undescribed characters. White Box Syndrome strikes again.

Rooms cannot be White Boxes (unless, of course, they are), but expanding beyond the perfection dialog can be a challenge. For my flash New Life Plans, all the activity happens in a small room, however by concentrating on the chair Dru sits in, the reader is oriented within the small stage instead of adrift in a generic interview room.

WRITING EXERCISE: From a work-in-progress (WIP) or recent story, find a scene where the “box” hasn’t been fleshed out. What is missing? Smell, sight, clothing, furniture, room temperature? What do you think needs to anchor the story to a stage? Rewrite the scene. After rewriting the scene, what ended up being the strongest anchor for the scene? When you started the rewrite, what anchor did you think was going to hold it together?

***

My Attempt

For New Life Plans, I thought the interviewer’s computer screens were creating the anchor for the science fiction story – but they were too abstract, and in some cases did not exist in reality for the point-of-view (POV) character, making things even more of a White Box. It was the chair, fighting with the mechanism which grounded the scene in reality.

How about you? Comment below.

Writing Exercise: 50-Word Prompts 2019

Erin Penn

WRITING EXERCISE

Remember last year working on a couple of 50-word prompts. (50-Word Prompts 2018) I’m just back from Pennsic and really don’t have the energy to come up with a new writing exercise, so here we go again!

Write two 50-word flashes. Aim for 50 words, give or take five extra words. Don’t read my attempts until after you do your own. Writing them directly in the comment section below will help you focus on the flash aspect – just getting words out.

How does this exercise help you as a writer: (1) just write things out quickly; (2) learn to work from prompts (important for the anthology world); (3) practice writing to a word count.

TEXT PROMPT FOR 50-WORD FLASH: Market

VISUAL PROMPT FOR 50-WORD FLASH

Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash

My Attempts

TEXT PROMPT: Market

“How much for him?” I waved at the male sex bot behind the counter. I never considered buying one ever before, but today’s town mating fair had left me feeling unexpectedly lonely. Too old to join the youngsters on the breeding platform, and too poor to join the contract buyers. (first published 3/21/2022; 50 words)

VISUAL PROMPT

She stared, a brunette tress falling in front of her right eye. I didn’t have money to give her. The wind cut us both, slicing skin with Jack Frost knives. Me, I would be going home and a warm bath would ease the ice wounds.  I passed her my blanket. (first published 3/21/2022; 50 words)

Other Cool Blogs: Chuck Wendig 4/18/2017

Erin Penn

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash
Meme words added by Erin Penn

House Fire or Hot Property? Why not both? That pretty much is the publishing industry in a nutshell, and those that like to hang out in it. An living example of this metaphor is Chuck Wendig.

On his birthday in 2017, Mr. Wendig did a retrospective on his blog – Terribleminds – “What I’ve Learned After 5 Years and 20 Books: 25 Lessons.”.

Three pieces that grabbed me from the twenty-five on the list:

  1. Writing advice is … largely the product of survivorship bias.
  2. A writing career is a little bit jazz.
  3. Give the proper amount of fucks.

You can find the list here: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2017/04/18/what-ive-learned-after-5-years-and-20-books-25-lessons/

WRITING EXERCISE: Read the whole list of twenty-five and choose one that really strikes home. Write it up in a comment below explaining why it is important to you. By processing it out, explaining it, the concept will stick with you longer.

***

A writing career is a little bit jazz. 

I’m a plotter. Jazz is scary, improvisation jazz is even more scary. It’s structure isn’t a structure as much as a growth, layers of paint building from a pencil sketch which may or may not match what is in the mind but ends up so much more than I thought possible – or total dreck. Wendig wrote “You plan what you can, but the rest is experimentation.” Eek! 

And yet, jazz has its own beauty. Something beyond any plan. Adding a bit of jazz, a bit of music to a page to a book to a sentence. Create a canvas which people get lost in. The concept of a career having the same unsteady base is frightening and freeing.

Writing Exercise: Listen to the Music

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Every writer takes in inspiration through their senses, with some senses being stronger than others depending on the author. 

Me. I’m visual and touch. I see the scenes, feel the temperature, touch the surfaces. To write I need to be touching something – a keyboard or pen and paper. I’ve thought about DragonSpeak, but it doesn’t catch me on fire. To write, I just need to sit in my space with no distractions so I reach my inner space where things are happening. Sound is a big no-no for me.

Other people need other cues to write. Some people light a candle a favorite scent. Some people need certain lighting. Fuzzy clothing or other tactile trigger can indicate time to write. A nice cup of tea with a certain flavor not used any other time of day. So many rituals to activate the mind through the strongest sensory channel, letting it know TIME TO WRITE.

A lot of writers depend on music. For some, the music is part of the activation ritual only, not the ongoing process. They just listen to the song and approach the music for inspiration like I do visual prompt. Then turn off the music and write.

But most writers who employ music have it in the background to define the writing space.

David B. Coe listens to jazz. John Hartness has a certain playlist for when he writes fighting scenes. If you visit a coffee shop, you will see several writers with laptops and earbuds playing music. Many writers publish the “soundtrack” of their novel; music they listen to while creating or were inspired by for the story. Gibson House Press describes some in Novel Soundtracks (published November 19. 2018 – https://gibsonhousepress.com/novel-soundtracks/).

Me, when I hear words, they come out my fingers from my time doing transcription. But some people swear by it. Others want music without words. Sometimes people need words but can’t write with real ones so they work around the words interfering with their writing by listening to music in foreign languages.

Video game soundtracks are extremely popular because they are internally rewarding; they are built to be addicting and keep people doing the activity. (Looking for an outlet? – try Pandora’s Video Game Music Radio).

I’ve been remiss in not suggesting this sooner. Even though music is no-go for me (I listen to music for everything but writing), it may be the perfect thing for you.

WRITING EXERCISE: Explore Music with Your Writing. Go to Pandora or other music site, if you don’t have one already, and sample different types of music. Can you think of new words when hearing words? Does latino, classical, jazz, or video-game-experimental float your creativity? Think about your senses; which are your strongest for memory and interacting in the word outside of visual? For your starting ritual for writing (if you have one or think you need one), see what happens if you add a particular song or particular type of music. Remember for some writers, they only use music for particular types of writing – like fight scenes. Would that help you?

WRITING EXERCISE BONUS: Randomly pick one song. Can be through a large playlist or a random generator (like https://8tracks.com/mirandajae/some-random-tunes) and use it as a prompt to write a flash.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words 3/11/2008

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Image courtesy of pixtawan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Picture a hand pointing a finger out in front of you, the rest of the fingers curling into the palm of the hand. Which finger is pointing out? Now rotate the hand so it is pointing to the right side, is the front or back of the hand facing you?

Were you able to do that?

Congratulations, you are the part of humanity which can visualize in pictures. Not everyone can, and that can make writing descriptions very difficult. I never realized people can’t see in pictures. Find out more about that in Visualization, a blog post Catie Murphy created for Magical Words, the full post is here:

WRITING EXERCISE: Do you Visualize and to what level do you visualize? Is it full color? Can you hear noises? Is music playing? Can you smell anything? Can you backup the action of the scene? How about rotate the camera angle or focus in on features? How can you use this in your writing?

If you don’t visualize, how do you create a scene? Do you build from the characters out? Do you start at the walls and work your way in? If you don’t see inside your head, can you smell, taste, or hear anything? Is there any advice in the Magical Word post that helps you?

Now, create a scene. Just pop one into your head (if visual) or figure out one you want to describe (if not visual). It needs to be a location that doesn’t actually exist for this exercise, think science fiction or fantasy. Now write out the description, include at least two senses to describe the scene.

READING EXERCISE: What books have provided the best visuals (or other scenes) for you? In your current read, is there a particular scene standing out? Why is it effective?

***

I’m a visual person. Sometimes when I am writing, I close my eyes and see the scene and put my characters in the scene. Strangely the people are darkened out – them I don’t see clearly, but the room and pieces, I can focus in on. Usually I have some sort of music playing too, not necessarily the noises related to the scene.

For Roulette Leadership, I can clearly picture the trench area the men are huddle in. Dirt and grime clings to them, blood splotches, sweat stains, smell of men hard-pressed. Broken green light and shadow flickers across the faces. If I ever expand the flash, I need to add a lot more description.