For Day 4, Sara E Crawford recommends this exercise:
1. Take three hats, bowls, or containers. One of them will be for characters, one of them will be for locations, and one of them will be for possible conflicts.
2. Write down the following list of characters on small pieces of paper:
•a homeless heroin addict
•a young inventor
•an introverted actor
•a political activist
•a depressed meteorologist
•a personal injury attorney
•an anthropology professor
•a lonely grandparent
•an astrology-obsessed psychic
•a vegetarian farmer
•the streets
•the middle of nowhere in Kansas
*a large European city
*a small apartment
*a mansion
*a kitchen
•the North Pole
•Disney World
•a Broadway theatre
4. Write down the following potential conflicts on small pieces of paper:
•a hurricane is coming
•two people fight over the last piece of pizza
•an attempted theft that doesn’t go as planned
•two people are stuck together
•a ghost wants to prevent someone from moving in
•someone saves their enemy’s life
•someone is being chased by a bear
•technology is being hostile
•two people who hate each other have to cook a meal
5. Place all of your pieces of paper in the respective hats or bowls. Draw one character, one location, and one potential conflict. Write a three to four page piece that somehow incorporates all three.
This forces you to be creative. For example, if you get “a depressed meteorologist,” “Disney World,” and “an attempted theft that doesn’t go as planned,” that could go so many different ways!
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My spin on this exercise is to choose any 3-digit number (birthday, phone numbers, lotto numbers, etc) and find your numbers in the three sections above. For example, my birthday 9-1-5 gives me:
”an astrology-obsessed psychic,”
“an island,” and
“a ghost wants to prevent someone from moving in.”
Now, let’s give it a whirl.
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“Dey been tellin’ me, Barb, don you be taking day cruise. Dat cruise bad juju. But I be tellin’ dem, don’t be tellin’ Barbara Dos, Astrological Psychic to de Stare, bout no bad juju. I check dem stars and dey be tellin’ me dis is best time, de luckiest time of de whole century to take a risk and take me first sea voyage.”
Barbara looks out over the vast big blue before her. The sun twilighting on the horizon. The waves gently lapping on the shore. She looks around the sandy beach that clings impossibly to places sand should not be. The sounds of nature punctuate the true loneliness of her situation.
“Maybe I shoulda been wearing my glasses when I read the stars. Well, that be neither here nor dere. And that where I seem to be too.”
“Alone on a deserted island. Last ting I remember, I be staring over de railing at de stern of de boat. I just wanted to be alone, away from all the manic people. I thought that Star Filled cruise would help me with de astrology, not filled with D-level movie and TV stars. I mean, who is dis Anson Williams anyway and what is a “Potsie”?”
“Well, Barb. You wanted to be alone. And here you are. All on your lonesome. Maybe I’m a psychic AND a wish-granting genie!”
“But dis genie be wantin’ to go back to her familiar bottle.”
She’d been sitting in the same spot for several hours, several yards away from where she washed up this morning. The first few hours she spent futilely trying to figure out where she was. The next few hours she spent looking fruitlessly for a rescue boat. Or anything that may be able to take her out of this predicament. The last few waning hours of the day she had spent pondering the forbidding dense forest that surrounded the house-sized half moon of beach where she had landed. Her hunger, and thoughts of what food nature might provide within the forest, or whatever may lay beyond it, proved stronger than her fear of the dark unknown.
“Maybe dere be some berries or roots or something I can eat,” she said. She started pushing aside branches of the tropical brush, looking for any sign of edible vegetation. Or signs of civilized habitation.
“Barb, why you be talkin’ out loud to yourself when you dere be no one dere to listen? Well, I always did make my own good company.” She chuckles to herself.
“Oh chere, what have we here?” Barb spies a bush of bright violet berries. They are as big as tangerines. “I don know what type of berry you may be but I will bury you in my stomach to extinguish my hunger.”
The berry smells like any berry. She licks the outside and feels a bitterness hit her taste buds. “Well, if I be any kind of genie then this must be good.” She bit into the berry. Violet juice seeped into her mouth and spilled down her chin as she withdrew the berry after the first bite. The tart taste of its inside surprised her pleasantly, and she took another bite. After five more bites, she had devoured the whole berry. She grabbed for another to eat. Then, her belly feeling better, she grabbed three more berries, wrapped them in the large leaves of the nearby trees, to take with her as she continued exploring.
The dense growth made the light thin now. She didn’t want to sleep near the food, in case there were wild animals that also feasted on these violet nectars. She continued further into the forest hoping for a clearing, or cave, or some type of shelter.
Just as she was about to give up hope, and nearly exhausted to the point of dropping, she mounded a small rise and found a dwelling in a little valley below.
“O bless de stars for watching out for me!” she cried as she ran down the hill toward the house.
The house was a mini version of an old Victorian mansion. It’s three stories seemed to hold about eight rooms in the front, judging by the windows she saw. And at least double that, she estimated, based on what width she could see of the two-story structure. No light shine from inside the house, but Barb was not surprised because the vines growing up the sides of the house, the tendrils seemingly reaching toward the roof and the sky, made it clear to her that no one lived here. Or had lived here in a very long time.
“I better be more specific no with my genie powers. If I knew dey worked dis good, I woulda wished for a house with a nice rich family with a staff of servants and lots of food and drink… And a boat!”
But once again, her choosiness lost out to her neediness. She walked up to the door slowly, listening for any sound, but already knowing there would be none.
She gently turned the knob and opened the door. The door creaked. Of course it would, she thought. But a large winged creature flew out the openjng, followed be several others, screeching as they gained their freedom.
Barb screamed, then laughed at herself. “Big ol place like dis, why you not know dere would be bats? You must be gettin batty yourself. Keep this up and they start callin you Batty Barb!”
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WRITER’S NOTE: I’m stopping here because: A) I’m getting tired, and 2) because I know this could go along much further. I mean, I haven’t even gotten to the ghost yet. For some reason, I think his name is Tom, or Thomas.
Should I continue this story?
That might actually be a good hook to get ongoing readers for a more interactive blog anx let them have a say in which stories are most interesting.
OR, as I might tell my students, a writer can always return to his/her journals for material. Maybe new things will occur to you when you see them with fresh eyes.
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