another one

now, i’m not saying we should do another CB writing exercise together (i’m liking the old one, personally), but we’re running out of room and i didn’t want to put a blank post (though bob knows we wouldn’t have any trouble with that). but i just ran across this exercise and i think it would be a good one for writers, since most of us at one time of another have fallen upon a cliche that shouldn’t be in our story:

Choose an object and write down the ten most obvious words you’d use to describe it. (ex: rose= red, thorned, sweet-smelling, etc). Then write a paragraph describing the object without using any of the ten words. (ex: The rose’s petal fell gently off, and Katherine watched it with sick forbearing. Johnathan had given her that rose. Just one, instead of dozens. You only need one to see the beauty in it, he had said, and she had nodded, because she could. The way the color crept from the tips down, fading into the the thick stem. The color of blush, with just a hint of fierceness at the tips, as if all the color had been contained right there at the edge of each petal, and there was a slight leak. She inhaled the scent now, and it was still there, even as another petal fell. It made her feel a little bit better- maybe Johnathan would be kind to her again.)

so anyways, back to mary-beth….

Update:

blame MCB. (and just cause, lori too). i was going to pick a couple of objects and write out the ten adjectives, but i couldn’t think of the ten adjectives. seriously, for rose, i got up to seven (red, thorned, sweet-smelling, pretty, thick-stemmed, delicate, bouquet) before my mind went “no”. so never mind that. seriously, stick with mary-beth. she just got a beer-smelling kitten. go with that.

92 comments September 14th, 2007