Thursday, October 18, 2007

Writing Exercise


Because I'll be doing some traveling Friday and Saturday, and because we're running very low on queries and openings and GTPs and continuations, I'm going to hold off on Face-Lifts and New Beginnings until Monday. With any luck, our supplies will be replenished by then. Hint, hint. Meanwhile, I'll be posting results of this exercise:

Step 1. Get out a die. If there are no dice available get the Ace through 6 from a deck of cards. Or write the numbers 1 - 6 on paper and put them in a hat. Use your equipment to get your first number.

Step 2. The first number determines the genre of the scene you'll be writing. Use the following list:
1. Science Fiction; 2. Mystery; 3. Fantasy/horror; 4. Romance; 5. Thriller 6. Children's/YA

Step 3. Get your second number. It determines the setting of your scene.
1. Courtroom; 2. Gas Station Bathroom; 3. Bar; 4. Principal's Office; 5. Bed; 6. Starship Bridge

Step 4. Your final two digits determine the only two characters who have speaking roles in your scene. You may have the freedom to choose which list you get each character from (you may choose both from the same list if you wish--unless your last two numbers are the same number, of course).


List 1:
1. Inspector Clouseau; 2. Bullwinkle Moose; 3. Mr. Spock; 4. Hannibal Lecter; 5. Evil Editor; 6. Darth Vader



List 2:
1. Geoffrey Chaucer; 2. James Bond; 3. The Wicked Witch of the West; 4. Jesus; 5. Inigo Montoya; 6. Norman Bates


Step 5. Write your scene. If you want to do a second one, okay. Try to stay around 200 words. Include a name if you want credit. Deadline Sunday at 3 PM eastern.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having neither dice nor cards, I'm going to program my calculator to generate me random numbers between 1 and 6.

Anonymous said...

Or you could just use www.random.org to roll 4 dice for you.

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna pick the ones I want to write about and pretend I did all the dice stuff.

Precie said...

Ah, crap.

You really are Evil, aren't you? You know I can't resist when you announce the queues are running low.

Anonymous said...

Aw, dude. I'm supposed to write a scene for a romance set in a gas-station bathroom, and the only speaking characters are Hannibal Lecter and Jesus! Nasty.

Deniz Bevan said...

I used the solitaire cards on the computer :-)

Anonymous said...

I wanted to do a romance, but there's only one female -- the wicked witch of the west -- and even Bond, James Bond, wasn't willing to make of her a conquest!! I suppose I could've made EE trans-gendered?!

Or a naked mumbskull (my veri word is nkdmbsgl)?