prompts

Prompt – Use The Bodily Senses (Sight, Sound, Taste, Smell, Touch) To Contribute To Your Writing Purpose.

The prompt was to set a scene as a writer for a particular purpose and use at least four of the bodily senses to contribute towards that purpose.

The prompt came from “Fire Ice” by Clive Cussler, with Paul Kemprecos:

After several minutes, during which the city lights faded to a glow, the car whipped down a darkened, garbage-strewn street into an alley not much wider that the vehicle. Austin’s companions hustled him from the taxi and stood him against a brick wall while they bound his hands behind his back with duct tape. Then they pushed him through a doorway along a dim hall and into the lobby of an old office building. Grime covered the marble floor. On one wall was a brass floor directory black with the patina of age. The smell of onions and the muffled cry of a baby indicated that the office building was being used for human habitation. Probably squatters, Austin surmised.
His escorts nudged Austin into an elevator and stood behind him. They were hulking men, as big or brawnier than Austin, who had never considered himself to be a pigmy. The space was cramped and Austin stood with his face pressed against the cold wrought iron of the ornate gate. He guessed that the elevator must date back to the time of the sultans. He tried not to think of frayed and neglected cables as the elevator slowly jerked and rattled up to the third and last floor. The elevator was more nerve-wracking than the speeding car. The elevator cracked to a stop, and one his escorts growled in his ear.
“Out!”
He stepped into a dark hallway. One man grabbed the back of Austin’s shirt in a bunch, used it to steer him forward and brake him to an abrupt stop. A door opened, and he was maneuvered inside. There was the odor of old paper and oil from long-ago business machines. He felt pressure upon his shoulders, then the edge of a chair bumped against the back of his knees. He sat down and squinted into the darkness. A spotlight flashed on, and Austin saw sunspots as the glare hit him in the face. He blinked like a suspect being given the third degree in on old gangster movie.

Set a scene for a particular purpose and use at least four of the bodily senses to contribute to your purpose.

Prompt-a-Month: Happiness

Writers in the Grove Prompt-a-Month badge.The March prompt-a-month for our Writers in the Grove members is:

Happiness

The deadline for submissions is 4/1/2017. Submissions will be published during the next 30 days.

Writers in the Grove members may hand in their submissions during the workshops or use our members only submission form. Check out the guidelines and instructions for submissions in the announcement.

Prompt – Use Metaphors And Similes To Describe An Experience

The prompt was to write using metaphors and similes to describe an experience without telling us what it is.

The prompt came from “Jitterbug Perfume” by Tom Robins:

Thus, even though his back now was turned to the allure of the morning star, even though a stout breeze flattened his beard against his Adam’s apple, even though his damp clothing clung to him like frost, he whistled from stump to rock as if he was a tea kettle leading the pack in the annual pot-and-open cross-country marathon.

Write using metaphors and similes to describe an experience (as in this example that this is a man on a walk) without telling us what it is.

Prompt – Movement

The prompt this week was on movement, using the description of movement to show us character and tell the story.

In this example from “A River Runs Through It and Other Stories” by Norman Maclean, we see and feel the movement of the various characters, especially the bear.

Although I had fished this hole many times, I went to take another look at it before I put up my rod. I approached it step by step like an animal that has been shot at before. Once I had rushed down rod in hand to demolish a fish on the first cast and actually had made the first cast when part of the mountain on the other side started falling into the river. I had never seen the bear and he evidently had never seen me until he heard me swear when I was slow in reacting to the first strike. I didn’t even know what the bear had been doing – fishing, swimming, drinking. All I know is that he led a landslide up the mountain.

If you have never seen a bear go over the mountain, you have never seen the job reduced to essentials. Of course, deer are faster, but not going straight uphill. Not even elk have the power in their hindquarters. Deer and elk zigzag and switchback and stop and pose while really catching their breath. The bear leaves the earth like a bolt of lightning retrieving itself and making its thunder backwards.

In another example by Norman Maclean, we see movement in the description of a cowhand.

Every profession has a pinnacle to its art. In the hospital it is the brain or heart surgeon, and in the sawmill it is the sawyer who with squinting eyes makes the first major cut that turns a log into boards. In the early Forest Service, our major artist was the packer, as it usually has been in worlds where there are no roads. Packing is an art as old as the first time man moved and had an animal to help him carry his belongings. As such, it came ultimately from Asia and from there across Northern Africa and Spain and then up from Mexico and to us probably from Indian squaws. With the coming of roads, this ancient art has become almost a lost art, but in the early part of this century there were still few roads across the mountains and none across the “Bitterroot Wall.”

From the mouth of Blodgett Canyon, near Hamilton, Montana, to our ranger station at Elk Summit in Idaho nothing moved except on foot. When there was a big fire crew to be supplied, there could be as many as half a hundred mules and short-backed horses heaving and grunting up the narrow switchbacks and dropping extra large amounts of manure at the sharp turns. The ropes tying the animals together would jerk taut and stretch their connected necks into a straight line until they looked like dark gigantic swans circling and finally disappearing into a higher medium.

Bill was our head packer, and the Forest Service never had a better one. As head packer, [he] rode in front of the string, a study in angles. With black Stetson hat at a slant, he rode with his head turned almost backward from his body so he could watch to see if any of the packs were working loose. Later in life I was to see Egyptian bas-reliefs where the heads of men are looking one way and their bodies are going another, and so it is with good packers. After all, packing is the art of balancing packs and then seeing that they ride evenly—otherwise the animals will have saddle sores in a day or two and be out of business for all or most of the summer.

These examples show us the character through their movements, painting a “moving picture” with words.

Go on. See if you can “move” us with your words. 😀

Prompt-a-Month: Cornucopia

Writers in the Grove Prompt-a-Month badge.The February prompt-a-month for our Writers in the Grove members is:

Cornucopia

The deadline for submissions is 3/1/2017. Submissions will be published during the next 30 days.

Writers in the Grove members may hand in their submissions during the workshops or use our members only submission form. Check out the guidelines and instructions for submissions in the announcement.

Prompt – Show Relationships

Two people are walking down a path. They have a relationship. What is it? How do you know? What are the physical signs? What clues are in their dialog?

The prompt this week was to set up a scene showing us the characters and the relationship between them.

Do not tell us. Show us.