Exercises

[AMCrenshaw]

Post "anytime" exercises for interstitial fiction. 'Feed the squid.' Immediately. All that.

We can then post the outcomes, if we wish, in SYW.


I'll add another exercise to the ones we've thought of in another thread:

Pluck a line from one of your works. A piece of dialogue, or chunk of prose. The feedback would consist of pointing out words or phrases which could be more a) specific b) purposeful c) interesting.


AMC

[Ruv Draba]

Post a passage of narrative as a series of questions.

Post it as a set of imperatives (orders).

Describe one of your major characters making the transition from a dreaming sleep to awakening.

Put four of your characters (possibly from different stories) together in a room. Have them plot to kill a fifth -- a character they've had enough of.

Have a character from one story rifle the wardrobe of another, looking for evidence or information or an intimate possesison.

Have two characters who know each other well tell a joint story in a combined voice. Don't have them speak in dialogue; have them narrate it together.

Take a passage of narrative that's full of sensory images. For each image, describe the image with a different sense so that a sight becomes a smell or a sound or a taste or a feeling and so on.

Take a passage and apply synaesthesia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia). Mix the senses so that what the eyes see, the tongue can taste etc...

Pick a tense passage where a protagonist and antagonist are vying. Give each character a different colour, and replace the images in that passage with images appropriate to the colour of the character -- but don't directly mention the colour itself.

(Most of these ideas are taken from Brian Kitely's 3AM Epiphany (http://www.amazon.com/3-AM-Epiphany-Brian-Kiteley/dp/1582973512). I've tried to choose those that might lend themselves well to interstitiality.)

[AMCrenshaw]

In a first draft of a new story, name your characters according to their surface personalities; then give them another name that describes more their inner selves.

Convert one piece of drama to prose, or one piece of prose dialogue to drama. Remember stage directions.

Reveal the conflict between a father and his daughter while she tries to teach him how to fly (or something else equally fantastic).


AMC

[Gray Rose]

In a first draft of a new story, name your characters according to their surface personalities; then give them another name that describes more their inner selves.

AMC

Or make it more interstitial.... Name your characters according to a fruit that reveals their personalities, then name them after a sea creature that reveals their inner selves :D.