Class Prompt: 5 Descriptive Sentences
Sep. 15th, 2011 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kasihyaAssignment: go sit in a public place and write 5 descriptive sentences about your surroundings.
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1. A single voice punctuates the clatter of flatware and low rumble of conversation to proclaim that 'Fresh Meat' is a classy title.
2. At this time of the evening, students walk alone down the dimly lit walkway, armed against the darkness with earphones, coffee, and art supplies.
3. A sharp clack on the sticky floor tiles bring conversations to a lull as backs straighten and heads turn to seek out the disturber of the peace.
4. Silhouettes backlit by the stark white light of a lamp post release shouts of triumph and dismay, cries which are quickly stifled by the heavy summer air that still blankets the field.
5. Two people sit on scratchy couches five feet away from each other, but so absorbed in their individual conversations with technology that they could be on different continents and it would make no difference.
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We had to read these aloud in class, and critique each others' word choice, etc. The guy sitting next to me said that one thing he noticed was that all five of them are about something alone, or standing out from everything else. (My response was, 'Cool! ... I hadn't actually meant to do that,' which probably came off sounding a little self-congratulatory.)
Thinking about it, that pretty well sums up my writing as a whole. I write about lonely things and singularities. I guess that's a subconscious attempt on the part of my brain to sort myself out, because I am and have been alone for my entire life. That's not me pitying myself, it's just a fact that I've never had friends like many other people do, and apparently that bleeds over into my writing. My favorite stories that I've written are the one where Nyali is immortal and spends centuries wandering the earth, looking for Tsuya and Apocalyptic Continuity, in which there are twelve people in the universe, separated by language barriers, and isolated besides that. My favorite characters are the lonely ones: Violet and Kai, who create worlds together in their shared dreamscape; Tanwen, who straddles two cultures and doesn't have the luxury of trusting anyone except the one man who just died for her; and Nyali and Tsuya, who are alone in the world with just each other.
We're supposed to work with one or two characters for my Fiction Writing class and write a story around them, so I'm writing about Kai. It'll be ... interesting, at this point in my life, to write about him. Him and Violet. It made me realize, however, that I'm going to have to actually explore and justify their relationship so that it makes sense to outside readers. Which can only be a good thing.
And as a final note, it'd be really, really nice if there could not be construction machinery beeping outside of my window at 7:00 every morning, and also if the people walking down the hallway at the same hour could not be banging an entire kitchen's worth of pots and pans together. Thanks.
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1. A single voice punctuates the clatter of flatware and low rumble of conversation to proclaim that 'Fresh Meat' is a classy title.
2. At this time of the evening, students walk alone down the dimly lit walkway, armed against the darkness with earphones, coffee, and art supplies.
3. A sharp clack on the sticky floor tiles bring conversations to a lull as backs straighten and heads turn to seek out the disturber of the peace.
4. Silhouettes backlit by the stark white light of a lamp post release shouts of triumph and dismay, cries which are quickly stifled by the heavy summer air that still blankets the field.
5. Two people sit on scratchy couches five feet away from each other, but so absorbed in their individual conversations with technology that they could be on different continents and it would make no difference.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We had to read these aloud in class, and critique each others' word choice, etc. The guy sitting next to me said that one thing he noticed was that all five of them are about something alone, or standing out from everything else. (My response was, 'Cool! ... I hadn't actually meant to do that,' which probably came off sounding a little self-congratulatory.)
Thinking about it, that pretty well sums up my writing as a whole. I write about lonely things and singularities. I guess that's a subconscious attempt on the part of my brain to sort myself out, because I am and have been alone for my entire life. That's not me pitying myself, it's just a fact that I've never had friends like many other people do, and apparently that bleeds over into my writing. My favorite stories that I've written are the one where Nyali is immortal and spends centuries wandering the earth, looking for Tsuya and Apocalyptic Continuity, in which there are twelve people in the universe, separated by language barriers, and isolated besides that. My favorite characters are the lonely ones: Violet and Kai, who create worlds together in their shared dreamscape; Tanwen, who straddles two cultures and doesn't have the luxury of trusting anyone except the one man who just died for her; and Nyali and Tsuya, who are alone in the world with just each other.
We're supposed to work with one or two characters for my Fiction Writing class and write a story around them, so I'm writing about Kai. It'll be ... interesting, at this point in my life, to write about him. Him and Violet. It made me realize, however, that I'm going to have to actually explore and justify their relationship so that it makes sense to outside readers. Which can only be a good thing.
And as a final note, it'd be really, really nice if there could not be construction machinery beeping outside of my window at 7:00 every morning, and also if the people walking down the hallway at the same hour could not be banging an entire kitchen's worth of pots and pans together. Thanks.
