For this exercise go to your favourite people watching spot: a coffee shop, park, the mall. Wait until someone interesting comes along and then study them (discreetly!) for a moment. Then write a description of their bedroom. Are they messy or neat? Is the room sparse or crowded? What object would they not want you to see?
Repeat this exercise with a few different people.
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Welcome
Here you will find writing prompts to jump start your imagination and inspire you as a fiction writer. Every Wednesday I post a first line which you can use as a starting point to write your own fabulous, tragic, magical, hilarious and hopefully award-winning short story. Want more? Check back often for other prompts designed to keep the words flowing. You'll also find the occasional author interview, book review or musing from me as I share my own journey as a writer.
Want to get in touch? Contact me here: loriannbloomfield (at) gmail.com
Want to get in touch? Contact me here: loriannbloomfield (at) gmail.com
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- I am Lori Ann Bloomfield author of the novel, "The Last River Child" (Second Story Press).
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4 comments:
Lori,
I'm not sure, from seeing you, that I would guess that your bedroom is full of books, but I think that's what you described.
Is this projecting what you think based on how a person dresses?
Mario
How much does the way a person dresses tell you about them? Sometimes a lot, sometimes nothing. So, no it's not really about the way a person dresses. It's more about using your imagination. For instance, in a short story you might introduce a character who is a heavy-weight boxer but when you see his bedroom it is decorated in a floral print wallpaper. There may be reasons for this: it might have been decorated that way when he moved in and he has been too lazy or busy to change it. Or he might have purchased the wallpaper and carefully hung it because it reminds him of the wallpaper in his grandmother's house. He may want to surround himself with memories of his grandmother because she raised him and he believes she was the one person who truly loved him. Do you see what I am getting at? Describing the bedroom of a character could reveal something hidden about them, something we as the reader can find out no other way.
Lori,
I understand now. When you described the exercise, you talked about studying them discreetly for a moment. I thought we would be looking for clues to whether they were neat or messy as a dresser and projecting that to the rest of their life. What you are saying is that it may or may not be related and we still have a blank "canvas" of a person if we want to. Okay. Thanks.
Mario
That's right. Thank you for giving me the chance to clarify that, Mario.
Hope you are well.
~ L
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