Edrie

I haven�t posted here in a while as I am now in grad school trying to get an MFA in writing. Thought I would post here a class exercise we did to try and get us to (I think) write more fluidly without as much thought. It was a really helpful exercise and taught me a lot about characters and what you have to have in your mind or figured out before you write about them.

The first one we did, all she specified was that we describe our bedroom. I sort of did, but a more idealized version with more of a back-story to it so I wrote this:

Exercise 1

When she invited him into her bed he could not help but notice how comforting it was. White on white, no decoration, the room seemed ethereal grounded only by the black metal of the bed.
As the sun rose, a shaft of light bisected the room leaving his half of the bed in darkness but lighting hers on fire.
She was already up, tea in hand, feet planted in the deep carpet, standing under the lone sky light staring up into the blue morning sky.


She was impressed and I was the only one who wrote it in third person which she questioned me on. I told her in order to describe something I had to make up a story in my head of why it would need describing in the first place, even if it was something I knew very well. She was more then pleased with this answer and it ended up being what the whole exercise was about so that was a good thing for the first thing in the morning!

In the next one we were supposed to describe the room from someone else�s point of view and make it in first person so I wrote this:

Exercise 2

I had helped her move into the big house in the country � a normal person might have made one of the finished rooms a bedroom, but she decided she had to be close to the sun. Must be from all those years of living in basements. White paint slapped on bare timber no art or decoration to speak of, if you saw it in the full day light from the lone skylight it might seem shabby, slapped together. The carpet she laid herself is white too � how can it be such with 3 cats

That one wasn�t as good mostly because I didn�t fully have the character formed in my mind but we were getting there. The next one she wanted us to focus on Motive, Physicality, Self, Vocabulary and Point of View from that character specifically, so this is what I came up with.

Exercise 3

This is where I have to sleep? I help her move, I agree to take care of her cats (hate cats) and house sit all while she is off at some fucking �writers� conference. What does she do for me �oh it will be like a vacation in the country for you,� she says �you can write,� she says. Right, maybe I like sirens.
Lord, there isn�t even any insulation in this room � no electricity. If I sit up in bed to fast I�ll bang my head on the fucking beams. Not everyone is 5 fucking feet tall for Christ sakes. One ass fuck is not worth this


Everyone laughed at that one, I think cause it was pretty surprising at the end and they got a clear picture of the character who was describing my room. The last exercise we were supposed to name the character and have them describe their own room. And we were supposed to title the pieces with the character�s name

Exercise 4

Michael

Isn�t country living supposed to calm you down or some such shit? A mattress on brown carpet and I am closer to the earth in my own place then I am in this god-forsaken-attic.
The sirens in the city give me inner-fucking-peace. As long as I know there are some ripping through the streets � someone else is worse off then me.
I like books towering over my head while I sleep. Piles on the floor. If they were all in neat matching fucking shelves like they are here I�d never want to disturb the order. No order � nothing to disturb