Monday, July 15, 2013

Teachers Write


TEACHERS WRITE:  For today's warm-up, choose a scene (or write a new one) in which your character is experiencing a strong emotion and take out all the usual descriptors (sad, frustrated, angry, tears streaming down the face, eyes watering, face burning, hard to swallow, etc.). And rewrite it. Show what's happening around your character, through your character's eyes, to convey his or her emotion. How we see the world changes dramatically depending on our emotional state. Show us how things change for your character. Is there something in the room that triggers a memory to heighten his or her sadness or fear? A smell? A sound? Use sensory details to help spice up the scene.

She stood in front of his grave. Her face fallen and pale, darkened eyes almost closed shut. Black tears roll down her face slowly and she could taste the saltiness of her tears on her red lips. Her posture hung over as if loads of bricks were on her shoulders. Each sniffle, each breath, each blink seems to take away life from her. She is weak. She wants to die too. She wants to disappear of the face of the earth and forget the emptiness she feels. She swallows and takes a deep breath asking, "Why didn't you take me, Lord, why.........why?" She drops to her knees and props the white flowers in a position so that they nicely lean on the cemented piece. The smell of rain is near and thunder spooks nearby birds and they fly away in opposite directions. Grey clouds darken the sky and rain begins to fall hard. The thunderstorm drains out all sound. She leans over and kisses the grave. She slowly stands up and wipes her face with her pink polk-a-dotted handkerchief, before she runs to her black car near the curb.

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