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Emulation
Exercises
I admired
this fragment in Henry James's The Ambassadors (Methuen,
1903):
***the sky was silver and
turquoise and varnish
so I broke it down as follows:
the sky was [some
kind of metal]
and [some
of stone]
and [some
kind of liquid].
Mine:
***the sky was gold
and sapphire and milk.
***the sky was tin
and coal and whiskey.
***the sky was brass
and amber and bootblack.
A good writing exercise then would be to continue: do as many
of these as you can, whether one, two, or seventeen. Then, circle
the one that strikes you as the most vivid and/ or apt for the
manuscript you are currently working on.
In reading Julia Glass's novel,
Three Junes, I admired this passage:
Paging through the news from
afar, he finds himself tired of it all. Tired of Maggie Thatcher,
her hedgehog eyes, her vacuous hair, her cotton-mouthed edicts
on jobs, on taxes, on terrorist acts.
So, breaking this into chunks:
her [name
of uncommon animal] eyes,
her [quirky
adjective] hair,
her [adjective
describing mouth / voice]
[some form
of speech] on
[noun], on [noun], on [noun].
Thus: describing my own character
(an aging and overpowering spinster who has taken over the care
of her nephew), I used this basic structure (with a little wiggle
room) to come up with the following:
Her lizard eyes, her coiled-up
hair, her sharp-tongued pronouncements on his toys,
his nap-times, his hot milk with sugared bread.
I decided I quite liked just
the first part – her [name
of uncommon animal] eyes,
her [quirky
adjective] hair – so
I came up with these:
Her angel-fish eyes, her
dumpy hair
Her ferret eyes, her over-blown
hair
Her Shetland pony eyes,
her indecisive hair
His raccoon eyes, his
ludicrous toupee
His weasel eyes, his cockamamie
comb-over
and so on...
Once you've done a few, or several, circle the one that most
appeals to you.
From the Daily 5 Minute Writing Exercises:
January
25 "Permutation"
This is what I call a "permutation exercise": Take
a particularly vivid and rhythmic sentence or two from someone
else's book or story, and then exchange the verbs and/or adjectives
and/or adverbs and/or whatever to make it your own. For example,
while reading Conversations with Gore Vidal (edited by
Richard Peabody and Lucinda Ebersole), I came across this vignette
in the piece by Larry Kramer, "The Sadness of Gore Vidal":
"He is very fat. His face is lined. His hair, all of
which he still has, looks like its in the end stages of a coloring
job. He says he has to worry about his health. He orders a steak."
Here's my permutation on that:
She is very thin. Her face is as smooth as a child's. Her hair,
which is sparse and frizzed, reminds me of what might be a fried
mermaid's. She says she is ravenous. She orders the sardine sandwich,
sans bread.
And another:
He is huge. His face appears to have been inflated. His hair
has been slicked back with a strong-smelling lotion. He says
he hasn't time for more than a quick bite. He orders the rack
of lamb.
Do as many permutations as you can on this, or on another selection.
No rules.
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