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Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

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Tuesday prompt: #53 2012

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Write about a Christmas moment.  Keep it tightly focused:  green and red sparks twinkle on a round blue ornament, drizzled in gold glitter.  On the lower half of the roundness, where less of the glitter crusted, reflect the curved images of two children in red pajamas pulling aside bright wrapping paper.  The background soft chimes of Christmas music take back stage to the delighted “thank you’s” as some are shouted out in inattentive abandon while others are whispered in glorious wonder.

Or write about a birthday, if you are commercial Christmassed out.

Tuesday prompt: #52 2012

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Success going up the ladder

Choose an idea: happiness, success, despair, governance, laziness or….  Give it human qualities (yes, personification) and let it wander through a room or down a road, take a seat at a desk or settle in comfortably against a tree along a byway.  Describe it thoroughly from the button on the top of its cap to the nails in the soles of its shoes.

Appearances are important to characterization

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Recently some of my students have been following the “scene” mode of styling their hair. I don’t fully understand the term, but it appears to be a kinder, gentler version of emo, not dark or requiring heavy makeup or dyed hair.  But it does create a look that tends to ride the edge of the norm.  So I was thinking how one day a student can look like the average girl next door, reliable, kind, quiet.  The next day she walks in and a statement is made that marks her as not one of the group, not the girl next door but the one across the street that people make up rumors about.  The girl that is not “bad” but is not greeted by everyone.

That is what characterization is.  Small shifts from the norm that make the character stand out with a certain image immediately created by a part in the hair made so far to the left that the bangs must lay low across the forehead. The long hair is all brought forward to the front, so a split occurs in the back at the neck line, as though the person only has a front she shows to everyone, the back similar to the facade of a building put up for a movie set.  The front looks real enough, but the back lacks all the depth of a real building.  This can be used to create character.  Certainly the real live girl, has depth, but in the novel or short story, such a “front” can act as a thin veneer hiding the reality within.  It builds mystery, which one might believe is the purpose of the “scene” image for these teenage girls I teach.

Tuesday prompt: #47 2012

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Write about appreciation.  Not just appreciating any old thing, but about appreciating the people in your life. Imagine what it would be like to go through tomorrow without them.

This evening I was driving into town along dark roads, tightened by a serious case of forever road construction, to pick up my daughter at school.  We hadn’t been sure when she would be done with her practice, so we had waited for her call telling us she would be hanging out in the parking lot of the school. So as I drove I thought for just a moment what I would do if I arrived and she wasn’t there.  I wasn’t really worried as I knew she was waiting with friends who lived close by the school, but all the same, for a moment I thought about her and how much I do appreciate her giggly hello, the way she jumps into the passenger seat as though we were off to some wild, long-awaited adventure, and the habitual slamming of the door, eliciting my usual rebuke about killing our old car.  My daughter has a habit of starting off her tales of the day with, “Guess what?”  I can never guess, but I usually supply her with some sort of outrageous, impossible event:  giant ants carried off Coach Fisher or Mindy has dyed her hair florescent pink, again, by accident.  She gives me her usual rolled eye glance, slowly shaking head of exasperation, followed by the true life events that colored her evening.  Yes, I want tomorrow to contain the giggle, the bounce, slam, “Guess what?, rolling eyes, shaking head and a new set of teenage angst stories, and the day after, too.  I would appreciate that.

Tuesday prompt: #46 2012

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What’s upstairs?  Take your reader up those stairs, barefoot.  Let them feel every creak, rough edge, small nail poking up.  Make each step an adventure in itself.  Then show them what is on the second floor (or third floor, or in the attic).  But make is a slow trip where every word is ultimately connected to the object or place you will take them to. 

Tuesday Prompt: #43 2012

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Dig out an old photo of when you were a kid.  Write about the moment it was taken. Imagine the image in black and white whether it is or not.  Keep your descriptions of colors in the grey scale. Go for the shadows, the bright spots; enrich your description by looking at the sharpness of the lines, the feelings the picture evokes and the story it is ready to tell.