TuesdayTips155

Today’s #TuesdayTip is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills. It focuses on description.We’ve all stumbled across those late-night shopping channels on TV, where dangerously enthusiastic presenters attempt to sell us gadgets that we’ve never heard of or never realised we wanted. Even more impressive are those presenters who manage to wax lyrical for several minutes about something mind-numbingly tedious or ubiquitous, like a pillow. Helped by what appears to be a remarkably generous discount (often recouped by expensive postage and packaging), they extoll you to either phone now, or these days, visit their website. Given that they are largely competing against Amazon, with its free Prime delivery, you have to take your hats off to them for accepting the challenge.

The skill (aside from a level of excitement that makes you squint at the TV to see if their nostrils are red and their pupils dilated) lies in the description. And it is something they share with writers.

Part One: Choose an everyday object. To do this, perhaps look around where you are sitting or wander around the house. To increase the level of challenge, choose something really dull or which we buy because we have to and rarely give any thought to beyond price.
Now write a paragraph or two describing this item as if your audience can’t see it and have no idea what it is. Go into excruciating detail (to make it fun, you don’t have to be trying to sell it. Perhaps, the object is really rubbish and you are warning folks off.) Consider as many senses as appropriate (I’m going to assume that you don’t feel the need to taste a pillow).

Description is a vital skill for any writer, especially for written prose or audio drama, where one can’t rely on visual stimuli). But a book soon grinds to a halt and readers get bored if you over-write. So the next part of the activity hones the necessary skills to avoid tedium.

Part Two: Take your previous prose and distil it to two or even one sentence. What is the essence of the object? What does your reader need (or want) to know about? Let their imagination do the heavy lifting here. Everyone is familiar with pillows, so don’t waste time telling them what one is. Focus on describing it. The smell of a pillow is probably irrelevant – unless of course it has the scent of a lover’s perfume or the damp, shampoo smell from their still-wet hair.

If you want to extend this activity still further, you can repeat this second part of the activity for different audiences (or different characters). A detective looking at a crime scene, will be interested in different aspects of a pillow than someone checking into a hotel for a romantic evening.

Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.

Until next time,
Paul