Writing prompt - L. Darby Gibbs ~ Author

Seeking the perfect junction: crossing the gap between what is written & what is read

L. Darby Gibbs — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Readers need to connect the content to their own lives.

Recently I was reading Jane
Eyre. The narrator and main
character Jane was describing a view of Rochester seated alone in a darkened
room, and suddenly I was transported back about ten years and the memory of
walking into my father’s office to see him seated at his desk, quiet, lost in
thought, came quickly to mind.

My father
had lost much of his vision, which for a man who loved to read and tinker with
electronics in his retirement was tragic.
He did not know I had entered, so for just that brief moment I saw how
disappointed he was in his situation. One of his hands reached to run fingers over his watch and prompt it to tell him the time. A magnifying glass mounted on an articulating arm was close to his face, and just inches beneath the glass a second magnifying glass hung.

Of
course, as soon as he was aware I was there, his whole countenance changed to
one of pleasure and good cheer. He
joked, worked hard to track my movements with his eyes, told me how much I
looked like his father, but I knew I was mostly blur for him. His once lovely penmanship was a broken
scrawl, and the confidence at which he moved about the house or located things
was because he had memorized where everything was and was precise in keeping
each to its proper place.

Moved by this memory of my father, I could not but be moved by poor Rochester’s fate. This is how writers connect their work to their readers. They strike a chord that links to some piece
of our lives, one we have or one we wish we had, as well as those we wish we didn’t.

My beta reader, Marcy Peska, read the first book in my series Students of Jump (In Times Passed). In her notes on my draft, she would comment on what a scene triggered in her or how a piece of dialogue caught her attention. At one point halfway through the novel, she had written in a note “Nooo, I did not see this coming. I have to break away.” Then the note continued explaining that she had needed to stop for a “mini-meltdown.” Marcy had been immersed in the scene and what occurred had caught her up so emotionally, she could not go on reading without some distance to recover her equilibrium. She loved the scene and hated it at the same time because it had bridged the gap between the text and the imagination. Goal achieved. It was a tough scene to write and tough to read, which was precisely what I was going for.

Rochester’s injuries had that effect on me. I hated seeing my father that way, but because of the quality of Bronte’s writing, I could imagine what Rochester must look like and what Jane must be feeling. The scene was real to me. I had sympathy for both characters, and the scene was authentic because it bridged the two events: fiction and reality.

This is the challenge of every writer and the need that every reader wants filled. We want to connect, to find some essence of our own experience that draws us into the scene. The writer must still supply well-written dialogue, description, imagery, finely drawn characters, etc., but what is most vital is that the reader have a way to travel the created moment with a sense of familiarity and originality combined.

What work of fiction or biography caught you, the reader, in such a moment? Please share that moment of connectiveness, the author, text scene.

#writing
#readers
#connection

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Tuesday prompt: #9 2013

L. Darby Gibbs — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Regional stories are wrapped around the cultural, traditional, and environmental qualities of the area. Often dialect is a feature, but not a requirement. So work on a few paragraphs of a story that can only happen where you are. Make it utterly dependent on the locale, can’t happen anywhere else but there.

Read Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” or Wolfe’s “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” for example.

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Tuesday prompt: #8 2013

L. Darby Gibbs — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Pick out a room in your house or apartment that you would love to remodel. Imagine the changes you would make. What different furniture would you prefer, paint scheme, layout, window type? Think about every detail: baseboard, electrical switches, trim around the doors, what is in the vase of flowers, scent.

capture the details

When you have the vision clear in your mind, start writing it down. Be as clear as you can with what the room looks like now and then blast away at it, always maintaining a steady sense of the place. If necessary, keep your vantage point from one place in the room, i.e., the entrance from the front hall or a corner where most of the room is viewable, even a glimpse of other rooms to add contrast. Most importantly, don’t let your reader get lost in the room.

This could take a bit of time and writing. When you have it all, go back through and remove everything that is unnecessary to maintaining the overall look. Keep trimming until you have it down to a page of overall change, with enough close detail to set the effect of the room as down to the tiniest point, and enough general description that the room is not centered on details. Sort of like matching your earrings or cufflinks to the dress or suit you are wearing. No piece sets the tone alone, it all works together.

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Tuesday prompt: 2012 #7

L. Darby Gibbs — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

In Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Mr. Lorry holds an imaginary conversation with Dr. Manette, who is newly released from prison. The imaginary conversation is tied around the question, “How long have you been buried?” It takes numerous twists and turns as Lorry considers all the variety of ways that Manette could reply, keeping in mind that the man may be suffering from madness after his long confinement and unable to maintain a coherent conversation.

exerpt:

“Buried how long?”

The answer was always the same: “Almost eighteen years.”

“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?”

“They tell me so.”

“I hope you care to live?”

“I can’t say.”

“Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?”

The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was, “Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.” Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, “Take me to her.” Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it was, “I don’t know her. I don’t understand.”

So for this prompt, have one character ask a question that is open to metaphorical interpretation. The response to the question should be an imagined response, and like Lorry’s conversation in A Tale of Two Cities repeated with slight variations so that the conflict is slowly developed.

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Last 2011 Tuesday prompt

L. Darby Gibbs — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:19:00 +0000

Look through your memories and find one that was especially sad. Think about all the details. Make yourself sad. Now write it down in a narrative voice that is not yours. Write it in poetry, personal prose or short story. Add this twist to it: Look at it from a funny perspective. Be smiling when you are done.

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It’s Tuesday — so here’s the prompt

L. Darby Gibbs — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 02:19:00 +0000

Your main character is asleep and though it is early, the sun is lightening the room enough to discern furnishings and objects about the place. Have your main character begin his usual wake up routine. When he gets up to sit on the side of the bed for the last residuals of sleep to pass, have him notice something in the room that is just not as it should be. Maybe someone else’s shoes are next to the bureau or perhaps different jewelry is in the tray where cufflinks or earrings are normally left to be put away later or used again. Maybe the bedding is not the same as it was the night before. Whatever it is that is different, have your character figure out why it is.

(To avoid the he/she, his/her, etc., inserts to avoid saying “they,” I put a male reference and for no other reason. Replace it with a female reference if needed.)

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Another Tuesday night writing prompt

L. Darby Gibbs — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:33:00 +0000

Everybody has one of those items in their house that they don’t know the purpose of. I once had a slender silver cylinder measuring thingy (received from my husband’s family and sold by him at a garage sale) that was also a music box (say 8 inches tall, base included, and 2 inches in diameter). That is, if you turn the little crank on the round silver bottom, it would play a tinny jingle. It had marks engraved down the side I believe for measuring portions of a cup. But if one were to put flour or sugar in it, the powder or grains would filter down into the music box box below through the margins where the silver cylinder and silver base met. It was definitely silver, tarnished and all. So the question is what was it used to measure?

Your prompt in all of this is find your strange item and give it a history and a purpose. Or it you don’t have such a thing, give mine a history and a purpose. And share it with me. I would love to know the possibilities behind it.

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Tuesday prompt time

L. Darby Gibbs — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 03:46:00 +0000

This is more of a change in perspective than an actual topic prompt. What I suggest you do is go sit someplace where you don’t usually go to write. In my class, I have my students sit on the table or beneath it or face a corner. How many teachers ask you to sit on their tables (none that I know of, unless you are in my classroom)? Each of my students find something to write about because it is such an unexpected place to be. But you could sit behind your couch, or underneath the porch swing or in a tree, behind the rose bush or under your bed. Sure some of you are saying, “Done that.” So find your own out-of-the-norm place and see what comes to mind and out those fingers. If you have trouble coming up with something, write about “going sideways.”

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