Writing assignments: dialogue

The final assignment involved the characters previously created. The task was simple: to write a dialogue between the two.

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Saturdays were slow around midday, and it was usually then that Samuel would stroll into the cafe and order iced tea or hot chocolate, depending on the weather. The garage where he worked wasn’t officially open during the weekend, but he came in to tinker nonetheless. Around noon he liked to take a walk to the cafe where Lance worked. That day he was in an unusually bad mood due to a bar scuffle gone sour the previous night.

Writing assignments: character creation

The one-but-last task I had to complete for the creative writing course last semester involved character creation. Using a provided "character checklist" we were to create two different characters and write a bit of an internal monologue for them, each with an internal conflict. I'm not quite proud of my fulfillment of the last part of the task; there are internal conflicts in these characters if you squint the right way... Well, I tried, didn't I?

Writing assignments: point of view

This task was about describing a single scene from three different perspectives: a detached, omniscient narration with no insight into the characters' thoughts, a third-person narrative and a first-person narrative.


Fly-on-the-wall perspective:
The room was stuffy, but no one dared open a window. The woman tried it once, and she was immediately scolded for that by her husband, so she closed it, apologised in a flat voice, and sat back in her armchair to return to her embroidery. The man was jittery. He’d spent all morning trying to write the next chapter of his novel, but all he did was start typing, pause for a long moment, type some more, then tear out the unfortunate piece of paper and crumple it, murmuring profanities under his breath. He never noticed the looks of disapproval his wife would direct at him with each cycle of this fruitless labour, too absorbed in what he had told her was his “creative process”. After several hours, he asked the woman to silence the children playing outside, because their joyful cries distracted him.

Writing assignments: setting

The task was to create two environments that should be described in a way that presents them as unfamiliar. Out of the options available, I chose a rainforest and a room filled with old furniture.


“This was never supposed to happen,” wailed Thomas quietly. His dream vacation in Indonesia took a sharp turn to the south when the guided field trip was dispersed by a rampant elephant. He panicked and ran and blacked out at some point. Now the sun was setting and he didn’t know where he was, other than in a bloody wild rainforest.

Life is easier where the walls are red

   Something I concocted when half asleep two nights ago, fantasizing about meeting Woodkid, thus the title, from his Brooklyn - listen below. Can be read as rps with Yoann Lemoine as the male or as a standalone piece of complete and utter bullshit fiction.
   I'm actually deeply dissatisfied with this piece, the style and language a far cry from what I'd like it to be, but I don't dislike it enough to trash it and forget I ever offended my hard drive with this document. Here's to hoping that if few years' time I'll be able to get back to it and write it properly, with language actually reflecting the fragile, contemplative atmosphere of the scene I originally imagined. Also, I don't know shit about Brooklyn other than what I gathered from the aforementioned song, Frances Ha and all those hipster!AU fanfics about Marvel's characters. //le shrug
   word count: ~2600

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   Whether it was still night or the wee hours of day already, he was too tired and just tipsy enough not to care; huddled into his expensive wool coat under the huge black umbrella, he walked hastily down the oddly desolate Brooklyn streets, his gaze cast firmly to the sidewalk under his feet and the rim of his hat blocking the view of anything else. Water slowly soaked through his sneakers, cool spots against his toes urging him to walk more quickly to the cool loneliness of his flat several blocks away. He ought to catch some sleep before setting to work; he's been up for longer than he cares to count, running errands in the morning, working through the day on the latest commission and then letting himself be invited to an impromptu party that extended far longer than anyone anticipated; well past the hour the nightlife usually ebbed, last of the clubgoers drunkenly giving up on trying to find company for the night. The weather reflected his mood, the heavy rain beating steady rhythm against the ground for long enough that it became inconsequential white noise, too familiar and indifferently persistent to be inspiring, though he always found rain to be refreshing; his creativity drying up, losing vitality in long stretches of sunny days. Perhaps he was just tired, having been up for twenty hours, but the whole last month felt devoid of inspiration.