100 college things 71

[alexseanchai]

Gah. I need homework help. I'm enrolled in Short Story Writing and this week we need to do two creative exercises: write to two of four prompts, 300-500 words apiece. I have done one of the four and rejected one of the four as undoable. Here are the other two prompts:

Write a scene in which two characters are having a hard time talking to each other. Perhaps one person is trying to teach someone else how to do something, but it’s not going very well. Maybe one character has to convey some news that is hard to convey. Maybe your characters just find themselves at odds—one just got a raise, the other just got fired. Maybe they’re arguing, maybe they’re flirting. In any case, let them talk. Work to make each voice consistent and distinct.

Create a character with a very simple, very tangible desire (a glass of water, for example). Put this character in a scene in which there is some simple opposition, some simple thing that prevents him/her from obtaining his/her desire. See what happens.

I am drawing an utter blank on scenarios for either prompt. (Except the thing I have already written which involves a character swearing at the vending machine that is providing her with neither her soda nor her refund. But that ain't any three hundred words.)

Provide me with scenarios for these prompts, please. Things like "Val is flirting with Jane and Jane is oblivious". Original fic only, though if you want to say things like "Not!CharlieBradbury and Not!DorothyBaum are talking past each other in and about Not!Oz", I'm open to that. (Though it has been a long damn time since I consumed any iteration of Oz.)

Comments

[highlyeccentric]

I think the trick here is to pick CHARACTERS.

For prompt one: a technologically competent grandma(aunt, etc) explains something web-related to her luddite grandson.

[alexseanchai]

Hm, yes, I suppose so.

Ooh. Thanks!

[davidgillon]

For scenario one, if you're happy in any foreign language, how about having both sides doing the 'if you shout loud enough they'll understand' thing at each other.

Scenario 2, dying of thirst in the desert ;) Or dealing with whichever is your most bureaucratic government agency - seem to see quite a few US-set scenes around difficulties renewing driving licences.

[alexseanchai]

I am not, really? But I can probably fake it halfway competently, with a Spanish dictionary and the online verb conjugator thinger I found the other week?

oh god the dmv nooooo. (It's not that bad really, especially if you look up beforehand what documentation you need and you make sure all the pieces of same are on you when you go [though that is of course conditional on having all the documentations, which not everyone does]. It's just that certain ideological groups want the public opinion of government to be overwhelming bureaucracy that needs to be cut back as far as possible, so they cut funding to oft-used government agencies such as the Department of Motor Vehicles. Which means fewer agency employees to serve customers, which means longer lines, which means more public perception that government is nothing but interfering bureaucracy, which means more support for cutting funding to things like the DMV.)

Thank you!

[davidgillon]

Google Translate isn't bad for the more common languages.

DMV - that's the one! Over here I'd use Department of Work and Pensions, who are justifiably notorious.

[executrix]

A teenager has brought home a flyer about HPV vaccination from school...and is embarrassed to show it to a somewhat staid parent, who has no idea even what to splutter.

Robertson Davies said that whenever he read stuff about business success he wanted to be a fly on the wall when someone who read self-help books was determined to sell a hundred dozen non-molting dust mops to someone who was equally determined not to buy them.

[alexseanchai]

Ooh, that is an awesome first scenario.

Thanks!

[aris_tgd]

One of my go-tos for the first kind of scenario is "one person attempting to express love for another in a situation where that expression is heavily circumscribed by society." e.g., a father attempting to express love for his son in a particularly socially repressed society, or two gay men attempting to talk about feeelings in a place where they've both had to remain completely closeted for fear of serious consequences.

[alexseanchai]

OOOOH. Thanks!

[aris_tgd]

... also, I just looked at your post properly, and you're at OSU? Neato! (Uh, about the only things I know about OSU are from the time I visited the reactor.)

[alexseanchai]

Not exactly. I'm Ecampus. Distance ed, and on the entirely wrong coast.

[aris_tgd]

Ahaha, that's cool. Again, literally the only things I know about OSU involve a different program. It's cool that they've got distance learning set up, though. Are you enjoying the program?

[alexseanchai]

It's much fun, yes. And I sort of lucked into what looks like a really good college on intersectionality. I was looking for a place where I could study economics and women's studies online. I have since mostly given up on economics, but I found an awesome women's studies program. Queer studies, too.

[frith_in_thorns]

The character gives into temptation and kicks the soda machine. It overbalances, and she only just jumps out of the way in time... and it squashes the man who was just happening to pass by. SUDDENLY SHE NEEDS TO FLEE THE SCENE OF A MANSLAUGHTER.

[alexseanchai]

Heehee

Thanks

[nenya_kanadka]

I think y'all have covered a whole bunch of awesome situations for our host, so this is just to say YOUR ICON <333. Hee!

[frith_in_thorns]

Thanks! :D

[aris_tgd]

SECONDED.

[pretty_panther]

Maybe an arachnophobic needs something in a room they knows has a spider in it. You could use a lot of words expressing their internal panic?

I did read the other prompts though and the language one might be interesting. A tourist on holiday or a foreign exchange student ect. You could easily google words for 'name' ' where is the bus station' and such and have accurate response appear or you could do it in first person to avoid the language and say something like 'It sounded like an Eastern European language. They kept pointing at their map but I had no idea' sort of thing?

[alexseanchai]

Thanks!

[kaberett]

You're welcome to use the soap opera that is my life for inspiration ;)

[alexseanchai]

Heheh. Thank you! If I do I will make sure to run it past you before posting.