Cafe
Thanks for coming. This is your first week at the Author Gym and we’re moving into the great outdoors. Hope you have brought material for collecting your Field Notes.
Field Notes:
Go to a café and watch somebody drink a coffee, from the time they get it until they stand to leave. Look for any interaction with the surroundings, other people, obvious signals of emotion, a quick glance, facial expressions, body positioning, distractions and anything that will help your reader experience the scene.
WARM UP
5 minutes
As a writer, think how this person and the setting might fit together and form a scene. How can you make a person having a coffee more interesting? What could they be doing that would create interest? Work as though you are writing a segment of a story, not merely an isolated incident. This is not an exercise about taking a verbal photo.
The person and their coffee must be the central focus.
Do not forget your writer's superpower — creativity.
As a reader, I want to be sucked into the scene, not look on as if it were a painting.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create this scene, pull your reader into it and leave them wanting more.
WRITING
20 minutes
Aim for 200-250 words.
It does not matter if you don't get that far. Just let it flow. Ignore the world around you and all its teasing prompts while you work for yourself.
COOL DOWN
5 minutes
Now sit back and enjoy reading your work. Write down your thoughts on the following:
• Did you make the person and their coffee central to the interpretation of the scene?
• Do you think readers can picture what you imagine, feel how you want them to?
• Would they find it engaging? Why?
Write down what you want the reader to be feeling or be thinking at the end of this passage.
Great work! Keep it for later reference.
Feel free to make any comments or suggestions. You may even wish to share your scene for others to enjoy and learn from the different interpretations people made in taking on this mission. If you want to comment on anyone’s work, we do not allow any nastiness, that is for venues other than the Author Gym.
Have a fun day.
Damon
See you soon.
