Read this on galpod.com.
I'm sure all five of you reading this are dying to know how the deliberate practice went. My skill for last week was to colour descriptions based on the character's personality, mood, etc. The good news is that I practised this every weekday, which is good because I had kids about. I described the coffee shop I was working at from my MC's point of view when he was in a good mood and when he was in a bad mood. I described another character from the point of view of two characters in my WIP. I described the MC's home from his point of view and that of his daughter. I wrote a backstory scene from the point of view of my MC and his former boss. And I wrote a random little story about the night the Tooth Fairy failed to deliver coins from the point of view of the Tooth Fairy, Tink (who was covering for her), and Sandy (who watched this from the outside). That one was fun to write.
I had fun, and I wrote over 3k words last week, which is good. However, I noticed that I don't necessarily use different word choices for different characters. Each character I write see different things, and there's a different tone, but I'm not sure I use different words per se. Anyways, there's room for improvement, but I'm letting this one sit for a little while. This week I'm practising my figurative language. I'll try to use figurative language in my #WordOfTheDay tweets, so watch out for that. And I'm doing some metaphor exercises which might be fun.
So, help me out: do you notice three different characters in the following scene?
Tooth Fairy:
I’ll never forget that day. The day I didn’t deliver. It’s still hard for me to talk about it, even though many years have passed. I was in a slump, I’ll admit it. I was finding it hard to keep myself motivated. I felt like I’m doing the same thing over and over again, and I began to wonder what the point of it all was. Sandy and I were sitting, like we do every evening, on a high rooftop, watching the sun floating towards the horizon. We like to take that daily break together, that moment in the day when it’s not quite evening anywhere in the world. Sandy said I’m working too hard and I need to loosen up. I remember thinking, that’s a great idea. What if I get someone to cover for me and take the day off? I raced off to Neverland and got Tink to cover for me. She’s a good girl, but I should have known this was too much for her. I woke up the next morning with a serious hangover and Tink standing before me, her face red, crying that she failed me.
Tink:
So, Tooth Fairy comes over one day, all frantic. You gotta cover for me, she says, I need a day off, please, Tink. I say, sure. I thought it was going to be pretty straightforward. I got a few of the fairies to help out, easy peasy. But then, I don’t know, we didn’t get enough houses covered I guess. Before I knew it, it was morning, and we haven’t delivered all the coins we had. I collected all the coins from everyone and went to see Tooth Fairy. I was rather disappointed with myself, to be honest. But I didn’t know what I could’ve done different. I tried to get Tooth to tell me what I’d done wrong, but she just said, Thanks, Tink, I got it from here, please can you stop talking? I don’t know what’s up in her skirt.
Sandy:
We’re not humans, but we’re not perfect either. The universe would be rather dull for a perfect being, I should think. Tooth Fairy is a dedicated hard worker, but she was having a rough time. I was meeting with her every evening, and I could see her withering like a flower in a vase. Her shine was fading. I told her I thought she needed to take a day off. Regardless of the results, I was glad she took my advice. True, it could have been managed better perhaps. But I think it was a valuable lesson as well. She learned that even if a few children don’t get the anticipated coin, it’s not the end of the world. Children are resilient. I checked up on some of the children who were neglected that night. They grew up to be perfectly functioning adults. A little more bitter than they could have been, a little less awestruck. But then again, many adults are.
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