Story A Challenge!

[MrSerious]

Writing an IC post today where my Exalted character gets up and walks into a room as his group is doing likewise. Frankly, I had no idea that I could be that prolific when it came to describing both the physical action and the mental processes of the character himself. So I had the thought, nay the inspiration, of seeing what the possibilities are in terms of flowery prose for one, single, action..


So, I put to you a writing Challenge and this is its premise:


You may describe, at length or in whatever form, a single physical action that your subject takes. Eg 'I stand and walk in the room' or 'I hit him' or 'I buy some flowers' etc etc. You must state at the start of your submission the action being described before setting the scene or actually doing any writing. I would be interested to see what some of you come up with?


There will be no prizes or judging, but simply writing for the sheer sake of it and the review of your peers.


Any takers?

 

[Ignitedstar]

Oh yeah. Color me intrigued.


We should have some kind of time limit. Of course, we have no time of proving that someone would take X minutes to write, but still. Something like, the maximum amount of time that we have to write and describe this single action is one hour or something. We know... out of honesty. I mean, you would have very different qualities of work if one person spent one hour on describing a single action compared to-- oh I don't know... someone who spent a week, working on a single piece on and off.


And, how far can we stretch the definition of "a physical action"? Like... talking?

 

[MrSerious]

Oh yeah. Color me intrigued.
We should have some kind of time limit. Of course, we have no time of proving that someone would take X minutes to write, but still. Something like, the maximum amount of time that we have to write and describe this single action is one hour or something. We know... out of honesty. I mean, you would have very different qualities of work if one person spent one hour on describing a single action compared to-- oh I don't know... someone who spent a week, working on a single piece on and off.


And, how far can we stretch the definition of "a physical action"? Like... talking?

I would say an hour would be sufficient and I trust everyone here to be honest . When I'm thinking 'one physical action' I mean like doing one action that can be done in under 30 seconds would be the best way of describing it. Ie nothing like 'building a house' or 'driving a car' or 'writing an eassy' or 'convincing someone to order pizza'

 

[Ignitedstar]

Awesome. I already have something in mind. Hehehe...


So, ONLY the single action? Remove all context of what's actually happening around them?

 

[MrSerious]

context is important but its up to you

 

[Doctor Calgori]

Challenge accepted.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

So describe an action that takes less than 30 seconds with the most flowery, prosaic detail possible within one hour OOC. Mind if I up the stakes? The last person to write a description writes the action for the next person...


Captain Hesperus

 

[Doctor Calgori]

We could also enact the no-delete clause. That's always fun.

 

[Ignitedstar]

Oh. I wasn't really thinking about this as "use the most flowery language possible". Because... I think that anyone can do that if they tried hard enough.


I believe that the real point in this exercise is to get the point across in the most descriptive way possible. Being descriptive isn't necessarily using ye olde English or finding the most egregious substitute for the word "bed" or something. I think of it as truly getting into the feeling of what's happening. There's no point in complex language if a reader cannot understand it. I know that this depends on the writer themselves, but forgetting that there is a common ground between writer and reader is what makes reading difficult. It isn't in a reader's best interest to try and read something that is very difficult for them to understand (*cough* untranslated Romeo and Juliet *cough*). A writer wants to break the... how do I explain... the "bond" that a reader has with what they're reading as little as possible.


The feeling of being immersed in what a person is reading... so much so that we may at one point feel as if it were real.


That's what I think this exercise is about.