Prose exercise: Inventing a character
FinsburyParkCarrots
Posts: 12,223
Invent a character. Give them a name, an age, an occupation and a wage. Give them an attitude to all four. Give them a favourite newspaper and television/radio show, a specific town of habitation and an attitude to current affairs. Then, give them an inherited family trait of which the character is well aware and tries (sometimes unsuccessfully) to check. Give the character a long standing ambition: Is this ambition to escape from or become more involved in their present community? Give this character one annoying relative and a partner who are not sympathetic to these aspirations. And propose something that might enter this character's life that would offer them a way out.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
Now. Fancy doing the exercise? :cool:
I have to meet up with the local artists....
Thanks...until tomorrrow...I will create you a masterpiece....
allison 'ali'
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
I'll give it a try when I'm more suited for writing ( tonight's victims: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v97/Kwidgibo/slut.jpg )
I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
Happy Birthday.
Kwyj,
Mountain Dew and Mickey's. What a great still life.
Fins,
This this sounds like fun.
My name is Julia.Julia Love. I live on a wooded corner of a deserted street,
in rural Arkansas,USA.My house is blue with black shutters and I have a swimming pool in my back yard.I work as a waitress at a truckstop on RD40
in Little Rock, and make somewhere between $347.26-$402.79 a week.It depends upon the weather and whether or not my bi-polarisms kick in.I'd say I have a relatively bright,cheery , and optimistic attitude...with the except of
dealing with Ralph.Ralph is my boyfriend.He has a bad cocaine habit,and likes to do an eightball a night,and when he's finished...he tends to get rather violent and fidgety.I wish he could quit this bad habit...but the police in my town dont seem to care and there are no rehabilitative services to even be offered to Ralph.So it looks like I'l just continue to fight with him on a daily basis.Now to tell ya about my other struggle in life-my step-father's,half-sister's,third husband's daughter, Bobette.
Bobette's in her 30's these days. She lives in her van. Her van doesn't go, but that's ok, cuz it's not her mode of transportation. It's her domicile. She's got two jobs. She's a lesbian avenger and a radio dj. Neither pay. She's a dj for a public radio station in Some Liberal City in Some Red State. No definable topic to her show. Well, actually yes. It's the rants of an angry man-hating, lesbian femi-nazi.
Editorial comment:
Our character Julia is Ali's conconcoction, with Anne throwing in a word or two here and there. Bobette is Anne's concoction, lie, someone Anne actually knows. Bringing Bobette into the picture just gave creative genious, Ali, an instant hangover from all of the drinks she had last night celebrating her birthday. Mind you, she's been awake for four hours now, went out to two fast food restaurants, Burger King for Anne's breakfast and McDonald's for Ali's lunch. Ali is now horribly ill. We must go tend to her ill belly. Belly full of jelly. Not. Belly full of bose. (How do you spell buse?)
So I guess Anne and Ali will not be writing plays together in the future, if incorporating Anne's part of the story makes her feel instant nasea.
Rats. -Anne
Anyway, Julia's problem with Bobette is that he/she, Bobette, is transgenered. Which Julia doesn't have a problem with. And that's Julia's problem. Julia is Bobette's only relative or pseudo-relative that doesn't have a problem with it, which makes Julia Bobette's only relative. Imagine living in rural Arkansas, with your abusive, fidgety, violent, coke-head boyfriend Ralph, when Bobette comes into town on a greyhound bus for Christmas and then stays until three weeks past Easter.
Editorial comment 2:
After typing the last two paragraphs...alone...while Ali's puts healthy things in her belly, I said "Alright, I'm getting better," meaning my creative juices are flowing, to which Ali said "So am I," meaning she's feeling less naseas after she stopped whatching me type the tale of my character Bobette. -Anne
Since no one in the family will talk to Bobette, and Ralph is a petrified,Redneck,Nascar watchin,NRA card carrying member-Julia is left with the problem of being rescued by the likes of Pearl Jam.
The end
EDITORIAL NOTE: WE ARE BRAIN FRIED.CANT TAKE THIS MUCH LONGER FINNSBURY PARK CARROTS MY LOVE.-ALI
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
2-38
3-wise woman
4-non-negotiable
5-Sophia means wisdom, and she's known this her entire life.
6-Midwifery today
7-KPLU 88.5 Seattle
8-Bainbridge Island, WA
9-She marched many times for women's rights. Now, she doesn't buy what she doesn't want sold, professionals have to prove they are worthy of the initials after their names.
10-Breast cancer, she's read all the articles, and was going to pursue oncology as a career, but switched to midwifery because of all the inappropriate c-sections, and masectomies.
11-Open a birthing center
12-Annoying sibling does not call anymore because Sophia did not feel respected as a person who can live her own life by this annoying sibling, and asked annoying sibling not to call again. Unsupportive partner, is now ex-husband living who-cares-where.
13-Sophia was asked by a woman who was born with a heart disease to assist at the birth of her child. Women born with heart diseases are considered "high-risk" patients, and legally a midwife is not able to assist high-risk patients outside the structure of a hospital. Sophia could lose her license and incur other legal problems. However, the pregnant woman was a former partner of a U.S. Supreme Court Judge and the American Medical Association does not want to cause much of a stir right now due to all the exposed c-section and masectomy procedures without documented proof for the procedure. The U.S. Supreme Court Judge introduced the pregnant woman to her current partner, and sometimes the U.S. Supreme Court Judge and the pregnant woman's partner shoot pool together.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
Bobbette, is she/he wearing bobby pins or barrettes?
NoW>>>WHERES YOUR CHARACTER?!!!!!!!!!!
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
see you crazies then!
LOVE<
ALLISON
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
(LaMar is going to speak for himself)
I am LaMar. I am twenty-seven, and I live in Chicago.
I work for Second City, and I really dig my producer. She’s one of those jack-of-all trades and came to get me out of the hospital when I accidentally overdosed one night or morning last year.
I do improvisational comedy. The coke helps sometimes, you know, when you’ve got to be “on.” I mean really, “on,” to turn your audience on.
Lately, I’ve felt more like I’m finding the off switch.
Most of us are. We’re comedians, and we all want to be Bill Hicks. Except me. Because Bill Hicks is dead, cancer, go figure, and trying to force his way into John Stewart’s body. According to my girlfriend, I should do the same.
She’s hoping I get my big break and wind up on SNL, move from New York to Hollywood and make really mindless movies and lots of money. It’s her plan. She always has a plan. But I don’t know. Every time I look through the papers, and I look through all the papers I can get my hands on; you’ve got to be in-the-know when you’re doing improv; anyway, when I look through them I find less and less that’s funny. I worry that I’m losing my sense of humor. I think about finding a car. One question keeps jumping all around in my head, and that question is how in the hell am I going to get Claire to Hollywood without them?
I go down to the lake in the afternoons and stare at it. For a while I forget that there are concrete buildings.
I remember my dad, his hammock, laughing, and saying, “Son, I always told your mom I was going to be a beach bum.”
My dad worked for the electric company in our shitty, little town for thirty years, so I always thought that that was his one and only joke. After all, I’m the comedian in our family, I should be able to spot them.
But now, I’m not so sure. I think I might know that feeling. The one he had when he said he was going to be a beach bum.
And I guess it’s no joke.
I’m tempted, sitting out here by the lake, to tell Claire, “Sweetheart, I am going to be a beach bum.”
But I know myself, and I know Claire. She’d leave my ass high and dry.
And here I am thinking more and more about buying a car.
The thespian in me is screaming for more.
You must know how how I love stories about comedians and cocaine...
very Robin Williams inspired?!!!!
No...seriously...I like it alot...now if we could have finns' opinion...
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
na-nu
(I have no idea how to spell that. does anybody?)
I think LaMar was listening to PJ's got a car, got some gas, let's get outta here, get out a here fast . . . we can make it up as we go . . .
Fins, where's your character?
GOODIE!
Fins, I can't wait.
Forty-two year old Billy Conway occasionally does a couple of weeks work here and there tarmacking for Mick Hennessy's subcontracting firm, but otherwise he draws dole. He prefers to be called Liam because it sounds more Catholic Irish. But his mother called him William after some uncle and he consequently always got teased when back home in Kilkenny for being a supporter of William of Orange, earning the epithet "King Billy" which he hates to this day.
He doesn't mind a bit of shovelling: Hennessy pays cash at the end of the week, a good hundred a day and no messing. Enough to pay a bit of rent and get a few pints in.
He goes to the local newsagent and orders a copy of The Irish Independent (which gets shipped in); he doesn't have a television but he has a little radio set he and his mongrel Scruffy keep in the kitchen of their flat, to listen to RTE 1 on Long Wave.
Living in North London there's a good Irish community but there's a few eejits in the pubs wanting to know your business and saying they know your family and the rest of it. Billy prefers anonymity and uses his middle name, Joseph, at work for Hennessy and in the pubs when he can help it.
He resents people knowing his family business because his uncle Sean was imprisoned for killing a taxi driver in his village. In his village Billy knew he'd never get over the stigma of his uncle's loss without money to afford a little bought respectability, so he headed for Dublin. But because of his inherited temper, he was fined for assault after an incident with the husband of Catherine, someone else's wife: He's in England fifteen years now, moving from city to city, running away, seeking invisibility, handy work and a few beers.
Billy was a great pool player in his day. Good at sports all around. He never sold his GAA cups even in the worst straits. He still dreams of sobering up and trying to do something with his talent. His local pub want him to come down with them to a game with this traveller bloke who's good, for a game. There's money on it. He doesn't know if he's got it in him anymore to play. But the match is for several thousand. The money could get Billy more games, more indepenence: a way out of the dead end cycle of casual labour and fleeing himself.
But now he hears his brother Declan's in town, penniless after a breakup with his missus and wanting to stay on Billy's couch. Declan starts stealing Billy's cash from his kitchen drawer (Billy doesn't keep a bank account). Billy confronts Declan and tells him he's better than him, that he could have been a great pool player and made it. But would Billy use earnings from pool matches to run to another English town, away from the last vestiges of his past, or return home to Ireland for good, to reconcile himself to his community regardless of his uncle's wrongs?
Working as a teacher can be hard, even if she only teach visual arts.
The salury she owns is enough for her and her yellow cat, and she saves a bit to afford moving someday, just to a better neighbourhood, that's her dream, a house for her and her cat, with a big garden.
The best time of the day is when she quits work, takes the old bike her grandfather once owned and rides home thru the city, she smiles then, sometimes she stops at the grocerystore to buy some food for the evening, but it's no fun making dinner in her loneliness, she often goes to a friend who lives nearby, they eat infront of the tv watching Frasier or CSI miami.
They understand each other, she is really happy to have a friend like Sara. How else could she have managed to live through the days, when Dan her one and only boyfriend on his way to the gym get's himself killed in traffic. Her whole life got smached into pieces, that day.
Her littlesister Karen annoys her, she had it all by the age of 25. She has two wonderful kids, a big house with a pool, a great handy husband Stan, (well not a good education, but that's no big deal.)
It's not that she isn't happy for her sake, she is, but it's just that Karen, can't stop giving all these good advises all the time, she is a pain sometimes, Lisa just feels more depressed.
This morning something happened to Lisa, this thought she was about to make would play a decisive role in her future, she was still lying in bed when she started daydreaming, seeing something appear in the morningfogg, it was actually a prince on a white horse, running in slow motion in her direction, coming to save her from a boring life, she saw his smiling face, it looked kind of familiar somehow and suddenly she felt the longing to get to work very fast realising........she was strangely attracted to the janitor at the school.. ; )
it only makes today worse.
That's a good one.
It's about as close to drinking flowers as a person can get.