The Storytellers Club: I Spy
Week 2 of this workshop was a real challenge; all show and no tell.
Borrowing prompts—the core of every Club game.
The I Spy writing game, which is the one Stephanie chose for us this past week, features three categories, one after the other. The challenge is to describe something by showing—no telling allowed. It’s all about tapping into sense, response, reaction, memory, and other clues to create an image.
For example, instead of telling the reader a character is tall, show the reader how they refuse to walk on crowded sidewalks in the rain because they could lose an eye, or how they have to stoop to walk through doorways, or how they’re forever having the hems taken down on store-bought dresses.
In I Spy, we begin by choosing a type of person to describe then move on to an outdoor space and finally an indoor space. Each writer gets to throw three of types of people into the ring, as well as three outdoor spaces and three indoor spaces. From the ring, they pick their prompt, one per category.
The writers get about 10 minutes to develop a list of descriptions for their chosen prompt. It’s harder than it seems at first. I gotta say, these writers worked hard to find ways to show us all their prompt without any telling.
In the first round, their choices included a circus clown, a boat captain, and a nurse. The last one was a little on the telling side as far as the outward appearance of the nurse but did a great job showing her character, which is no small thing.
In the second round, the choices moved to outside spaces like front porch, swing set, and balcony. Linda’s very first attempt placed us all right on that old, squeaky swing set, and it was awesome.
In the final round, three writers chose to describe a transit station and I was surprised and delighted that two of them focused on sound in completely different ways - one on foreground and one on background noise - while the third delivered on the character of the crowd.
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