Writing Prompt #28 Excuse me… Do you have the time?
We have all had to ask someone we don’t know for the time. You just lean over and catch their attention. Heck you don’t even have to say anything. A simple inquisitive look and pointing to your wrist is all it takes. It is a something that even crosses language barriers. It is a normal everyday thing, right?
This is where you turn it on its ear. You have started a scene. You have a character in mind as the protagonist. The surroundings possibly have been all fleshed out in beautiful detail. You might even have the person whom is being asked for the time all figured out. The second your main character looks down at the watch face of the kind and sympathetic person whom they asked take every preconceived notion about this scene and throw it out. It is time for some Twilight Zone style story lines. Change everything but the main character and the watch face they were looking at. What does your character do? Where are they? What happened? How do they get back?
If you want to take this one step further take a piece of paper out and write six settings, secondary characters and genres. Then a roll of the dice and you are off. This is a test to see how well you write out of your comfort zone. It also shows how well you know your character under stress and in a different setting, genre and story than you are used to.
I have the time this week. So why aren’t I doing it?
This is a really cool prompt. Thanks for sharing it!
Great exercise, thanks.
I’m glad you all liked it. To be honest the idea came from someone else at work asking about watches and which one would be a better buy. It is always funny where we get our inspirations from.