Opening Doors Part 2

A couple of years ago I wrote in Yellow Pencils about using doors as a prompt to start a story. 

I took this photo in Stratford-upon-Avon, the English town where William Shakespeare was born and lived. 

Do any story ideas spring to mind with this blue door? Who or what do you think lives behind it?

A door is an invitation to a new place where anything can happen. Doors exist in our real world, and they can play an important part in imaginary worlds. 

Try using one of these lines as a first sentence to a story. 

• The blue door creaked open slowly, and I gasped.

• My mom had warned me about the blue door.

• It's a well-known fact that blue doors can sing.

• When the blue door flew open, I fell through it flat on my face.

• He knocked on the blue door, ignoring the word "Beware" whispering in his head. 

Enjoy creating your own world through this door!   

Setting: Orange Place

 Last week I wrote about blue trees. Today I'm writing about Orange Place. 

Orange Place is in Seattle. I don't know how the street got its name. When I was there I didn't see any orange trees, orange houses, or orange leaves (because it's February). But I think Orange Place is a great name for a street.

If you were writing a story set on Orange Place, who would live there? Orange people? Orange cats? Or blue people who think it's funny to live on Orange Place?

Set a story on Orange Place. For fun, make the cross street Purple Way, Crimson Drive, or Turquoise Boulevard. What color are the sidewalks, houses, stores, mailboxes, and cars? 

For extra deliciousness, eat an orange while you write your story. And ponder this question: did you know no word in English rhymes with orange? 

More About Color

It must be those fall leaves again, but I'm obsessed with color these days. 

I just finished reading The Light Beyond the Forest, the second in the fabulous King Arthur trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff, and she pays attention to color. 

Here's how Sutcliff brings the quest for the Holy Grail to life with fresh descriptions of gold and red and black. As I read, I wanted to join the knights on their adventures! 

new-fired gold

russet-brown

badger-streaked

crimson-striped

honey-comb golden houses

a cross as red as fresh-spilled blood on fresh-fallen snow

the proud fierce white of swan's wing or lightning flash

the blackness had a bloom on it like the bloom on a thundercloud

eyes as softly and deeply blue as nightshade flowers

the bulging black bellies of the storm clouds 

a mouth as silken red as harvest poppies

blazed red as though he were a tongue of flame

Try taking a piece of writing you're working on. Have you used colors in your descriptions? Can you make them more vivid by using an unusual color word, or by creating a simile? What does the color really look like? Not just gold, but new-fired gold or honey-comb golden houses. 

If your piece of writing doesn't include colors, try adding a flash here and there with your own inventive description. 

What about the green field in the photo above? It could be another boring landscape, or it could come to life as the blurred-green grass stretched through the haze. 

Be original with color! Have fun! 

Color

It's fall, and that means fall leaves! 

To me, the best thing about leaves in the fall is their color. (But I also love the crunchy sound they make when you kick your legs through them.) 

Red, yellow, orange, brown. Yawn.

How about a more exciting way to describe autumn leaves? When we add specific colors to our writing, our descriptions become more concrete and vivid.

A yellow leaf? Try ocher, mustard-yellow, saffron, flaxen.

Red? Wine, scarlet, crimson, blood-colored. 

Orange? Tangerine, coral, salmon, reddish-yellow.

For those of you with fall leaves outside your door, check out the incredible range of colors. Try describing a leaf in a poem: 

Falling

The crimson maple leaf

twirls toward the ground

like a glass of wine 

spilling ruby drops. 

Color and Music

Last week I talked about color, and this week I'm adding music. I love mixing different senses, like sight and sound, to see how that affects what we write.

I did this writing exercise in my class for adults, "Creativity for Writers," and it's a great exercise to do in a group. Six to eight is a good number.

Let's say you have 8 people. Find 8 pens with different colored ink, or 8 sharp colored pencils. Each person chooses a pen, and takes out their notebook or a big piece of paper. Find a source of music--an MP3 player, a CD player and some CDs, a computer, or the radio. Sit in a circle.

One person is in charge of the music. This exercise works best if you have different kinds of music--pop, rap, classical, country, rock, jazz, etc. You don't have to like the music. In fact, if you hate the music, that can make things more interesting!

The person in charge puts on a piece of music. While it's playing, everyone writes about the color of their ink or pencil. The person with the green pen writes about the color green. The person with the red pen writes about the color red.

What to write about? Write quickly without thinking too much, and listen to the music while you're writing. What associations do you have with that color? What does the color make you think of? Does the music tie in somehow? You don't have to write in complete sentences. Words or phrases are okay. Don't worry about spelling or punctuation.

Here's what I wrote about the color blue while a song by the 1960s band The Beach Boys was playing:

Blue perfect for the Beach Boys waves water California clouds sun the blue of the day in summer, shimmering ocean, the blue of a boy's eyes as he runs in the sand. Sparkle deep, flip flops with aqua blue flowers.

After a minute or two, the person in charge changes to a different piece of music. Everyone passes their pen to the person on the right, and takes a pen from the person on their left.

Write about your new color while the new music is playing. Again, write quickly without thinking too much. After another minute or two, switch the music and your pens. Keep writing about each color until you're all back to your original color, and write about that color again. How was your writing different this time?

For fun, read your writing out loud in the circle. What did everyone write for pink, or yellow? What colors did everyone have for the jazz piece (if you had jazz), and what did you all write about? Did the music affect the writing? Did some music make you angry, or happy?

Did any words or phrases you wrote down give you a story idea?

Three Colors Your Character Would Never Wear

Do you have a favorite color? (I have two, purple and green, especially when they're together.) Do you have a least favorite color? A color you hate? A color that makes you feel sick? A color you would never wear?

Guess what? Our characters have opinions about color, too. Our characters' opinions can surprise us. What if the captain of the football team loves hot pink? Or if a ballet dancer's favorite color is army-green? We can use our characters' favorite or least favorite colors to reveal something about who they are.

Think about a character from a story you've written or a story you want to write. What are three colors your character would never wear? Write a paragraph from that character's point of view telling us why.

Here's one of my characters talking:

The worst color ever is puce. Doesn't it sound horrible? In case you've never heard of puce, it's dark red-brown-purple. It's the color of throw-up after you've eaten a bowl of Spaghettios with grape juice. It's the color of that stuff on the bottom of your shoe after a dog's walked by. It's the color of mud on a rainy day after you slide into third base, and your face is slammed into the mud and it's splattered all over your teeth and hair. It's the color--but you get the idea. Don't ever wear puce. I don't.

What are three colors your character would never wear?

The 5 Senses with Color

Here's a fun prompt using our 5 senses to make our writing come alive.

Presenting........ the 5 senses!

1. sight

2. taste

3. smell

4. hearing (sound)

5. touch (feel)

What is your favorite color? Maybe it's green, or blue, or something exotic like periwinkle or blood-red.

On a sheet of paper, or in your writer's notebook, write down your favorite color.

Now think about the 5 senses. What does your color look like? Taste like? Smell like? Sound like? Feel like?

Here's an example for the color yellow.

Yellow looks like the skirt my mom wears in the summer.

Yellow tastes like ripe bananas in a big bowl.

Yellow smells like the lead in pencils.

Yellow sounds like the sun crossing the sky.

Yellow feels like a cool drink of lemonade down my throat.

What does YOUR favorite color look, taste, smell, sound, and feel like? Use your imagination and have fun!