Source: Pixabay
My entry to the third Day of the Fast and Furious Festival. If you want to know what it is about check The Ink Well Fast and Furious Festival - Day three.
Task One
In your post, explore the differences between the two excerpts. How does each one make you feel as you are reading it? Try to analyse how each writer is achieving their effect. What sort of words are they using? How are their sentences constructed? Are they simple and straightforward or more complicated? Which tenses are they using?
My exercise
I've read more of Hemingway than Donna Tartt. In Hemingway's excerpt, I see simple, even everyday language. His words describe what the character looks at during a morning in Paris. He does it in the past time and in the first person. His sentences are shorts, and he uses almost no commas. The feeling I get is of a quiet day where nothing strange seems to happen.
As for Donna Tartt's excerpt, she uses a more complex language, even poetic. She uses similes to describe the spaces. The verbal time is past, and she narrates in the first person. She uses long sentences and several punctuation marks to make the grammatical pauses. Her text gives me a feeling of closure and some tiredness.
Task Two
1 Write down five emotions (for example, anger, joy, sadness, fear, hatred) on slips of paper and slip them into a hat or other container.
2 Now pick an object inside or outside where you are writing - a tree, a picture, a window.
3 Draw one emotion from the container, and try to describe that object from the perspective of a character feeling that emotion. (Don’t mention the emotion in your writing — try to describe the object so the reader could guess the emotion).
When you have finished, have a look at your writing and see if you can find three words to describe your own writing voice - add them to your post.
My exercise
From my bed, I look at the sky through it. The memories of the blue skies of summer return to my mind as well as the face of my beloved. The glass is clouded by yesterday's rain. I don't want to get out of bed but I do so to touch the wood that your fingers also brushed. I slip my hand and feel your presence. I look at the street and the people covered with waterproof coats jumping over the puddles of water. I return to my bed and stop looking at the sky of your absence.
Words: descriptive, poetic, lonely.
The exercise was done in 15 minutes. Then, I spent a lot of time to locate three words that would describe my writer's voice.
Thanks for reading.
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