Creative Cattle Prod

A shock to the system for writers: exercises to stimulate the creative limbic, stir the creative grog, and jumpstart your mentality. Updated weekly.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Little Evils

This week's challenge: Little evils

It's easy to write about an evil that threatens the world, or the life of a character. But there are lots of "small evils" that happen every day - bullies, gossipers, backstabbers. These little evils can be useful to generate dislike for a character, or to generate sympathy for the character who is the subject of these evils.

The challenge is to write these scenes with just the right amount of drama. Too much, and it becomes melodrama. Too little, and the scene is flat.

So here's your challenge for this week: Write a scene showing a character inflicting or enduring these small persecutions (or one character persecuting another), with just the right amount of drama.

Good luck.

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