Ever heard a person say they were green with envy, or feeling lonely and blue, or so angry they were seeing red? Over the years, for whatever reason, we have married colors to emotions and they have become ordinary vernacular.
Today I will challenge you to discover a new colorful emotion with a very simple exercise I picked up from Nutschell over at thewritingnut.com at a writing workshop. Hopefully one or two phrases will stick with you and inspire a poem or dialogue in a story! I was a big fan of crimson jealousy when I first tried the exercise and have a feeling I'll be using it somewhere.
writing exercise: Make a list of five colors - the fancier the better (i.e. Burgundy in lieu of red). I will offer a slight twist and allow patterns such as polka-dotted as an acceptable alternative. Now make a list of five abstract ideas or emotions such as hope, prayer, frustration. Once you have both lists match each color with each abstraction. You will have a new list of 25 concepts to play with in your writing!
Read on for writercizer sample response. (writing this on an iPad so do not have full functionality to offer read more option as usual)
colors: lavender, paisley, teal, maroon, ivory
exercises to inspire word play, hone the craft of the written word and bulldoze writer's block for authors, bloggers, poets, freelancers, teachers, students, dreamers and writers of all kind
Having difficulty with technology so will post as comment for now ...
ReplyDeleteColors: lavender, paisley, teal, maroon, ivory
Abstractions: doubt, compassion, love, distress, fate
Results:
Lavender doubt, lavender compassion, lavender love, lavender distress, lavender fate, paisley doubt, paisley compassion,paisley love, paisley distress, paisley fate, teal doubt, teal compassion, teal love, teal distress, teal fate, maroon doubt, maroon compassion, maroon love, maroon distress, maroon fate, ivory doubt, ivory compassion, ivory love, ivory distress, ivory fate
What might I use? I'm liking ivory love and the paisleys right now ...
i'm just going to list some possibilities that came together (i had to list 10 each, because my first set of colors were all fruit! then the second set, all drab!)
ReplyDeleteblueberry sorrow, grape deception, tangerine elation, lemon ecstacy, apricot disappointment, beige boredom, camoflouge surprise, checkerboard anxiety, burnt sennia excitement, khaki exhaustion
and here's pride apple for the teacher! thx for the thot prompt!
You have a fabulous blog! I'm your 100th follower now. I want to award you with one of my homemade awards: Powerful Woman Writer Award for all the hard work you do!
ReplyDeleteGo to http://astorybookworld.blogspot.com/p/awards.html and pick up your award.
~Deirdra