Vertigo
Describe a scene from your daily life.
The sky has come down around us in a shroud.
Use plain language.
It is dark. An old man comes toward me.
He is smoking — no — it is cold out and that is his breath.
He walks a big dog.
Eliminate all adjectives.
Slowly he coughs into his sleeve.
And adverbs.
What could be the reason for my fear
now that he is just a man with a dog?
Think of yourself as a reporter.
I am standing at the intersection of Blankity and Blank.
The air loses its temperature.
I have often wished for someone to attack me.
Each time a character wishes, hopes, dreams, imagines,
it robs the action.
Closing in on me now, his white breath, and a girl
has appeared at the outskirts of my eye.
Do not rely on odd syntax.
Her shoes look like small puppies
helpless at her feet.
Remember: overusing simile and metaphor
weakens the prose.
It is possible, I mean to say, that you are
making a mistake and I am not
the woman you despise?
Speak with authority.
Yesterday on my way home from school
a bat fell out of the sky.
Try to think of an emotion that represents your world.
Often I become sick in social situations.
And also when I am alone.— Priscilla Becker (via The Ingoing)
