From: "the plot sickens" <mbarker@mit.edu>
To: "fold, bend, and mutilate" <writers@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject: EXERCISE: Turn, Turn, Turn...
--------

[well, well, well.  
sitting on your words again?  
UP AND AT THOSE KEYS!
no strain, no gain, so work those words!]

Change is one of the essences of plot.  So, let's try this:

a.  Pick a pair of characters.

b.  Pick one of the following 12 emotions.  You may use two dice if you
like.

1.  sadness  2. distress  3.  relief  4.  joy  
5.  hate  6. love 7.  fear  8. anticipation  
9.  anger  10.  guilt  11.  gratitude  12. pride

c.  Pick another one of the 12 emotions.  If you happen to roll the same
number with your dice, roll again.

d.  The plot skeleton--
    one character feels the first emotion (towards the other character,
if appropriate).
    the characters interact...
    the first character feels the second emotion (towards the other).

e.  WRITE!  How does fear change into gratitude?  Pride curdle into
anger?  Guilt turn into joy?

Don't forget, you want to show us the person, rather than just telling
us about the emotion.  Okay?

(wow!  these alchemist writers, bent over their strange alembics and
intoning unspeakable tongues of demonic descent, with the philosophers'
stone as an anvil and dialectical enlightenment as a hammer, forge the
humors of man into new and marvelous shapes of mist and glitter.:-)

Watch as the plots thicken!  See them twist, see them bend, and gaze
upon raw climaxes exposed by you.  Just put your belief in overdrive,
your disbelief in suspension, and write on into the sunset...

tink