Writing prompt #116: DILATING TIME
Hi Everyone,
One of the things I love about good writing is how it can stop time: richly expanding a moment; indulging in a memory long gone but still vividly alive; sustaining an eternal loop of despair.
YOUR PROMPT: Choose a persistent, outsized moment in a character’s life. Describe it with great care, using all the sensory gifts at your disposal. Allow us, as readers, to inhabit this moment as fully as your character. Give it as much time and space as it needs.
For inspiration, I recommend reading poet Gerald Stern’s “The Dancing,” which recalls, ecstatically, the first time he heard Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” in 1945.
https://poets.org/poem/dancing
Enjoy!
Abrazos,
Cristina
Cristina, thank you for this gorgeous poem and the beautiful Ravel’s Bolero. What struck me among other things is that the poet seems to begin in a completely different setting (a kind of pawnshop?) and moves us to an object and then the memory of something entirely different. (What sleigh of hand) and the choice of the Bolero - a kind of elegiac marching band, the end of war and all the pain. Que belleza! I’d never heard of Gerard Stern!
This is such an important exercise, as it allows readers to identify and empathize with our characters. We're better able to understand a character's worldview and sensibilities by inhabiting their perspectives in scenes like the one this prompt is encouraging us to craft. Thank you, Cristina!