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Exercise #149: Craft
Posted 3/3/06
Recently I’ve heard the same line from several different sources. Each person gave their own twist to it, so the same, exact wording came out meaning something different for each. (The line was “What do you think?”)
The conversations in which this line came up made me remember a lesson I once had. In a classroom, the instructor asked several students to say this line: “I didn’t steal the money.” He gave each student only one instruction: Say the line like no one else has already said it. The different ways it came out?
I didn’t steal the money. (Someone else must have.)
I didn’t steal the money. (How could you accuse me of thievery?)
I didn’t steal the money. (I only borrowed it.)
I didn’t steal the money. (I took the wallet.)
How do we give tone of voice to our characters? For this exercise, show us two characters having a conversation in which one of them uses the line above. Make it clear from how the scene plays out which way the character means the line.
You are not allowed to embellish or change the words (and with plain text you can’t bold or italicize), or to use any other character-spoken sentence in the paragraph containing the above line. Do not use the sentences in the parentheses; these are for clarification of tone in this post only.
Please note the higher word limit for this exercise.
Word limit: 1500
Please use the subject line
SUB: Exercise #149/yourname
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