Heard before seen
Make it seen · 15 minutes · Published
Read this first
Hardly had she finished these words, when a sound of laughter was heard from the back courtyard. "Here I am too late!" the voice said, "and not in time to receive the distant visitor!" "Every one of all these people," reflected Tai-yü, "holds her peace and suppresses the very breath of her mouth; and who, I wonder, is this coming in this reckless and rude manner?" While, as yet, preoccupied with these thoughts, she caught sight of a crowd of married women and waiting-maids enter from the back room, pressing round a regular beauty.
Cao Xueqin, Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber (1791). Translated by H. Bencraft Joly, 1892. Project Gutenberg #9603
The prompt
Bring someone into a room by sound first: a laugh, a line called out from the next courtyard, the hush it causes in everyone else, and only then the crowd that parts around them. Give three details the eye or the ear takes in and not one adjective of judgement. Let a bystander wonder who it is, in a single silent thought.
Set a timer for 15 minutes.
Short version · 10 minutes
In ten minutes, write the arrival: the voice through the wall, the hush, the entrance, three details.
The move
Make it seen. Describe with a few chosen details, heard or seen, so that the reader has the scene before them without a word of comment.
Tags: imagery and observation.
In a group
A way to run it with a writing group:
Blind vote. The texts are gathered without names, read and voted on. Then the writers make themselves known and the choices are discussed.
Where the page goes next
Scrin is a home where pages grow into books: you keep writing, from an untitled line to a chapter, and Scrin keeps the rest.