I wasn’t sure what to do when the genre randomizer gave us “drama” as a prompt for this week’s exercise. Isn’t “drama” the foundation of all stories and genres? Valued stakes at risk, conflict in pursuing goals?
But the “drama” section on my streaming platforms usually recommends character-driven stories without other significant elements: contemporary settings, no magic, maybe a little action or romance or mystery but not as the primary plot. Mostly stories about characters overcoming some inner struggle.
So that’s what I tried for with these prompts:
- Character: Pianist
- Object: Feathers
- Genre/Tone: Drama
I don’t know how well I managed to create a compelling character drama, but at least I managed my lowest word-count yet: just four hundred words. (The original exercise aims for two hundred fifty words!)
Let me know what you think! And if you feel inspired to try the exercise yourself, post it in the comments!
The recording studio felt like a large practice room: the same muffling on the walls carried the same musty smell and the same dulling of all sounds to bare thumps. Amanda much preferred the live bright spaces of a stage or even an open-air amphitheater. But she was not here by choice.
Her band leader Lisa, the bassist in their jazz trio, had accepted a challenge to create the most original piece of music, and had bet all their gear on winning the challenge. Now she was stuffed with a baby grand in the most uncreative space she could imagine.
She sat at the keyboard and put the headphones over her ears. They were they only way she could hear Lisa and Gretchen, their drummer. They were each sealed off in separate rooms so that their individual instruments could be recorded without interference from each other. But it was the interference that made the harmonies, that made the dissonance, that made the music. And the first take was an utter failure: a simple ii-V-III-vi loop with the least inspired melody Amanda had ever played. She hated it.
When the engineer called for a break, Amanda turned to open the door. She needed to talk to the others, but the studio was a labyrinth and somehow she opened a door to the alley in back, where the stench of the dumpsters slapped her in the face. A pair of pigeons hopped down from the eaves and into the isolation room with her piano. “No, get out!” She chased the birds around the instrument, but as soon as she got close to one, the other would escape into the sound box or across the keyboard. And she stopped, and listened. Notes she’d never put together before. She turned and shut the door, locking the birds in with her. Amid the flying feathers, she sat back at the keyboard and said to the engineer, “Okay, I’m ready.”
At the end of the day, she ushered the pigeons out of the recording booth, and met her bandmates in the greenroom. Posters and headshots covered the walls, and the scent of cinnamon potpourri covered the sweaty musk, but neither Lisa nor Gretchen were looking anywhere else except at Amanda. “Where did you get those chords? Those melodies? Those… noises?”
“Oh, it’s just something a little bird told me.” She smiled, confident they’d keep their gear.
