Learning about Poetry (part 11): distant Conceptional to more touchable, Tangible

©2020 by Ken Wickham

All rights reserved.

Based on the prior day\s poetic lines, in this exercise, I’ll try to fish out a few more abstract—but seemingly important—and add on or replace the words with more tangible groups of words.

To make things more brief, let's just focus on three sentences.

1. Sanctuary.

There outside my sanctuary, covered by showering-mist rainy, wet dusk.

secured sanctuary, my house,

There outside my secured sanctuary, my house, covered by showering-mist rainy, wet dusk.

2. Hurt

Hurt and lusk,

unmoving, sunken deep,

almost under, on a reclining sofa.

Wound bleeding-broken bone-hurt

Wound bleeding, broken bone—hurt and lusk,

unmoving, sunken deep

almost under, on a reclining sofa.

Don’t touch.

3. Far

Gone far from my familiarity,

away from my home by final, unstoppable dusk.

eight hundred miles

Gone eight hundred miles from my familiarity,

away from my home,

divided by final, unstoppable dusk.

That was fun. In the next poetry post, I think I might want to focus on figurative language.

Learning about Poetry (part 10): Vague to Detail

©2020 by Ken Wickham

All rights reserved.

In the last poetry post, sensory words and images were added to the researched set of rhymes in order to make the sentences more visceral. Here is the result so far.

I heard the bombastic busk,

blasting echoes in the city dusk.
"Don't be brusque!" I said to the one most abrupt.

A heavy scent of lingering fresh musk.

Beads of sweat on skin forming an aromatic musk.

Eating fishy cusk and crunchy rusk.

There by rainy, wet dusk.

The slippery sliding and gliding slimy mollusk.

Protruding sharp and long, like fangs

impaled deep and deadly the tusk.

I'm just an empty dried husk,

of my ancient former self.

Hurt and lusk, unmoving, sunken in a sofa.

From bright noon to darkening dusk.

A single undulating foot of a dark shelled mollusk.

Gone far by final dusk.

This exercise, I'll focus on making a few of the descriptions more specific.

I heard pounding in my eardrum the increasingly bombastic busk,

blasting echoes in the shadowy towers of the unfamiliar city dusk.

"Don't be brusque!"
I said to the one,
my foe,
whom I despise most abrupt.

A heavy scent drifted to my nostrils of wanted lingering fresh musk.

Beads of dripping sweat on skin forming an aromatic musk.

Eating healthy fishy cusk and satisfying crunchy rusk.

There outside my sanctuary, covered by showering-mist rainy, wet dusk.

The slippery sliding and gliding slimy mollusk,
oozed seeking paths, to my eyes, of glistening wonder.

Protruding sharp, menacing, and long, like fangs

impaled deep and deadly the tusk.

I'm just an empty, drained of all soul, a dried shriveled husk,

of a long past shell of my ancient former self.

Hurt and lusk,
unmoving, sunken deep,
almost under, in a reclining sofa.

From blinding light of midday noon to darkening mist of shadowed dusk.

A single solitary undulating foot, I beheld, of a dark shelled mollusk.

Gone far from my familiarity,
away from my home by final, unstoppable dusk.

Alright, I tried my best to expand and make it more detailed and a little less vague by making a few adjectives more specific. I also added some more action, commentary, and images. In the next poetry post, I'll try to check abstract vs concrete words.

Character Mechanisms - creating character profile instructions (part 2)

In the last post, I outlined the criteria that I will try to cover for this new challenge.

Researching Content and Challenges

To review the criteria, I'll repost the summary from my first post.

So, for a few posts I hope to create instructions and examples for using the new character profile sheet for Character Mechanisms.

• for different types of characters
• covering all of the types of data
• with prioritized character information
• with a goal of completing before November 1st.

I like to reuse content wherever possible to aid in speeding up writing processes by not having to reinvent everything. So first, I'll research my content for possible suggestions.

Different types of characters 

Looking back at my generators and engines, probably a key piece of information cover the first criteria for different types of characters is found in the Human Generator. I'll color code with highlighter the four types of characters that I mentioned in that book. The actual number might differ since the profile is a much larger scope than the human character twelve descriptions.

Main, major, minor, background

The number of human characteristics rolled may be limited by the type of character. Main characters most likely are detailed with all or most of these twelve characteristics fleshed out. Major significant and important characters might have half or more of these details revealed. Minor significant, but important characters to the story may have three to half of these characteristics known. Background characters focused briefly on in a scene, however that aren’t important, may have one or two characteristics observed.

The easiest thing for me to do is to give the same sort of advice.
Amount of details for Character types: main, major, minor, background

The number of characteristics rolled may be limited by the type of character. Main characters most likely are detailed with all or most of these characteristics fleshed out. Major significant and important characters might have half or more of these details revealed. Minor significant, but important characters to the story may have three to six or so of these characteristics known. Background characters focused briefly on in a scene, however that aren’t important, may have one or two characteristics observed.

In the next post, I'll continue with the analysis of the types and priority of data.