Thomas was a college freshman straight A nerd. A virgin who was shy with girls, he wasn't shy at all about pointing out when he was right and others were wrong. He was sheet-white, never having tanned before, with a little bit of a belly from never being to the gym, but did have a cute white bubble butt. One day he corrected his older sister Brittany in front of company and made her look really stupid, as everyone laughed. He threw in "Perhaps you should study a little more, or you'll be exposed for not being smart." The next day at noon, Brittany waited as Thomas came out of the shower. She purposely left the front door open. On his way back to his room from the shower, Thomas went to shut the door. That's when Brittany pounced, yanked the towel right off his butt and shoved Thomas out the front door and locked it. 1. What can Brittany say as she pulls off Thomas' towel to really stick it to him? 2. What does Thomas' very attractive 45 year old married neighbor Miranda say to herself as she watches his buns jiggling as he streaks around towards the back door? 3. What does Thomas say out loud as he begs Brittany to open the back door? And what does Brittany force him to say out loud to let him inside? How does Thomas feel as he says it? 4. What hashtag does Brittany put on Instagram for the pic she took from behind the moment she relieved Thomas of his towel? Thank you!!!
He already embarrassed her for being dumb so it just barely makes sense to say. Honestly, saying that line makes him seem like a total jerk and if she were my friend, I'd call him out on it... As Cogito said, this is more of a "What should I write" than a writing prompt. I mean, how should we know what this neighbor thinks when we know nothing about her? She's your character, you added her for a reason to the story, how does the situation affect her goals? Instagram... do you really need it in your story? This is just part of writing. It's not writer's block, it's just you needed to figure out your story and the direction it's taking. Also, how would we know what his sister instagrams or what the neighbor thinks? Isn't this from the brother's PoV? So, he'd never know, much less the reader, unless you have multiple PoVs going on throughout the story.
RE: AMP I do know the story and the direction it's taking. From this embarrassing experience, Thomas is going to be humbled, as well as realize that he shouldn't mess with his sister lol. I'm just struggling with coming up with a few funny one-liners and thought you guys could have a little fun with the questions.
Don't worry about the little details if they don't come to you naturally. Just push through or write [Funny one liner] as a placeholder. If you know what the character experiences, how it moves them through the story, then just keep writing and don't worry about it. You can always come back and add the details and make it perfect. If you know what you want to do, just keep writing. Odds are, the further you go, the more you'll realize what the details should be.
I will. But just out of curiosity, could you answer the 4 questions and let me know what your responses would be? I won't use them, I am just wondering what other path a writer might take?
As I stated, I don't know anything about your characters so whatever I would say would be random and probably incorrect. Hell, I don't even really know what instagram is.
Well just in general, Thomas is a bookworm nerd. He's shy with girls. A buttoned-up bookworm who is very prideful. Brittany is his more popular sister, older by a few years. She loves him, but hates being shown up in front of people, and Thomas KNOWS it. He should've known her revenge would be swift. Instagram is a picture sharing social media site. For example, if you posted a picture of a dog you might put hashtags like #puppy #cutie #cutedoggie #goldenretriever Think you could take a shot at the questions? I appreciate it!!!
No, I know what instagram is is. I just mean I'm not into social media platforms. Waste of time, really, for the most part.
I agree. You sound very intelligent. I hope you would answer the questions if you have a few minutes. Have a great day either way!
This is the point. No one knows your characters as you do. Don't expect to come up with the perfect quips instantly. You'll come up with great ones if you let the problem percolate in the background. For now, just write what you can. Sure, it'll bug you, but there's time. There will be revisions, especially now, when you're still low on the learning curve. When you become more experienced and confident, you'll also become more demanding, so you'll never do away with revisions. So be patient with yourself. And more trusting..
The number of times I've come up with a funny put-down about five minutes after I needed it...in real life, some people do - and some people don't - come up with a funny one-liner. Thomas' own "funny one-liner" put-down wasn't that funny...however, he sounds more like me, so it's credible that he's not that funny - his sister might be more articulate, although not so well educated, and thus better able to come out with the quip (and she's had time to plan the revenge and her quotable sound-bite) although it might be funnier for her to come out with her pre-planned quip and get it wrong because she's over-rehearsed.
As others have said, these are your characters, you know them best. I'm guessing (law of averages combined with the general scenario you're writing) that your American. Whatever I put in your characters' mouths would be with a UK bias (vocabulary - and bear in mind, my children have all left school/college, so my language isn't even current in the UK any more! - and sentence structure), and it would probably make them sound different from how they were in their last scene...a bit as if the book had been written by two different authors!
It's always nice how language change over the generations. I try to coop with slang using urban dictionary, but then again: I'm not native English. English isn't even my second language because here in The Netherlands, we don't have (officially) a second language. In Belgium, they have Dutch, French and German at the borders. If it were up to me than we all speak English throughout Europe, it surely would have been handy if everyone already did because, then I wouldn't make so many grammar mistakes....
I would have trouble answering any of your questions, because the whole situation isn't working for me. You seem to have utter contempt for Thomas, and be entirely on Brittany's side. You seem to see Thomas's rude remark to be justification for laughing uproariously at Brittany's over-the-top revenge for that remark--while, to me, that over-the-top revenge suggests that Thomas had ample motivation for his rudeness. And we're supposed to giggle at an older woman also joining in Thomas's humiliation. I'm not getting any funny here.
I'm sorry, it's difficult to put a lot of backstory in here. Think of Thomas' rude remark as the "cherry on top" so to speak. Thomas has been rude and arrogant for a LONG time, and this is a long time coming. And also, the older woman isn't "joining in". She can't help to see a streaking Thomas, who she can tell always had a crush on her, running past. And she's saying something to herself, not out loud. So with that in mind, could you try to answer the questions? Thanks!
No, because it's still not working for me. The message to me is still "shy smart nerd BAD, and look at his un-tanned skin for proof!" and "pretty popular girl GOOD, and when she's incredibly cruel, it serves him right!" If the two characters were more nuanced, I might be able to get more into the story. Is it possible that you, too, are finding them to be stereotypes, and that's why you're having trouble figuring out what they would do?
These scenarios and these questions are fucking weird, man. I mean, asking about the near identical idiotic scenario in a separate thread but this time with a girl? My head is going ouch ouch.
'Old' Miranda clicks straight away that the kids are up to tricks. Lad opens fence goes round the back. I quite like your 'geek' tho. Little touches like the pot belly draws a sympathetic eye. Humour's difficult to write, if you overload you tip the balance. I'd stick with the characters. In real life? The lad overheats, freaks, smashes the patio doors and some dick calls the police. Or if you want a sexy one, the old neighbour throws youngster her dead husband's trackies across the fence and they start talking. You write from there either a tender, surprising friendship or sex, or in between, or so many versions of...
I'm assuming the sister is the protagonist? Why is she such a bitch if she loves her brother? He made a third grade level insult and she, social butterfly that she is, could easily have torn him a new one right there and then. Just gone for the low blow of being a pasty virgin. How does she shove him all the way toward the front door from the shower? Why would he follow her all the way to the door if she's luring him there? There's no other towels in the house? I just don't get the whole thing. He disses her in front of her friends - they're going to take the side of this bottom of the totem pole male? Maybe this is because I'm the wrong audience and teenage girls really do gleefully do things like that, but as a guy I'd be weirded out by the dissonance of the scene. You're playing it funny as the author, yet to me it seems like an abnormal and cruel thing to do.
If you're really set on the scene, I would change the brother's dialogue. In order for it to be congruent with her level of retaliation, he has to be crueler and call her a slut or something. Make it really hurt like him hearing the sounds of what she does for her boyfriends through the walls. Have him make it up. You have to really make him a villain. Then her retaliation and the uploading to Instagram (humiliating him in front of the whole school) would be justified.
