The Distorted Perception Workshop

Wed Jun 29, 2011, 5:25 PM by neurotype-on-discord
Writer's Workshop
where writers workshop writing!



:bulletred: This workshop is now closed. Stay tuned for the writeup. :)




...stuck? no ideas? Nichrysalis can help! See this comment for details.

Also, I'd like to know--is anyone interested in a chat session on Sunday evening (something like 6 or 7pm on Central Standard Time)? My schedule is nuts, so it's going to take a decent amount of feedback...not to mention entries to discuss...for this to happen.

Folder now open for submissions! Please remember to read the criteria/guidelines before submitting, as having your wonderful piece in holding because you a) forgot to include the pertinent information in your artists' comments or b) wrote poetry instead of prose would totally suck. :ohnoes:

It is recommended you have them in by the 25th, although the folder will be open for a little while after then.



A warm aroma suffuses the air. It reminds you of childhood and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies; but there's a darker, richer undercurrent. Something that draws your tongue forward. You find a bit of cream dancing in your mouth, the soft, buttery texture mingling with hints of sugar crystals. A sponginess, yielding like clouds before the sun, brings it all together....

I'm :iconneurotype-on-discord:, also known as neurotype-on-discord, and I'll be hosting a workshop about playing with perception.




Introduction
Most writers jump to visual descriptors. Especially in the digital age, where tactile experience is no longer guaranteed (raise your hand if you learn about things on YouTube), this isn't necessarily a bad thing: sight is, after all, the most immediate of our senses.

But it's so easy to just tell people what they're looking at that we forget there are other options. Take this example from 'One Hundred Years of Solitude':
He pushed it with the tips of his fingers and the hinges yielded with a mournful and articulate moan that left a frozen echo inside of him. From the moment he entered, sideways and trying not to make a noise, he caught the smell.... He bumped against the ropes of the hammocks, which were lower than he had suspected, and a man who had been snoring until then turned in his sleep and said in a kind of delusion, 'It was Wednesday.' When he pushed open the bedroom door, he could not prevent it from scraping against the uneven floor.


In this scene, Márquez uses the lack of visuals (the room is completely dark) to heighten the other senses, especially touch.

So!

Workshop Task

For this workshop, you are expected to describe a scene in absolutely no more than 500 words—from the perspective of someone who cannot fully perceive what's going on. The goal is to create a different ambience than would be usual (or to create an unusually strong mood): in the above example, the scene should have a context of exploration, normally a positive thing; blind, the unfamiliar setting creates terror and heightens primeval instincts.

The simplest version of this is eliminating one of the senses: what's it like to bump one's way through a house without sight? How does a deaf person experience a concert? ...that sort of thing.

However, as someone who pokes brains for a living, it would be remiss of me not to suggest something fancier for those of you up to a challenge. What would a face-blind person do at a family reunion? What's it like to build a model car with Alien Hand Syndrome? If you're interested in getting some ideas for this, I recommend checking out Oliver Sacks' case studies, which span quite a few books (including 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat'), or V. S. Ramachandran's 'Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind.' (If you have an idea of symptoms but can't find the name of the disease or a fuller description on Google, I may be able to help. :))

Workshop Criteria
  • Write a scene from the perspective of someone who cannot fully experience it. (You should not have to say what it is, but that's up to your discretion.)
  • Use the other senses to emphasize a particular mood.
  • Keep your prose under 500 words, and list the word count in your comments. There will be no leeway—in fact, I encourage you to keep it under 250 if you can convey all the mood effectively.
  • For the sake of surety, please mention the condition and scene you've chosen in the artists' comments.
  • This workshop is prose-only. There is some leeway for prosetry, but don't take this to unhealthy extremes.
  • Your piece doesn't have to stand alone, but it should make sense (i.e., the setting and mood should be clear).


Resources
How to write a description
The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe (Not quite what I'm hoping you'll come up with, as I'd like to see more than one sense engaged, but a great example of description that isn't predominantly visual. Also, a heartwarming tale.)
For those of you that like German industrial, I recommend 'Du Riechst So Gut' by Rammstein. Lyrics, potentially disturbing.

Timeline
Workshop opens June 15
Submissions open June 18
Critique week starts June 25
Workshop closes July 2

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