30 days of Creative Writing day 3 (and 4 sort of)

As promised I worked in exercises three and four while on my breaks at work.

Exercise three was about titles. Arresting titles draw readers in, boring or over used titles have the opposite effect. In this exercise a title is devised from a random selection from two lists of words and a list of phrases.

I came up with Crimson history watered in fears when I made my random selection. From there I wrote a short piece.

The rose bloomed, in moonlight washed blood petals. The garden silent; She waited for her lover-enemy.
The Lady tilts her head, listening hard. Ah! There! The snick of the latch, then the hinges, creaky, thirsty for oil. THUD. The gate hits the old stone walls. That bear has no discretion, thought the waiting Lady.
“My love.” His voice is a hoarse whisper behind her, gruff and pointlessly quiet. His arrival would have woken statues.
She turns, “Dearest.”
She is striking in the moonlight, her deliberate poise arrests Her admirer, who stoops and plucks the scarlet flower with a hiss.
“My love?”
“It’s nothing, a knick from a thorn.” He knelt and offered up the flower.
“How lovely.” She smiles distantly and accepts the offering. Raising his hand to her mouth she sucks at the cut.
“There’s no need’There’s always a need.” She drops his hand at the protest nonetheless.
“What do you need, right now.” his voice had become deeper, his desire obvious. He rises towards Her.

When the lady shut the garden gate quietly behind her she still carried the rose, it’s petals a deeper crimson.

It could be the start or even climax of a story. I think, if I were to continue writing it, there would be a series of gruesome murders as the unnamed female protagonist takes revenge for some unmentioned offence.

Exercise four was not as easy. The task was to rewrite familiar figures of speech The point is to help writers to avoid cliches and find original description. I first wrote a list of cliches and then tried to rewrite them.

I failed miserably.

Here’s my cliche list:

Brave as a lion
Strong as an ox
Fighting like cats and dogs
The apple of my eye
The world’s your oyster
Music to my ears
To your heart’s content

I could think of nothing. Seriously, my brain went blank. This is going to have to be an on going exercise, I think.