Writing Exercise
Imagine your character can only have one emotion. Answer these three questions based on your character’s one emotion. 1. What is the emotion? 2. How do they interact with your other characters? 3. What is their primary goal based on that emotion?
Side Note
Only one emotion? That is tough, but I love a challenge for my writing. And to make this more of a challenge, I won’t be picking the emotion myself. And I will pick two emotions for this, but in separate short stories with separate characters. I will be asking my husband for an emotion and a gamer friend, BigSeanLive. I will answer the questions then write a scene with those characters and their one emotion. I will also do this in two separate posts.
Ryan’s Pick for Emotion:
Calmness
Answers to Above Questions
- Calmness
- Steve talks a little slower than others, but his voice is soft, never rough, and that helps calm others.
- His primary goal is to keep others calm, especially during stressful times such as natural disasters or other situations.
My Writing
The wind picked up in the small town of Dawson Falls. The clouds rolled over the blue sky. Steve glanced up at the sky, his baby blue eyes not liking how it looked, but he had to get his things from the store. Steve walked into the grocery store, grabbed a cart, and headed off to do his shopping. The wind brushed his shaggy brown hair around his head.
He whistled as he looked at his list and headed down the first aisle. He grabbed this and that, placing them in his cart, even adding a few items that hadn’t been on his list. As Steve walked past a mom and her little girl, he grinned at the little girl.
“Beth? No, that can’t be my friend, little Beth.” He stopped and looked at the little girl’s mom. “Jessica, I thought you told me she would stop growing so fast.”
Jessica laughed and gave Steve a quick hug. She brushed her short blonde hair back from her face and out of her lime green eyes. “Hi, Steve. And I’m sorry, but she just won;t listen to me or Andrew on the matter.”
Beth laughed and reached for Steve. Steve hugged her and looked around as he detangled his fingers from Beth’s long strawberry blonde curled hair. “Speaking of Andrew, is he here or is he off working?”
“He is at work,” Jessica said while placing peanut butter in her cart. “He said that the weather is changing and there is a possibility of a tornado.”
“I don’t like tornados,” Beth whispered.
Steve smiled and looked into her scared hazel eyes. “Neither do I, Beth, neither do I.” His calm manner caused Beth to sit still in the cart since she had been fidgeting since Steve had said his first hello.
Just as they were about to say goodbye and carry on with their shopping, the alarm for a tornado screamed at them. Beth’s eyes grew wide, and she grabbed at her mom. Jessica quickly plucked Beth out of the cart’s front seat and held her close, her eyes staring at the front windows of the store. Steve could hear others panicking in the other aisles as a voice boomed over the loudspeaker. The voice told everyone to hurry to the back of the store to get to the tornado bunker. Steve took Jessica gently by the arm and walked with her and Beth to the back of the store.
He held the door open and made sure that everyone was out of the store before he joined everyone. Steve listened to the few children, including Beth, cry. The adults, including Jessica, voiced their fears. Steve sat down and took in a deep breath. He let it out slowly before he looked at the scared group around him.
“Okay, everyone, let’s take a few deep breaths and do our best to calm down.”
The room grew quiet as Steve talked. He told a story to distract the children while the adults gathered their wits about them. After several stressful minutes, Steve finished the story, and they received a message that told them they were safe. Steve led the calmed group out of the tornado bunker. They saw the grocery store was in a mess since the tornado had come close to the building. The group stayed together and met with rescue teams. Steve made sure everyone was safely out of the building before he joined the others outside.
Jessica found Steve with Beth still in her arms. “Thank you for what you did in there, Steve. You kept us all so calm and helped us, especially the kids.”
Steve smiled. “Just doing what I could during this stressful incident.”
“You’re the best,” Jessica said and took Beth to the van that would take them to the closest tornado shelter to stay until the authorities could figure everything out.
