Friendly Giant – I love people who make me feel small

Posted by kosturcompose76 on February 7, 2013
Posted in: Writing Exercises.

Giant

Have you ever rushed to get a job done, finished it on-time and to specs, only to find out your client changed their mind and is now angry that they didn’t get what they didn’t ask for?

Ya…me neither…just checking.  But sometimes I wonder why I even wake up.

In other news I met a giant the other day.  An actual giant, and he was totally friendly.  We had the best backward conversation.

 

Me (staring deeply at the rows of candy in front of the cash register…it was a critical decision and the feet that just walked up clearly had places to be.) – Go ahead, I don’t know what I want yet.

Giant – Did you know you’re the tallest person I’ve ever met?

Me (looking up, waaaaaaay up) – You wouldn’t believe how often I hear that.

Giant (totally impressed that I caught on to his joke) – You’re sweet, why do you need candy?

Me – Isn’t that nice…but I still want it.

Giant (holding up an enormous hand) – And how big are you’re hands?

Me – I know, right?  And my feet?  I mean, where am I supposed to even get shoes this big?

Giant – Europe I bet.

Me – Good guess.

 

There were three awesome things about our conversation.

  1. He was a giant. 7 feet, the tallest person I’ve ever seen in real life.  Cool.
  2. He was hitting on me, but in a nice non-creepy way.  (That doesn’t happen to me…like ever.)
  3. The conversation ended with him pointing to me, my husband and himself saying “small, medium, large”.  (I was small!  That’s a good day.)

Writing Exercise:

Pick-up lines can be boring or unique, creepy or fun.  But what they all have in common is bravery.  (I tried to pick-up a boy once and only once.  It failed because he didn’t know what I was doing until later in the day. Awkward doesn’t even cover it.) Trying to pick someone up is scary.  But the very thing that makes it scary, uncertainty,  also makes it a great writing opportunity.  What if you tried to pick someone up and it went wrong, terribly terribly wrong?  Choose one of your characters and give them a pick-up line.  Ask yourself how it could go wrong, then make that happen.  Then ask how it could get worse and then go there.  Repeat.  Spend ten minutes seeing just how bad your situation can get.  Happy writing.