SWAN Prompt

No matter how many playwriting workshops I facilitate, I just never get over the thrill of a group of writers sitting around a table, pen on paper, scribbling a soulful whisper onto the page.  The second part of the SWAN Day afternoon saw scenes being written from the Promptor exercise.

There were seven prompts:

1.  a place

2.  an action

3.  anything to do with a swan

4.  a secret

5.  a Chinese phrase (or an English phrase if you are writing in Chinese)

6.  the first line of dialogue

7.  the last line of dialogue

Each person chooses a prompt which is not their own; these random elements are to prompt and guide the scene to be written.

The participants will post their scenes in the SWAN Day reports.  Here, I post my SWAN scene (after basking in artist Lucy Zhou's awesome teaching glow):

A:  Who are you?

B:  School

A:  What are you drinking?

B:  The students

A:  How can you drink the students?

B:  They are like water...with no form...flowing anywhere...if not contained.

(B drinks.)

A:  Hey

B:  gurgle

A:  Hey hey!

B:  gurgle gurgle

A:  HEY HEY HEY!

B:  gurgle gurgle gulp

A:  I'm, I'm a--

B:   gurgle

A:  Stop drinking me!

B:  AHHH!  (wipes mouth)  Get hold of yourself, then.

(A flaps wings like a swan--white feathers flutter everywhere.)

B:  I'm still thirsty.

A:  Don't drink me.  I must save myself...for myself.

(B accidentally catches a feather in its thirsty mouth, starts to feel uncomfortable.)

A:  I must, I...so you know who I am, I must--

B:  cough cough

A:  I must--

B:  cough cough cough

A:  I must tell you something.

B:  COUGH COUGH COUGH!

A:  Are you OK?

B:  (COUGH)  No! (COUGH.)

(A slaps B's back.  School coughs out a white feather).

B:  (ahem, ahem, kuh, kuh)

A:  Better?

B:  Sorry.  You were saying (pause).  You were going to tell me something.

A:  (Chinese)  Wo bao ta  (I hold her).

B:  Huh?

A:  I kiss her, too.

B:  Ah?

A:  And that is why I am like water.

B:  That is why when I drink you, I cough.  You are not for me to drink.

A:  That is correct.  You are school.  You are dry.  You should not suck out the liquid, the blood, the love out of the students.

B:  They leak out their own treasures.

A:  I hold mine.

B:  They know not what to keep.

A:  And so you should teach them, and not just drink them.

B:  To be or not to be.  That is a question.