What to write about? Does your character like the seasonal holiday time or does he/she dread it? Why? Do you want your character to feel the same emotions that you do once the time is upon us? How about that cousin, aunt or uncle that makes you crazy?
Here is a description straight out of A CHILDS CHRISTMAS IN WALES by Dylan Thomas. Copyright 1954
For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sister scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-worked mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some elderberry. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port, stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush.
That paragraph evokes all sorts of sights, sounds, and emotions. Take the time and count all the emotions and write down what they are. Afterwards, the descriptive words. Dylan Thomas sets the scene and puts you right there in the middle of it.
Go ahead and write your holiday scene with your character. Are you dropping the reader right in the middle of it? I would hope to be like one of the latter aunts, Dosie or Hannah. They seem to know how to have fun.
Have fun and happy holidays! Please leave a comment and share!
Barb
