Monday Moment #53: a writing prompt for your work-in-progress
(If you’ve already read this then skip past all the italicized blah-di-blah and start writing.) Monday Moments are writing prompts for your work-in-progress. They are questions that come from my experiences and are my favorite way to find out more about my characters. I find I learn a lot. Some of it I use. Some of it I don’t. But I always, always get to know my character(s) better just by answering the question. I hope you do too. )Guess what I did this weekend?
Go on.
Guess.
No, not that.
Nope.
Sorry.
BINGO!
No, not "bingo" your guess is right. Bingo. I went to play Bingo.
I was invited to a friend's birthday party and the evening started with Bingo at the casino (the serious kind). I decided to step out of my personal box and give it a go.
What I expected:
To sit with friends at a table scattered with cards and little round marker chips (because that is what we had in grade school), drinking wine and giggling as we marked our cards.
Intense Bingo action. Bingo is hard (at least for a first-timer). I had nine cards at one time. There are no markers, they have daubers (a stamp thingy to mark your card). The Bingo ladies rattled off those numbers one after the other, and before I had a chance to scan all B-I-N-G-O columns, they were on to the next. There's was no time to talk. Or drink wine.
There are also people who do this and do it well. The lady sitting across from me played three games at once (I wasn't keeping up with one), and not only would she check her own three sets of cards, she'd look across the table and double check mine (upside down no less).
The highlight:
BINGO! A blackout. And I got it. But I almost didn't because I guess I didn't yell BINGO loud enough (it's super intimidating to yell bingo in that big room). But I won. I won. Then I really sort of liked Bingo after that. At least for the night.
When has your character expected one thing but then experienced something completely different?