Suggesting An Approximate Age

Author's Note: My life today and early life, or non-fiction, are mostly what I write now. I also started writing poetry while writing rap for a grandchild who thought that, because I wrote, I might be able to write him a few rap songs. He came back with I didn’t rhyme enough.

Now I can rhyme. Poetry came from that. This is what I started with.

Fiction is difficult for me

I want to write rap to be

a rapping granny you see

to write about a way we

can see that life and maybe

some other fun fiction hehe

Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — I began these writing prompts to help me to write better fiction. I have struggled with fiction since I have started writing about eight years ago now.

The Exercise:

Make a list of some of the ways you can suggest an approximate age. Wrinkles and gray hair are the most obvious. Many are more subtle. You should be able to list at least a dozen.

Objective:

To make the best use of your powers of observation. The more precise the detail, the more convincing it is. How a person adjusts to the aging process tells us a good deal about her personality-this is as true for a fictional character as for a real one.

For the man in the photo above:

His hearing isn’t quite the same as it was a few years back.

He needs to get a new bottom denture, as he just can’t make the ones he has now last any longer, as they have cracked, meaning he isn’t smiling as much.

He has large muscles, and still, there is some crepey skin. I thought it was only people without muscles that got crepey skin.

Can you believe the physicians automatically think you are incontinent when you hit 70?

Learning to fall when you first learned to downhill ski doesn’t mean you won’t break when falling in later years.

It can take a bit to get up and get moving when you have sat too long, while riding in a car, or just sitting at the table or in front of the television.

After cataract surgery, no lifting more than 20 pounds, no bending over, no workouts, rest.

You mean to say, you can’t see this from there? Where are your glasses? Oh, you set them somewhere and can’t remember where you set them?

You look a bit like you have been riding a horse all of your life. Oh, your knees are bad? You were told to wait until bone-on-bone to get new knees.

You can’t eat popcorn as it chips your teeth, and you have to go to the dentist to get them fixed. How many times has this happened? Three times now.

How much have you shrunk? He used to be 5'9.5" and now she is 5'7".

What time did you say we have to be there? What is her husband's name again? Where did I put my keys?

~~~~

First published in New Writer's Welcome on medium.com