100 ways

[dragonyphoenix]

I found a fun writing exercise: rewrite the sentence one-hundred different ways. At least it's fun so far but I'm nowhere near completing it. Maybe by the time I'm up around one-hundred I'll be really frustrated and annoyed. I used the first sentence of the story I'm writing for Summer of Giles. It took me about twenty minutes to generate these twelve sentences. (The first is the original version of the sentence from the story.)

After another hour I'm up to twenty-six sentences. It's definitely getting harder.

1. Faith took one look at the overly stuffed red velvet chairs and decided to stand.


2. Taking one look at the overly stuffed red velvet chairs, Faith decided to stand.


3. Dismissing the overly-stuffed red velvet chairs with a disparaging glance, Faith leaned against the wall with her arms crossed.


4. Dismissing the overly-stuffed red velvet chairs as both ostentatious and, more importantly, uncomfortable, Faith decided to stand.


5. Dismissing the overly-stuffed red velvet chairs as both ostentatious and, more importantly, uncomfortable, Faith relaxed against the wall as she eyed Angel.


6. Faith took one look at the overly-stuffed red velvet chairs and decided to chuck them.


7. The chairs, made out of a tacky red velvet and so stuffed they looked like they were about to pop, weren’t worth even trying to sit on. Faith decided to stand.


8. “Fuck me.” The room looked like a kid and thrown red and gold paint everywhere except it was all too precise to have been tossed around by a kid.


9. The room was as dolled up as a Christian icon, all red and gold, one of Mary Maglanen’s client room maybe, except there was no bed or even anything comfortable to sit on. Faith could deal. She thought better on her feet.


10. “Fuck me.” Faith stepped into what looked like the front piece of a whorehouse.


11. The room looked like the front piece of a whorehouse, all decked out in red and gold. Even the chairs looked uncomfortable, the better to get clients up the stairs and between the legs of a girl.


12. The room was laid out so precisely that Faith figured Big Al would have a heart attack if she moved one of the chairs even by an inch. In contrast the décor, red and gold everywhere, made her think someone’s virgin kid was about to be debauched except nothing sane would even think about sex on the overly-stuffed red velvet monstrosities serving as chairs.


13. Every wizard had one element that called to him. Big Al’s element had to be fire. The room was full of red and gold, not modernistic and sleek, but as ornate and baroque as the kind of bric-a-bracs a German grandma would collect. The chairs, red velvet with gold trim, were so stuffed that Faith was afraid they’d pop if she sat on one although at least one was sturdy enough to take Angel’s weight. Still, they couldn’t be comfortable. Faith decided to keep to her feet.


14. When she first stepped into the room, Faith saw it as a splash of red and gold. The chairs, table, and mirrors were full of those carved, ornate curves that reminded Faith of her grandmother’s bric-a-brac. The rug, one of those Persian or Turkish deals, some name like that anyway, was full of squares and triangles and circles laid out in a pattern that she could only describe as frigging anal. The chairs, red velvet with gold trim, were so stuffed that they looked like they’d pop if she even thought of sitting down, although one was handling Angel’s weight with no problem. Faith wasn’t about to risk it. She thought better on her feet anyway.


15. The chairs, red velvet with gold trim, reminded Faith of her grandma’s living room. Not that grandma Anna would have ever allowed anything so tacky near her house. No, the chairs looked like they weren’t meant to be used. If someone had meant them to be sat on, they wouldn’t have stuffed them so full that they looked ready to pop. Faith wasn’t about to risk it. She decided to keep to her feet.


16. Faith took one look at the room and figured that Big Al kept it around to torment unwelcome guests. The walls were dark wood and full of books, which was okay, Faith could ignore them, but the chairs, monstrosities of red velvet and gold trim, ornate or rococo or baroque or some such shit, were so over-stuffed that they looked like they’d pop if Faith even thought of sitting down. Angel, the great brooding masochist that he was, sat and the chair seemed to take his weight okay but Faith wasn’t about to risk it. She thought better on her feet anyway.


17. Faith stepped into a torture chamber of a room. The gold mirrors, ornately carved, had obviously been set up to blind anyone walking in. The chairs, overly-stuffed, looked like they’d pop if anyone even thought about sitting down although the one Angel had taken seemed to be handling his weight well enough. Faith decided to stand. She thought better on her feet and she was going to need that advantage with Angel.


18. The chairs reminded Faith of a sausage, one so stuffed that it spewed grease everywhere the moment a fork pierced its skin.


19. The red velvet chairs were so overly-stuffed that Faith figured, if she sat on one, that it would erupt and throw her across the room.


20. Faith figured that if she sat on any of the overly-stuffed red velvet chairs that it would explode like Vesuvius and send her flying into the air.


21. The room was so dated that it looked like it hadn’t been redecorated since the Revolutionary War except that everything, outside of the dark-stained wood walls, was done up in red and gold. Shit, had they even had red velvet back then? Faith decided not to risk the chairs. They were so over-stuffed that she thought they’d pop if she even looked at them funny.


22. In school, when Faith had still thought school meant something, Faith had gotten stuck watching a period piece, some kind of PBS crap, where people had trimmed bushes into frigging shapes, like chess pieces and shit. The room Big Al left her and Angel in looked like that, unnatural and overly ornate. Even the chairs looked like they’d pop if you sat on them.


23. The chairs, even though they were decked out in red and gold, reminded Faith of poodles, with their fur cut into ornate and artificial shapes.


24. Faith figured poodles were the most useless dogs ever. You cut their fur into ornate poofs and then couldn’t let them be dogs because it’d mess up the cut. Big Al’s chairs, so overly stuffed you couldn’t even think about sitting on them, reminded her of poodles.


25. Faith had been in London long enough to know that not every house looked like the Queen lived there, but Big Al’s home did. He led her and Angel into a room where the furniture was all baroque or rococo or some such shit but it was also all red and gold, which just didn’t strike her as British colors. Shouldn’t they be pastel or something? The chairs looked like they weren’t meant to be sat on. That she’d expected.


26. Before Faith had come to London, she’d never given any thought to what the rooms would look like but, if pressed she’d have guessed they’d look like the Queen lived there. The room Big Al left her and Angel in looked like a cross between the Queen’s home and a whorehouse. The furniture was all ornate, carved full of curves, baroque or rococo or something like that, but it was all red and gold, colors she’d thought a Brit wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.