Prompts 120-121

Prompt 120. Which do you prefer: sunrise or sunset?

Sunrise is often a symbol of rebirth. The dawn of a new day, a new year, a new era, heralded by the light growing on the horizon. It is a symbol of hope. It shines. It invigorates the spirit. It rouses dreamers and calls them to action. It is a crescendo, the stillness of night giving way to the crowing of the rooster, the ballads of the songbirds, the rise of the bustle of human existence as kids and parents head to school and work. It is the prologue, the beginning.

Sunset, by contrast, symbolizes an end. The light is fading, darkness creeping. It is a time of reflection, a time to look forward, a time to plan for the future. It gives way to stars that sparkle with promise. This day is done, but there is another. The nightlife sings their lullaby, it is time for rest. The world is breathing. Shh, can you hear it? Sunset brings peace and quiet.

I love twilight. The colors of the sunset always remind me how beautiful this world can be. But getting up early and watching the sunrise has the same breathtaking effect. I have no preference for one over the other, though I’ve pretty much always been awake for sunset. Do you have a preference?

Prompt 121. What do the clothes you are wearing now say about you?

My baggy t-shirt and athletic shorts say I am done with regular clothes for the day. If I have no plans to be anywhere after I get home, I usually change into comfy clothes. My apartment is usually cool enough I can wear sweatpants or yoga pants without overheating even in summer, but sometimes a girl just likes to wear cute pink shorts with her oversized t-shirt.

The shirt itself is 8 years old. They were given out to students who tailgated a big college hockey game. It was the Gold-Out game against our cross-town rivals. Clarkson’s colors are green and gold so they made the shirts yellow with green text. It had the head-to-head for both schools.

A brief history lesson….
112-64-9
Taking it to SLU since 1925

Those numbers have changed a little bit since 2010, but Clarkson still has the lead by a wide margin.

It’s one of my favorite sleeping shirts. I think it was my husband’s originally but I claimed it shortly after we started dating. I like big graphic tees for sleeping in.

Clothes are useful descriptors in writing. They can show status, employment, hobbies, personality, etc. I tend not to think too much about clothes in my stories, something I really should think more about. If you were writing a comic, you’d certainly be taking into account the clothing and the style, so why wouldn’t you with novels and short stories? (The “you” here is rhetorical, I am chastising myself for always forgetting to think about my characters’ clothes.)

Clothes can be powerful. It’s amazing what a tailored outfit can do for a person. It doesn’t even have to be tailored, necessarily. I used to love What Not to Wear because I have horrific fashion sense and I loved trying to glean tips and tricks to make myself look a little more put-together. I’m most at ease in jeans and a t-shirt, but chances are slim they would get me hired if I wore them to an interview at a professional company.

I think that’s why I shirk the clothing descriptors in my writing. I don’t see clothes as an important facet of character, despite the social paradigms we constrain ourselves to. I bristle at the idea that people judge me based on my clothes, or they at least form a preconceived notion regardless of reality based on what I use to cover my skin. But we all do it, and it’s a useful tool in writing and I should just embrace it already, ugh.

How do you use clothing in your stories? Do your characters wear the same thing all the time a la cartoon characters or do they have a revolving wardrobe? Do you focus at all on the details of the clothing or are you like me and write the bare minimum to let your readers know that there are clothes of some sort? Think about the outfits you’ve seen in your day-to-day, the impressions you got of the people wearing them, write them down. These are all useful tools for your writer’s toolbox!

Notes: That’s all I got for tonight! Is tomorrow really Friday already? Taking Monday off has really made this a weird week. I’ll have a short story for you tomorrow night to close out the week! Have a great Friday!