Fall Writing Exercise Series #70: Plate Repetition

The Notebooking Daily Fall Writing Series is a daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to keep your creative mind stretched and ready to go—fresh for your other writing endeavors. The writing prompts take the impetus—that initial crystal of creation—out of your hands (for the most part) and changes your writing creation into creative problem solving. Instead of being preoccupied with the question "What do I write" you are instead pondering "How do I make this work?" And in the process you are producing new writing.

These exercises are not meant to be a standard writing session. They are meant to be productive and to keep your brain thinking about using language to solve simple or complex problems. The worst thing you can do is sit there inactive. It's like taking a 5 minute breather in the middle of a spin class—the point is to push, to produce something, however imperfect. If you don't overthink them, you will be able to complete all of the exercises in under 30 minutes.

#70
Plate Repetition

For today's writing exercise you will write a piece of poetry or prose which contains the following phrase at least four times (non-sequentially):

"_______ stepped up to the plate"

This is ready-made for your baseball piece, but a plate could be a serving dish, a type of armor, even a piece of bone. Maybe it's a small group of friends trying to identify a skeleton in the woods, or a suit of armor while on a museum field trip. Maybe it's a party with unappetizing looking hors d'oeuvres you feel you must sample out of politeness. Or do something completely different. Just be sure that the repeated phrase earns its worth in your piece. It should be necessary.

Bonus Exercise: Also include two rhetorical questions, and include the words "Elk" "Elephant" "Flew" and "Weak".

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If you'd like some background music to write to, try the Robert Rich album Vestiges.