Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Color Me Blind

This is one of my favorite writing exercises and has been a great inspiration whenever I need a push for detail.

Describe a color to a person who’s been blind all their lives. Be sure to engage the other four senses (sound, touch, taste, and smell) as well as any emotions that might be tied to it. The writing can be a vague string of thoughts of a full idea illustrated in words. If we wish to take this one step further, list the color that the next person has to use to describe.

Here’s a simple example:

Red
Red is the passion that you can feel coursing through your veins, but it can also be complete rage that settles hot in the pit of your stomach and threatens to burst through your very skin. Red is the taste of copper or a loved-ones lips. Red is the scent of a rose wafting through the air. Red is the sound of your own pulse in your ear after a hard work-out that makes your skin warm to the touch. Love is the sound of a scream or the whispered promise of passionate night. Red is so many strong emotions bundled and twisted until you’re not sure where one ends and another begins. That’s what Red is to me.

We’ll keep things simple with Blue.

Blue is the cool touch as your hand brushes still waters from the side of a canoe. It is the feeling of smooth, fine fabric. It is the taste of mellow savor that follows the spice of red. It is the gentle wind of a cool spring day, the flag that flutters, the kite that flies, and the soft flap of the wings of the merry scrub jay. It is the sound of a piano playing a diminished 7th, or a jazz singer when she sings softly.

Now tell me about Yellow.

Yellow is the flavor of banana, the warm touch of sun on your face, the velvet tickling of your nose as you sniff a bloom and inhale too much pollen.

Tell me about purple?