Blurb

"The character is inside you."

When she said that, I had to keep myself from watching my classmates vomit up a character in my mind's eye. Their characters would end up being caricature versions of themselves, more beautiful, smarter, better teeth. The cheerleader across the circle from me would vomit up a character so blonde her hair would light up the entire room with its brilliance, and the musician two seats down would hurl a bassist with longer hair and blacker nails into the middle of the circle. The chess club president a ways down would actually manage to create his perfect mate, and that would be the most original creation from any one of them.

I would exhale a villain that could antagonize their cartoon heroes. Or maybe the outcast of the group. Okay, the outcast is my caricature, so maybe not.

So there I sat trying to think of a unique character. Finally putting pen to paper, I allowed the glimmer of an idea to fill me up. The idea formed words and were scribbled onto my otherwise blank page. I was just putting the finishing touches on the description when our teacher told us to stop. And so began the most grueling part of class as each of my classmates in turn explained in a mumble what they had written.