I got the idea for today’s exercise when I was reading Bibliolatry’s review of Immortal. The character at the center of this novel is, as the title implies, immortal, but he doesn’t know why. The reviewer spends some entertaining moments pondering what she’d really do with her days if she were immortal, and that led me to this.
Today, imagine you (or a fictional character of your creation) are immortal—you do not age and cannot die of natural causes. You or your character has been alive for at least several hundred years.
Put aside grand plans, twisted plots, and questions of how and why you came to be immortal, and focus on one single day. Wake up at the start of the character’s day, free-write through the course of it, and end at the end of it. What is a typical day like for this immortal?
I’ve read several self-help books by authors with psychology backgrounds that contend that people who focus daily on the things that make them thankful or grateful tend to be happier. (Authentic Happiness; The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die) For today’s exercise, do one of the following:
Free-write on this topic—whether it makes sense to you, why or why not, etc.
Journal your own list of what you have to feel grateful or thankful for.
Journal such a list (or write as an internal monologue) from the point of view of a fictional character, preferably a character from your own writing that you’d like to explore a bit more.
Examine how the presence or lack (or perceived presence or lack) of things to be grateful for can motivate a fictional character.
If you think of another variation on the theme to play with, feel free to post it as a comment!
One great way to pull a reluctant character into all sorts of devious dealings is to spring a family secret on him. Today, choose a character you’ve been working with and brainstorm a secret his family has been keeping from him. This could be a short-term secret of his parents, or a long-term secret that’s been handed down in his family through generations. It could be a horrible shame, a dark fate, or a deep responsibility. What is this secret? Why hasn’t he known about it before now? What effect will it have on his life? Why can he not hide from it?
Since I was recently reading (and just reviewed) Dara Girard’s The Writer Behind the Words, I have ‘the writer’s life’ on the brain. So today we have a meta-exercise. Free-write a list of emotions that get in the way of your achieving your writing goals. Pick the one that you think blocks you the most, and free-write about how it impacts you and what you might do to work with or around it.
Free-write about what you imagine a perfect holiday would be like. Cover the whole day, from morning to night, although you don’t have to write it chronologically. You don’t have to use Christmas or the equivalent as the holiday—pick any holiday, whether it’s your birthday, the Fourth of July, Passover, or the summer solstice.
Today, take a look at the following depiction of mother, or madame, nature. Write a brief scene with her as a character, preferably told from the first person (her point of view) or second (someone with her). Or, free-write or journal about this depiction of Mother Nature and what it means to you.
You might also counter this depiction of Mother Nature with one of your own, describing how you see her or, if you have artistic skills, depicting her in your own manner. How does your depiction contrast or compare with the one below? Why is it different or similar? What do you like or dislike about the original below, and why do you have your own, separate take on things?
Quick! Without thinking, pick one of the choices in each of the following sets (or some subset thereof), and then write a paragraph as to why you chose each one:
In the spirit of Bill James’s Wolves of Memory, here’s a particularly tricky exercise for you today. In my review of that book I said:
Bill James fascinates me as an author. He does several things I’m not accustomed to seeing and makes them work so beautifully it’s amazing to behold. Very few things actually seem to happen in his books, and yet it doesn’t matter. Most of the story takes place in people’s heads. Even action-filled events are told as recollections, something that in most authors’ hands would rob them of their power and energy. And yet what really drives James’s books are the internal workings of the characters, who are so fascinating that you don’t mind and even vastly prefer spending whole chapters inside their oh-so-bizarre heads.
Today, write a full page of internal monologue from the point of view of a fictional character (preferably one of your own, but you could use another author’s character if you don’t have one of your own to work with). Try to make it quirky, memorable and fascinating. Try to make it say a lot about the character without simply droning on about the character directly.
Earlier today I wrote a blog post dealing with the definition of horror fiction. Read it, and then write, outline, or brainstorm a horror story in which not a single drop of blood is shed, and that in no way fits into the “gross-out” portion of the horror genre. Write a purely psychological, chilling, creepy, or horror-by-implication piece.
Here’s an exercise you can either apply to yourself (by journaling on it) or to a character as a way to explore your fictional characters. As quickly as you can (so as to limit careful conscious thought), list out five major ambitions you have. These can be personal, spiritual, material, interpersonal… anything. They can seem as large or as small as you like, as realistic or unrealistic, as long as they’re major to you.
Next, free-write about why these are so important to you.
If you’d like a continuation exercise for another day, pick one ambition you’d like to actually see come to fruition and brainstorm ways to make that happen. Free-write, thought-bubble… use any technique you can to get ideas out there on the page. Some odd and surprising things might result!
