A CREATIVE EXERCISE

For when we get stuck in our writing

In my last post I wrote about inspiration and getting ideas of what to write. Inspiration is a curious thing; this morning for example I had an exciting idea while I was hanging out the washing.

But in this post I’m going to suggest a way to kick start things when inspiration is too shy to emerge and say hello. I got the idea while on Robert Dilt’s Neuro-Linguistic Course in Santa Cruz, California. Suzi Smith, one of the tutors asked us to think about an issue or problem and then go on a walk and note down five things which caught our eye. We then used these to throw a lateral light on the issue.

I’ve borrowed this concept in planning a novel.

For the exercise today I’m going to choose seven categories to make up a potential story. These are:

Protagonist

Antagonist

The time of the story

A Place

Desires

Conflict or Barrier

Resolution

It can work well anywhere, even in the room that you’re writing. However, I prefer to do it while outside because the external world gives a richer tapestry to choose from.

So these are the things I saw outside yesterday and the tags I’ve assigned to them.

Statue Protagonist

Pollarded trees Antagonist

Old derelict casino Time

Robin redbreast Place

Crane Desires

Mountain Conflict

Convent Resolution

And now, I have to see what my muse offers me from the juxtaposition. This is done in real-time folks, without benefit of safety harness, nets or people to catch me. Drum roll, please.

Our protagonist, a cold, hard person who normally shows as much emotion as a statue, is alarmed to see a row of pollarded trees. In summer they look beautiful but now they seem mishappen and threatening, like antagonists ganging up on him.

He passes by the old casino. It had its heyday only twenty years before and he won more money than he cared to remember there. But since the Great War it has been closed. Nothing remains the same, he thinks, bitterly

A Robin Redbreast flies above him. He thinks of the Christmas Cards his fiancé sent him, they always had a blasted Robin on them. The bird reminds him of her cosy home, a home he had yearned to live in as her husband.

In the park, a crane lifts a statue of a Greek God into place for the forthcoming festivities. He feels a spike of resentment. He had always desired to be one of the great men of his age, lifted above the head of the plebian mass. But it was not to be. The war crushed all his dreams. There was a loud shout and the statue slips from its claw and fell to the ground, shattering into a hundred fragments. He laughs.

He raises his eyes to the nearby mountain which broods over the town. It was over this peak that the enemy had come that terrible May morning. They had slithered down the slopes like ants, charging into the town and destroying buildings and slaughtering men, women and children. The first example of twentieth century conflict.

His fiancé, Julie had been badly injured, her face shattered so much he could no longer bear to look at her. She had been taken in by the nuns of the local convent, wore a mask over her face to hide her disfigurement from the world. He imagined she found some comfort there.

Now he pulled out the scrap of paper from his pocket and scanned it. She wanted to see him, it read. For one last time. He felt his heart move more strongly than normal. Is it a heart attack, he wondered. Or is it life deciding to renew itself, to give him one final chance of humanity?