This writing exercise is designed to help you
uncover the unspoken, implicit, difficult-to-define
but essential and very human aspects
of a relationship between two of your characters,
or between yourself and someone you
wish to write about. I’ve always found those
writing exercises on character you find in
most how-to-write books incredible dull. I
don’t want or need to know where my characters
went to school, what size dress they
are, or what their favourite colour is. I don’t
need their CV; I need to know what makes
them tick. What hurts and inspires and surprises
and frightens them. More than that,
what excites and interests me about people –
and about characters – is very rarely, if ever,
about them in isolation, but how they are in
relation to other people. To me, that’s life,
and one of the eternal fascinations of human
psychology: how we interact with others.
This is an exercise in beginning to explore
the unspoken elements of a relationship between
two people, in particular by focusing
on what you can know in fiction, but never
in life: the secrets and silences between two
people. It’s a very simple exercise that you
can roll into a poem, or a story, or a letter.
First, choose the two characters whose
relationship you wish to explore and spend a
few minutes thinking about the texture of
their relationship.
Choose one of the characters to be your
viewpoint character for the purposes of the
exercise (that is, the one who is looking/
thinking rather than the one who is being
looked at or thought about). You may also
need to decide when the character is ‘doing’
this exercise. Write down a list of:
-
the things your viewpoint character would
never say to the other character;
-
things they wish the other person would
say to them, though they know they never
will;
-
things they wish the other character had
never told them;
-
things they have lied about to the other
character;
-
things they wish the other person didn’t
know about them.
A few hours or days later, do the same exercise
for the same relationship, but from the other
character’s viewpoint. I’m sure you’ll discover
some fascinating insights into your characters,
both individually and in terms of how they are
managing their relationship to each other.
***
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