Where the hell is my house?

I don’t have much sense of geography. This is inextricably linked to the fact that I once listed ‘No sense of direction’ on a workplace disability disclosure form. For me, it is not at all unusual to visit a foreign city and still be hard pressed later, if asked to find that very place on a map.

In case you’re wondering, I’m not asked to do that much. Except when playing Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit, in which case it’s rather embarrassing.

My particular disability isn’t as ridiculous as it might have sounded, 200 years ago, when in order to GET somewhere, travelers needed to actually understand topography, constellations, waterways, plus how to coax a horse and the general workings of a compass. (I was once entrusted with a compass on some team building exercise through a dark forest at midnight. We weren’t supposed to be out there at midnight.)

These days most travelers can rely on pilots, bus drivers, timetables and the lie of pre-laid train tracks and not give a jot about much else except being on time to board.

Penelope Lively’s character feels similarly, in The Slovenian Giantess. Eleanor is an Englishwoman, reluctantly in Slovenia:

Eleanor felt disembodied, only tenuously present, on loan to this place for a few hours, courtesy of British Airways. She had felt much like that throughout the conference. Occasionally the map of Europe would form itself in her head. She would see the familiar outline, pay tribute to the distances. This place was nearly a thousand miles from London, but of course it was not that. It was as far as the half-hour in the airport and the wander round the duty-free shops, the three-hour flight with the read of the papers and a book, the meal, the brief doze. That was the realit, not this eerie sense of an elsewhere in which she was present only as a transitory ghost.

Yes, well, maybe I’ve never compared the feeling to transitory ghosts, but beautifully put, don’t you agree?

Then there’s Nina (slash June) in Wenlock Edge by Alice Munro:

She had been to Japan, and the Barbados, and many of the countries in Europe, but she could never have found those places on a map. She wouldn’t have known whether or not the French Revolution came before the First World War…

… which makes me wonder whether a poor sense of direction is related to a poor sense of time.

To remedy my failings, I’ve decided to spend 2011 ‘Working On My Map Skills’, since my own geography lessons at school had nothing to do with world maps and everything to do with throwing sticks into the tide at Birdlings Flat, and calculating coastal drift. (That hasn’t come in handy either, by the way.)

COFFEE HAS BEEN REPLACED WITH A NEW ADDICTION

This year, whenever I read a book or enjoy something on TV, I will find its setting on the map and stick a pin in it. This may sound like a nuisance of a job but it’s strangely addictive.  Google maps allows users to zoom right in to street view, and really imagine where a story is set. Before now, I didn’t care. Now I find myself wondering where a story is set. I can’t wait to find it on the map.

I’m turning into a map geek.

So far this year I’ve not traveled widely in my fictional worlds, and already I’m thinking of remedying that. (I’m not the only one who gets cheap thrills out of Google maps.)

created with Note Hub for iPad

This would be a great exercise to do with kids, too, as a fusion literacy/geography exercise.

Naturally, it won’t work for SF fans. Someone needs to make an app for that.

Creativity Activity: Gifts and Presents

With her regular gifts of shoe-trees Aunty Kath had hitherto held the record for boring Christmas presents, but Bill shows he is no slouch in this department either when he presents me with the history of some agricultural college in New South Wales (second volume only).

- Alan Bennett, Untold Stories

photo by mrjerz

(In case you didn’t know either, a shoe tree is a device approximating the shape of a foot that is placed inside a shoe to preserve its shape, stop it from developing creases and thereby extend the life of the shoe.)

MAKE A LIST OF TEN REALLY BORING GIFTS.

Writing Activity: The Dud

by nickwheeleroz

Think of something you once bought, or received as a gift, or gave as a gift, or which someone else bought (etcetera) which failed to live up to expectations. The more disappointing, the better.

First an example, from Bill Bryson, who purchased something advertised in the ‘Zwingle catalogue’ (whatever that is):

Once in a deranged moment I bought something myself from one of these catalogues, knowing deep in my mind that it would end in heartbreak. It was a little reading light that you clipped on to your book so as not to disturb your bedmate as she slumbered beside you. In this respect it was outstanding because it barely worked. The light it cast was absurdly feeble (in the catalogue it looked like the sort of thing you could signal ships with if you got lost at sea) and left all but the first two lines of a page in darkness. I have seen more luminous insects. After about four minutes its little beam fluttered and failed altogether, and it has mever been used again. And the thing is that I knew all along that this was how it was going to end, that it would all be bitter disappointment. On second thought, if I ever ran one of those companies I would just send people an empty box with a note in it saying ‘We have decided not to send you the item you’ve ordered because, as y ou well know, it would never properly work and you would only be disappointed. So let this be a lesson to you for the future.’

- Bill Bryson, from The Lost Continent

And from Alan Bennett:

[I] Remember the device advertised in comics sixty years or so ago called, I think, a Seebackroscope. It was a small funnel in black Bakelite containing a tilted mirror about the size of a sixpence; this device you were meant to hold to your eye or screw into your eye socket in order to check that you weren’t being followed. It was intended, presumably, as part of the equipment of a schoolboy sleuth (invisible ink similarly) and my brother even sent off for one. When it came we were swiftly disillusioned, the mirror never reflecting anything useful or even in focus. It was a definite stage in that process of discovering that things were never as good as advertisements cracked them up to be.

- from Diaries: 2000, 2 April entry

I’m pretty sure you’ve thought of your own example after reading those. If not, you probably know someone who loves hunting for bargains, going to garage sales and whatnot. No doubt that person has bought some dodgy things in their time.

You might follow a similar structure to Bryson’s paragraph if you get stuck writing yours at any stage:

1. Describe where you first saw your item. Maybe someone else had one, or perhaps it was advertised on TV, or in the newspaper/magazine, or you’d heard about it.

2. What was it meant to do?

3. What did it actually do?

4. Something unlikely does the same job better. (Luminous insects, in Bryson’s example.)

5. What you ended up thinking about this product. Perhaps you wanted to write a nasty letter to the manufacturing company. Perhaps you regifted it to someone you didn’t like, or maybe you still have it, stuffed away in some drawer. (In Bryson’s case, he figured the company may as well send out empty boxes.)

This is enough for a warming up sketch, but you may be able to turn it into a short story, or microfiction.

1. Did this item have an unlikely alternative use? Could it be redeployed as something else? (With disastrous or comical consequences?)

2. What if the person who bought it wasn’t you, or anyone you know, but a crazier version of you? What might that person have done in the same situation?

3. Is there any way this thing can come back to haunt you?

4. Perhaps this thing didn’t work in the way you expect, but does it have some other, magical use? (Foray into magic realism.)

5. Is it possible this thing is almost animate, with a mind of its own? Has it turned against you, without you even knowing? (Is it ‘cursed’?)

6. Bill Bryson compares the torch to a bug, and even extends the metaphor with use of ‘fluttered’. If your item were an animal, what would it be? Can you make use of this imagery somehow?

7. How is its owner changed by the end of the story? And where does the item end up? (Destroyed, regifted, sent back, refunded, killed…)

10 Ways to Write Your First Sentence

THE FIRST SENTENCE (.doc file)

Give yourself a day to come up with 10 first sentences. One of them may even lead to a story.

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A fairytale beginning

First, write the first sentence of an actual fairy tale. Write it from memory. It doesn’t have to start with ‘Once upon a time’, but it might.

Example:  Once, in a dark forest, lived a widower with two children. Their names were Hansel and Gretel.

Now take that sentence structure and modernise. Change names/occupations of the characters. Change setting.

Example: Once, in an apartment block, lived a woman with nine offspring. Their names ranged from Git-over-here-now to If-you-don’t-shut-up-I’ll-knock-your-bleeding-heads-together.

(Now that you have begun a story with a fairytale paragraph, you may choose to write a story in that vein, with a clear moral. What story did you pick for your first sentence? I picked Hansel and Gretel, so I might be writing a story about some children who run away from their hopeless mother into greater danger. My story won’t have a happy ending. Or it might. You can change it.)

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Establish the weather

First, write about today’s weather. Nothing else. Just the weather. Because it is so common to begin with the weather, you will be original with your use of language. For example, create  a new word or make use of imagery. Make it easy on yourself. Start with a weather report (which will be boring as hell) and go from there.

Example: After an early frost, it was a beautiful day. The winter sun went down just after five o’clock. The shortest day has just passed. (Boring and over-written.)

Early frost, beautiful day. At five, the sun disappeared. The shortest day ended. (Tighter. Would suit a story written in prose poetry. Still unoriginal. O, this is hard.)

A frost-caked lawn and a day wrapped in sky-blue. At five it was all over. Another day gone, another year older. (After  I’d started this sentence I knew I was writing about someone’s birthday.)

Now, turn this into an ‘active’ opening by combining the weather with an action or two.

Example: A frost-caked lawn, and a day wrapped in sky-blue. By three o’clock I still hadn’t been surprised. After school  I walked home, let myself inside. Nobody jumped out from behind the drapes.  Two weeks later, Mum remembered she forgot and shouted me a Happy Meal. She was too late. The day I turned eight, I aged an entire year.

(Chances are, by now you’ve got an entire story in your head. If not, you have several choices. You could spend the rest of your story on a single scene that happened that day. You could jump forward a number of years and write about another incident that the narrator connects with this one. You could write a character study of one of the other people who cropped up. You might go back and edit out the weather. Or, you might see that the weather has some significance.)

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Establish time and place

First, describe a place where you have holidayed.

Example: As a kid, holidays were spent at Kaiteri Beach in Marlborough, New Zealand. There’s a golden sandy beach, many nearby walking trails and a city of tents and caravans.

Now, combine this sentence with an action. Turn on the nearest telly. Take the first person you see. What are they doing? This’ll do for your action. Give a sense of character and place. (I turned on a cartoon. A princess was climbing the stairs to her castle.)

Example: A princess never packs lightly for two weeks at Kaiteri. First, she requires a flattering swimsuit for sunbaking. Hot pink. Suncream, mosquito repellent, and sturdy boots for hiking. Pale pink with sequins. A princess likes her privacy. She pitches a marquee in the picnic oval and beside that, a smaller, squarish tent for ‘ablutions’.

(If you’ve ended up with an unlikely character in an unlikely place, you’ve actually got a pretty good start to a story, with ready-made conflict.)

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Establish character

First, write about the most interesting person you’ve had contact with in the last 24 hours. If you’ve been a hermit, make it a week. A month, whatever. Pick one or two things that stand out about this person.

Example: Our septic tank inspector is a tall bloke called Kevin. He has a florid face and talks shit.

Now take that sentence and turn it into a hybrid/action paragraph.

Example: Septic Man turned up again yesterday for the quarterly inspection. His real name is Kevin, which is exactly what he looks like. A Kevin, with florid skin. I call him Septic Man like he’s some sort of super hero, but I might be talking him up. He’s tall, all right, and he talks shit. There, the similarities end.

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Combine character and setting

First, take a famous person and give them an ordinary name. I’m thinking Monica Lewinsky, but I’ll call her Mabel Smith. When you think of this person, what are they doing? Turn that into a sentence.

Example: Mabel Smith licked her lips and readjusted her dress.

Now, where are they? Rewrite this sentence, letting the reader know where we are. Be specific. This lends realism, even if no such place exists.

Example: In the second-floor cleaner’s closet of the James Herriot Building, Yonkyville, Mabel Smith licked her lips and readjusted her dress. (I started with the White House, Washington, but I don’t really want to write a story about Monica Lewinsky. She is simply my muse.)

Now you’ve got a character and setting, something story-worthy will happen. Something will go wrong. This will lead to a change in this character’s outlook on life.

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Start with direct dialogue

First, switch on the talkback radio. (I tuned in to Sydney’s 2UE.) Wait for a disgruntled person to ring in. (Shouldn’t take too long.) Wait for them to come out with a cliché. Write it down  inside speech-marks. Give this character a made-up name. If you can’t think of a good name, take a minor health condition and change/add one letter. That’ll be the last name. First name, one of your grandparents.

Example:  “I blame the government,” announced Rex Warty.

Follow it with an action which places him in a specific setting.

Example: “I blame the government,” announced Rex Warty, as he slid his empty schooner across the bar.

(You’ll now have an opening line which raises lots of questions. Who is your character talking to? What just went on? What’s about to happen?)

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Start with indirect dialogue

This time your character is a younger person. Go to YouTube and find one of your favourite clips. Take one of the comments. Paraphrase it. Tell us what they said. (I found: musicman02 1 week ago @Andyc18 I have a theory that roger federer is actually Tarantino.)

Example: Andy had a theory that Quentin Tarantino was actually Roger Federer.

Now, follow this first sentence with a juxtaposition, or something unexpected.

Example:  Andy had a theory that Quentin Tarantino was actually Roger Federer.  He also suspected  his mother was his uncle dressed in drag. Come to think of it, he’d never seen Mum and Uncle Horace together in the same room.

(Now keep thinking, about how the first and second sentences might be related. What might your character do next? I’ve ended up with the beginnings of a good conflict. If my narrator has never seen his uncle and his mother together it’s probably because they don’t get on. Why not? What sort of problems will this cause? And I’m away…)

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A story in a sentence

Remember the time you thought you saw a ghost? (A monster will do.) Summarise the entire episode in one sentence.

Example: Several years ago, at a YHA castle in Scotland, I hoped to see a ghost. I was bitterly disappointed when I only heard it sing.

Now, continue with another very short sentence which says something unexpected/unrelated.

Example: Several years ago, at a YHA castle in Scotland, I hoped to see a ghost. I was bitterly disappointed when I only heard it sing. I also lost my glasses.

(Now think further, about how these two unrelated ideas might be related. This may provide you with the bones of an entire story.)

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So-boring-it’s-interesting

First, open a newspaper and pluck out an unlikely sentence for a story.

Example: QUENTIN Bryce has cut short an overseas trip in the expectation that Julia Gillard will make a visit to Government House to call an election within days.

It’ll be written in journalese. Change it to make it sound like fiction. You may have to change the tense. You might change a few details at random, to make it more (or less) specific. Change names.

Example: Caramella Montino cut short a trip to the supermarket in the expectation that her nephew would make a visit to Holyrood Hollows to convey news of an election.

Now, follow this with a very short sentence. The opposite has happened.

Example: Caramella Montino cut short a trip to the supermarket in the expectation that her nephew would make a visit to Holyrood Hollows to convey news of his election. The nephew never arrived.

(Now I have many choices. Is the story about Caramella or her nephew? Why did he not arrive? Is this a story about an election? If so, was he elected? Is he disappointed? Elected for what?)

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start with the philosophical

First, find an interesting quotation on one of those online quotation sites.

Example: ‘Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.’ – Henry Ward Beecher

Now change it a bit.

Example: Every home handyman dips his brush in his own soul. He lays down tarps, sands between coats. A man’s home is his castle.

Now write a sentence or two which proves the exception to some rule or truism expressed in your quotation.

Example: Every home handyman dips his brush in his own soul. He lays down tarps, sands between coats. A man’s home is his castle.

But there was no sugarcoating this one. Jeffrey stood in the centre of the living room and surveyed his work. No doubt about it. He’d just painted the walls a lumpy, baby-shit brown. Even the wife’s antique Persian rug hadn’t escaped a splattering.

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Now you have 10 story openings. One or two probably jump out at you as potential for an entire story. If not, try ranking them. If you still have no joy, try the exercise again on a different day.

Give yourself permission to scrap this opening later, or modify it during the editing stage. No opening is perfect. All you need is a start.

Have fun. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU START, ONLY WHERE YOU END UP.

Related Links: Openings that annoy, Opening Lines I’ve Tried To Shock My Middleclass Father With On The Phone; 5 Ways To Unblock Writer’s Block; 12 things a writer can use to create an infinite number of story ideas, from Shevi Arnold; Three Parts to Every Story – Beginnings, from Fuel Your Writing.

Try also: the #WritingPrompt hashtag on Twitter.

Describe A Kitchen: Photo Stimulus

Close your eyes and imagine a kitchen. Any kitchen. Now open. Which kitchen sprang first to mind?

That’s your kitchen. You’ll be writing two or three paragraphs about that kitchen.

pic by Amanda Woodward

Whose eyes do you see through? The kitchen above looks like it’s from the view of a child. Perhaps you imagine one kitchen in particular: grandmother’s, your own house, your cousin’s kitchen, your neighbours. Perhaps you pulled it out of nowhere. That’s good too.

pic by Mark Wiewel

Whatever you imagine in your kitchen, exaggerate it a little. Flowers on the wall? Now what’ve you got?

pic by skarpetka86

If you were painting this kitchen on canvas, would you use warm hues or cool? What’s the weather like outside the window? Are you cold? Or is it a mid-summer’s day?

pic by Tom Watson

This kitchen looks as if someone’s just moving in or just moved out. What has just happened in your kitchen? What is about to happen? And most importantly, what’s happening now?

Is there anyone else in that kitchen? What are they saying to each other, if anything? Perhaps there’s just a cat. Or the dog, or a line of ants marching across the floor to an open jar of jam left on the bench.

pic by Christopher Barson

Is this a well-used kitchen, or the kitchen of someone who looks as if they’re always out to dinner?

pic by J Konig

If there are magnets and notes on the fridge, what do they say?

pic by BulletMiller

Untidy kitchens are more interesting. Pick a few details and describe. Just a few, mind. You’re not writing a photograph.

pic by cafemama

What would this kitchen smell like? What about your kitchen? What was the last thing eaten here? Can you still smell cooking aromas lingering? Maybe you smell smoke, or grass clippings from outside, or cleaning products.

pic by cafemama

Let your mind camera zoom in to the smallest detail. What can you see now that you didn’t see before? If you can’t remember details, make them up.

pic by sigma

This used to be someone’s kitchen. What happened? Where are the people now?

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[I] Note how personalised and peopled the material world is at a level almost beneath scrutiny. I’m thinking of the cutlery in the drawer or the crockery I every morning empty from the dishwasher. Some wooden spoons, for instance, I like, think of as friendly; others are impersonal or without character. Some bowls are favourites; others I have no feeling for at all. There is a friendly fork, a bad knife and a blue and white plate that is thicker than the others and which I think of as taking the kick if I discriminate against it by using it less

- Alan Bennett, 2001 diary entry, 8 January

Describe a Setting: Photo Stimulus

pic by Stuck In Customs

pic by anthony chammond

pic by morBCN

pic by Phillipp Klinger

pic by Altus

pic by Laura K Gibb

These photos are from Flickr Creative Commons. Click on the photos to go to the original links. But actually, the less you know about these pictures before you start writing about them, the easier it will be to make the whole thing up. So don’t click until after you’ve written. Each of these photos has real stories attached.

Describe A Classroom: Photo Stimulus

Jonathan Pobre

Maybe you’re in a classroom right now. If so, you can write about that. If not, you can imagine any sort of classroom you like. It may be one classroom in particular, or it may be an amalgamation of several, or of all the classrooms you’ve ever set foot in. Or you might make it up completely.

Write what you see and imagine, not what you know.

Blackboards are really quite green, aren’t they? I wonder who scribbled on the board in the photo above. Do you think it was the teacher? What happened? This is a creative writing about setting, but I want you to imagine what happened in that classroom just before you wrote about it. This will affect the atmosphere in the room.

pic by monkeyc.net

First, imagine the outside of the building. Is it a modern building or old? What’s it made of? Is it well-maintained, or in a state of disrepair? Whatever you imagine, exaggerate a little. If there’s a flight of steps leading up to the classroom, you might instead write of a long, winding staircase. Because that’s how it sometimes feels, if you don’t want to go to class.

pic by Extra Ketchup

Now we’re inside the classroom. In your mind, is it full of people, or are you alone? If you’re alone, why? Maybe you’ve been kept back after class. Perhaps you just imagine a teacher in there, preparing a lesson, or a magic potion to cast over his students tomorrow.

What’s on the walls? If you’re writing a fantasy scene, it’s sometimes better to ground the fantasy in reality by describing what might well be on the walls of a real classroom.

pic by Liz

What’s the mood? This classroom looks like a cheerful place with a fun teacher.

pic by Night Owl City

This looks like a dreaded exam room.

pic by Dystopos

So does this one. Sometimes it’s more fun to write about an unpleasant place than a happy one. Look at the details. What do you notice after a few minutes that you did not immediately see?

The windows cast squares of white upon the wall.

The linoleum tiles are lifting in places, perhaps where the cleaner spilled a bucket of water. (You can imagine whatever you like. The more you imagine the more interesting this will read to others, who will never imagine exactly the same thing as you do.)

Ask why. Why are all these chairs pushed to the back, and why are the red ones clustered together? Who sits in the red chairs, do you think?

pic by cwtreloar

What happened to the children who used to study here?

pic by Pink Sherbet Photography

Notice the smallest detail. If you’re in a classroom right now, this will be easy. Perhaps there’s a lump of chewing gum stuck to the underside of your desk. (No, don’t check.) Or perhaps there are stains on the carpet.

pic by Aaron Knox

See how this teacher doesn’t wipe previous sums from the board before starting on another. It looks a little as if he can’t remember his equations, so he tapes them above the board as reference. Notice the way the light bounces off his head. What is the most distinguishing thing about the teacher in your classroom? (Tip: don’t choose the teacher who’s going to be grading this particular paper.)

Now, your eyes are only of so much use.

How does your classroom smell? I can smell wet wool, because it’s been raining and every student wears a green, woollen jersey. The girls wear oatmeal woollen tights.

I smell orange peels and peanut butter, because it’s after lunch and 28 students just ate their lunches in here. No doubt some of them stuffed their waste between the bar heaters and the wall.

What can you hear? Even a quiet classroom is seldom without noise. If it is, you might hear the sound of biro on paper. I hear the rain outside, and students from an adjacent classroom about to visit the library. I hear someone at the back of the room tapping a ruler on the desk, absentmindedly but annoying.

Now write.

Start with the largest detail, and zoom like a camera down to the most minuscule. Make stuff up. Let your mind make diversions. Imagine what has happened, what will happen, what maybe happened and what probably didn’t happen but is interesting anyway.

Write for ten minutes. Then see where you are. You may be surprised.

Good Adverb, Bad Adverb

A good adverb changes the meaning of a verb.

A bad one adds nothing but word count.

Too many adverbs make for clunky writing. Get rid of any you don’t need.

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Discussing in pairs, cross out the adverbs below which the reader can do without:

1. Startled by the siren, she accidentally knocked her cup of herbal tea onto her keyboard.
2. “Get out of my house,” he said politely.
3. “I’ll kill you if you say that again,” he said angrily.
4. “I’m going to torture you,” she whispered, securing the knot loosely around his wrists.
5. She gripped her handkerchief tightly, waiting anxiously for the call from the hospital.
6. After six years, he eventually turned up for that cup of coffee.
7. “Hi guys, great to see you!” she said brightly.
8. He turned up punctually on the dot.
9. She smiled sadly.
10. She liked both men equally.
11. She wolfed the ham sandwich down hungrily, smacking her lips in satisfaction.
12. He tenderly stroked her arm.
13. The victim was mortally wounded.

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Good Adverb, Bad Adverb (pdf)

Good Adverb, Bad Adverb (doc, feel free to modify)

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Also see Roy’s Writing Tools – tool #5 at Poynter Online.

Action, Narrative and Dialogue: Understanding the Difference

Any scene from a work of fiction can be divided into:

1. ACTION – stuff happens

2. NARRATIVE – the narrator says stuff happens. “Tells”

3. DIALOGUE – stuff inside the speech marks. “Shows”

The author must decide how much of each kind to include to make a good story. Too much action loses the reader. Too much narrative slows down the pace and gets boring. Too much dialogue makes the thing sound more like a script than a story and fails to engage.

Different genres demand different balances. Modern Young Adult novels, for example, have a much higher proportion of dialogue than those published 100 years ago. Literary or experimental fiction can get away with little or no dialogue, and this may be appropriate for that particular story.

For an informative podcast on weaving narrative and dialogue, listen to Paula B at The Writing Show.

If a writer finds there are problems with pace in their work, it is worth taking a close look at the balance of action, narrative and dialogue.

Here is an exercise for students, taking excerpts from the work of Roald Dahl: a master at weaving action, narrative and dialogue to create stories which are engaging and fast-paced. Students need three different coloured highlighters (or pens). Using one colour for each type of story-telling, they highlight the entire excerpt and compare with other students afterwards.

NARRATIVE, ACTION AND DIALOGUE ACTIVITY (pdf)

NARRATIVE, ACTION AND DIALOGUE ACTIVITY (Word, feel free to modify)

Key Questions:

• Of the three, which is the easiest type to pick out? (Probably dialogue.)
• How would you describe the difference between ‘narrative’ and ‘action’?
• What category does ‘back story’ fall into? ‘Narrative’ or ‘action’? Can back story be both?
• Do you prefer reading stories with lots of dialogue or with little dialogue?
• Which kind of story are you more inclined to write?

A Character Sketch

This piece of writing will be a description in depth of a person you feel very strongly about and know a lot about. Choose some individual that you have an intense personal reaction to: love, respect, hate, frustration, envy, anger or distrust. (Or a combination of all of these.) Your task is to draw a portrait of him or her in words so that the person and your thoughts and feelings emerge.
To get started, close your eyes and visualise a person you know well. Imagine you are describing this person to a stranger who doesn’t know him or her. Now think a bit about the kinds of behaviour that have given rise to this generalisation: what has this person done or said that has made you decide he/she has this characteristic? List these behaviours. This is an exercise in showing, not telling:

Showing: ‘Lockie lay on his bed getting up a sweat, or went out walking around the swampy drains behind the house. He played his Van Halen tapes and stood in front of the mirror with his tennis raquet, giving it vibrato and thrash chords and feedback to forget his troubles.

- from Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo by Tim Winton

Telling: ‘Lockie liked to walk. He also liked music and tennis and tended to get bored.

Showing: ‘Nan’s view of the physical world was a deeply personal one. And when she wasn’t outside chopping wood or raking leaves, she was observing the weather. Her concern with atmospheric conditions was based on a rather pessimistic view of the frequency of natural
disasters. Even though she avidly listened to weather reports on the radio, she never put her complete faith in any meteorologist’s opinion. Nana knew their predictions weren’t as predictable as her own. Daily, she checked the sky, the clouds, the wind, and on particularly still days, the reactions of our animals. Sometimes, she would sit up half the night, checking on a movement of a particular star, or pondering the meaning of a new colour she’d seen in the sky at sunset.

- from My Place by Sally Morgan

Telling: Nan was very connected to nature and took a deep interest in weather reports, animals and stars.

Common Ways of Revealing Character:

1. Describe the character’s appearance: facial features, body shape, hair style etc. Try to describe the things that are not immediately
apparent. (Perhaps steer clear of eye-colour, unless it’s important. Perhaps the teeth reveal more about a character’s level of income and
age than whether they have blue or brown eyes. Definitely avoid the cliché of green eyes to make the character seem special.)

2. Have the character behave in a typical or revealing situation so that the actions tell us something about the person.

3. Give us access to the character’s thoughts. Perhaps have the character think out loud so that the reader knows the character’s attitudes, wishes, desires etc. This is the advantage of the written word over the screen and it pays to make the most of it.

4. Have other characters respond to or speak about him/her. What would they say? Even if there are no other characters in your story, the
narrator (you, the story teller) functions as a character, with a personality of your own. You will know different things about this character depending on your relationship with him/her.

5. Make the character talk to another character, or think out-loud. What does the word-choice and syntax show us about him/her?

6. Are there any items that would be associated with your character. E.g. a pipe, broken spectacles, Dolce & Gabana sunglasses…

7. Where would you be most likely to find this character? In his shed? In her kitchen? At work? A person’s environment says a lot. What does she have hanging on the walls? Is his bedroom messy or tidy? What would she put in her handbag? What would he have in his pockets?

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A CHARACTER SKETCH (word version, feel free to modify)

A CHARACTER SKETCH (pdf)