Six Weeks of Favorite Writing Prompts: Week #4, Opposites
When I was in the deepest struggle with my first novel, Qualities of Light, I took a one-day workshop from author Alison McGhee. (Check out her Substack and Poem of the Week here.)
Alison gave us a writing prompt that changed the way I look at story-making.
She wrote two lists on the blackboard. One list had five people. If I remember correctly, it included a six-year old boy, a seventy-five-year old woman, a teenager, and a few others.
The other list was about objects. Strange items like a birdcage, a water glass, a jackknife.
I couldn’t imagine what the two lists were about. Then she told us we were to pick one item from each list and write a scene using them both. I mentally shrugged, I didn’t get the purpose, but I was stuck. So nothing to lose.
I picked the six-year-old boy, since one of my main characters fit that age. And I chose the jackknife from the objects.
What I didn’t know, broke the block
Unknowingly, because I knew zip about jackknives, I’d picked just the right words to break the writer’s block I was mired in.
So . . . the jacknife. What about it? Before I started writing, I brainstormed a bit.
Jackknives are highly valued by young kids, especially if they belong to someone revered. Handed down from elder to child, when it’s time. My own grandfather had a war-era relic I still own. It was very precious to him, and although I haven’t felt the same about it, I could imagine it being precious to me.
When I began writing from that prompt in Alison’s class, I didn’t know where it would lead. But I trust writing prompts. I know that free writing, or writing from a stream of consciousness, is gold for developing new ideas and scenes.
The writing time in that class was much too short, to my astonishment. I was literally silenced by the scene that emerged.
Sammy, the six-year-old in Qualities of Light, steals his father’s jackknife on the morning of his birthday. Molly, his older sister, is badgered into taking Sam for a dawn boat ride, even though her father has forbidden use of the ancient motorboat. Sam, leaning over the side to watch ducks, drops the knife in the lake and falls in after it, hitting his head on the boat. He is in a coma. The family has no idea if he’ll live.
The story revolves around what happens next, a small family, already in struggle with each other, facing this new loss. Molly, the narrator, has huge choices to make. Can she accept the possibility of redemption in the midst of her guilt over her brother? Especially as she falls in love with another girl summering at the lake?
I didn’t have a real story, until this simple writing prompt.
Qualities of Light was published in 2009 and was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards. I still get correspondence from readers about how much the story means to them.
And I still thank Alison, in my mind, for her genius prompt. Which I hope you will try this week!
Your weekly writing exercise
Create two random lists.
On one, list 5-10 people of various ages, backgrounds, etc. You don’t have to get too specific.
On the other, list items. Look around your house or outdoors. Let your imagination roam.
Pick one from each list and set your phone timer for 20 minutes. Write a short scene using both.
What did you discover, change, realize, learn?
Photo by Meg Jenson on Unsplash