Writing Exercise 15: Using Memory

This is an exercise is which you can take one of your own memories, alter it, and give it to  a character you have invented.

 Stage 1.
Choose an event or occasion you remember. Don’t choose anything that’s very personal or emotional. It could be a pleasant walk or a surprising incident or conversation. Write down all you can remember. 
Write down how the memory affected all five senses (touch, smell, taste, hearing, sight). If you can’t remember how it affected a particular sense, imagine how it might have been.

 Stage 2.
Choose a character who lives in a home similar to the place where you are. Make this character different from you in three key aspects. These might be chosen from (for example) gender, age, life experience, relationships. Apart from this you can draw on aspects of your own experience,
Imagine this character standing in a room similar into the one where you are now and looking out of a window. What does this character notice? How does the character react? Write it down.

 Stage 3.
Your character is trying to make a choice or decision. It’s difficult. What choice or decision might this be? Write it down.

 Stage 4.
Something your character sees sparks off a memory. It’s very like the memory you described in stage 1, but it’s not exactly the same. What sparks off the memory? How did your character react to it at the time? Does it mean something different here and now? Write about your character’s experience of the memory.

 Stage 5.
Now return to the decision or choice your character has to make. See if the memory can influence that decision or choice. If not, the character will still have to return to the present. Write about the character’s return from remembering to the present day.

 Now see if you can put everything together into a story, script or poem about the character’s choice, decision or inability to choose.

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