Writers in Isolation

Many children have imaginary friends. Even if you didn't have an imaginary friend in childhood, it's possible you would like one now. It can help to create an imaginary friend as a possible reader of your creative writing. Stage 1. A friend is often someone with whom we share interests or points of view. Write down between three and five interests or points of view you would like your imaginary friend to share. Decide on three other points about your imaginary friend. One should be their age. One should be their gender. One you can decide for yourself but it should be something fundamental to that person. Write this all down. Stage 2. It's important that a friend shouldn't be identical to you. The friend has to bring something new to this imagined friendship. Write down between three and five interests or points of view the friend has that you do not share. Stage 3. Write down up to five things that your friend likes a lot and up to three things that your frien...

This exercise is an approach to imagining a world which starts from one individual and works outward. It can be used in a setting that is historical or present day but is more  usually associated with sci-fi, fantasy or speculative fiction. There’s no reason why poets or script-writers shouldn’t use it too. Stage 1. Think of a character in another time and place. This will work well if it’s a time and place you are inventing. If it’s a distant place or a historical time (or the present day) this may require quite a lot of research. Quickly, without stopping to think too much, write down answers to the following questions: - what is the character wearing?  - what is the character holding? - where does the character live? - does the character live alone or with others? - what is the character’s favourite food? - how does the character travel? Stage 2. Look back at your answers. Every answer leads to further questions. For example, when you consider what the characte...

In a  speech in 2014 , the writer Ursula K Le Guin praised writers who could imagine a way in which the world could be different. Last week, at the end of  an article in the Financial Times , Arundhati Roy wrote of the need to “imagine another world.” So let’s begin. Stage 1. Think of something in the world today that troubles you and that you wish could be changed. You don’t have to know how the change could be achieved. It could be something little like getting rid of self-service tills or something bigger like abolishing homelessness. Write down the change you want to see. Stage 2. Now start to imagine a society or world in which that change has been achieved and a return to the current state of affairs is appalling or unimaginable. Start with someone in the new society and describe their reaction to whatever you have abolished (self-service tills, homelessness) as though its existence or introduction had been suggested as a new idea. Write it down. Stage 3. B...