“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” ~ Stephen King
This week I did an interesting and useful assignment for my fiction writing course. You take a character from your story idea, and use the following formula: if a character was a car, she/he would be_______. Then substitute “car” with “food,” “drink,” “movie,” etc. After that, write a description of your character using these metaphors (can be a sentence for each category, or an entire scene.) So I applied this to Cassie, a main character in the story that I recently started.
- if Cassie was a car, she would be a Beetle
- if Cassie was a food she would be a pomegranate
- if Cassie was a drink, she would be Silk (organic soy beverage)
- if Cassie was a movie, she would be Amelie
- if Cassie was an item of clothing, she would be a silk scarf
- if Cassie was a style of music she would be classical impressionism (Debussy, Clair de Lune )
- if Cassie was a musical instrument she would be a flute
- if Cassie was a flower, she would be a cherry blossom
- if Cassie was a tree, she would be a birch
- if Cassie was a style of dance, she would be ballet
- if Cassie was an animal, she would be a humming bird
The first six categories were given by the instructor, and I added five of my own. Then I wrote descriptions, based on the above statements. Here is one of them:
With the innocence and delicacy of a cherry blossom, Cassie would wrap herself around you like a silk scarf, light as a feather, hardly even there, smooth to the touch, yet firmly in place.
And one more:
He often pictured people as musical instruments or musical pieces. When he met Cassie, he instantly decided she was a flute, and the airy aura about her made him think of silvery moonlight reflected on water and Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy. (now you know what inspired my previous post :-))
I enjoyed doing this exercise (while listening to Debussy, of course) and I think it’s a great way to flesh out my characters and bring them to life.
Sounds like a wonderful device.
great exercise!
Hmmm, interesting exercise. It sounds like it was a lot of fun. π
LOVE the Stephen King quote.. Woooo.. give me da shivers! π
Pink.
What a fantastic exercise! It’s easy to see how it would help in portraying some meat on the bones of fictional characters. I’m going to store this one away in case I ever actually write something. π
From your excerpts, I can see how valuable this exercise can be, for creating characters. Thanks for sharing it:)
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Very cool exercise and suggestion here. Very cool. Thank you!