Danika Dinsmore

Author / Educator / Activist

weekend workout

How Being a Children’s Author Helps Tackle Global Climate Destabilization (Plus a Workout)

by 1 Comment

Congratulations to Miriam for winning the $25 Gift Card

~     ~     ~

Last weekend marked the largest collaborative Climate March in our world’s history. Over 2,500 events in 162 countries during which citizens marched in solidarity a few days before the UN Climate Summit.

Climate march 

And I wasn’t there.

To be fair, my household was represented by other members of my tribe. But, I still felt a bit guilty for not going. This is a huge deal and it was a great historical event.

I have attended rallies and marches in the past. Sometimes they simply overwhelm me. Other times I get inspired, and then the immediacy of life takes over and I get caught up in my daily to-do.

I was left at home wondering what more I could do. I’m not a scientist, but I can support those developing solutions for our climate problems. I’m not a politician, but I can support those making ethical decisions regarding our communities and planet. I don’t work for any non-profits (although I want to start a foundation some day), but I can support those doing the hard canvassing and clean-up work.

I am a children’s author. I write and perform and teach Imaginary Worlds classes to kids of all ages.

What does that bring to the table?

https://bit.ly/YVJPYx
by Gizem Vural

 

In the past few years I’ve read about several studies linking reading with empathy. These studies show there is a direct correlation between children who read frequently and their level of empathy for others. An article in Scientific American said that, in particular, reading fiction that focuses on “the psychology of characters and their relationships” teaches kids “values about social behavior, such as the importance of understanding those who are different from ourselves.”

Reading novels as a child — implying literary engagement with life’s social, cultural and psychological complexities — can have a positive impact on personality development and social skills. ~Why Everyone Should Read Harry Potter 

An article in Psychology Today suggests that the “simplest, easiest, cheapest thing we can do to build connection between people is to read to every child.” Because reading fiction opens us up to multiple perspectives, it improves our ability to navigate relationships.

Reading allows children to conceptualize a world beyond the world of “self.” ~Raising a Reader, Learning Empathy

These studies make complete sense to me, because I believe reading a wide variety of literature as a child helps us to realize how connected we all are, but still how unique each individual is. They can also inspire by demonstrating the resiliency of the human (or faerie) spirit.

This is what I was thinking about last Sunday, when I decided to stay home and write and prepare bulk meals for the week (I am dealing with an auto-immune disorder and must cook all of my own food from scratch) while the rest of my family attended the march:

No matter what we do for a living, there is always a way for us to make the world a better place through our vocation. 

~   ~   ~

We’ve got a tough road ahead of us as world citizens, and addressing these serious challenges will take a lot of empathy, a lot of creativity, and a lot of cooperation.

It sounds cliche to say that the children are our future, but THE CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE! What part am I playing in creating the future of our planet? Through my writing, teaching, and performing I’m doing the best I can to leave the next generation with the tools to work together harmoniously, to inspire ingenuity and creative thinking, to expand curiosity, to encourage compassion and inclusivity, to support a world of love and possibility rather than fear and divisiveness.

And through the empathy, innovation, and willingness of our future generations will the problems compounding today be approached with more cooperation and a collaborative spirit.

~     ~    ~

YOUR WRITING WORKOUT

Actions have consequences and ripple effects, some make major ripples and some affect only a handful of people.

How do your character’s actions create consequences not only for her, but for the people around her?

We can create empathy for a character whose small action sets off a chain of disastrous events beyond her control. We can also root for a character who redeems herself with a good deed that has a positive karmic ripple effect.

1) SET YOUR TIMER for 7-10 minutes.

Start with the line: Out of spite, my character decides to … and it causes …

While you’re writing, think of every single person this action could affect.

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

2) SET YOUR TIMER for 10-12 minutes.

Start with the line: In response to my characters actions, CHARACTER B …

Now think of all the responses / reactions that could possibly happen. GET BIG about it.

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

3) SET YOUR TIMER for 12-15 minutes.

Start with the line:  My character’s redeeming action happens when . ..

Now think about the ripple effect in the positive direction

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

And have a great weekend!

 

Weekend Workout: How To Be

by 4 Comments

Just because it’s NaNo month and I’m on Team Pantser this year, doesn’t mean I’ll stop doing my long-hand exercises. I’m sure a lot of people (especially Pantsers) type everything straight into their computer. During NaNo month, far more of my first draft definitely happens through my keyboard. But, I almost always warm up with a hand-written exercise and when I get stuck, I always reach for a pen. Writing by hand, for me, opens me up creatively,  frees my ideas, my blocks, and my editor.

Whether you are participating in the NaNoWriMo this month or not (and cheers to you if you are), I’ve cooked up a little exercise that you might find helpful at some point when developing a character.

A few weeks ago, the students in one of my classes read How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor. A sweet middle grade story about a girl who must live in a car with her mother and brother after their father leaves them with no money and they are evicted from their apartment. Her mother is working two low-wage jobs in order to come up with rent and deposit for a new place. The girl decides she’s going to help her mother raise money by stealing a dog. She’ll wait for the owner to post a reward and then bring the dog back for the reward.

826576

I didn’t find anything particularly surprising or eye-opening about the story, but I did like the concept, the characters, and the voice. I think voice is one of those things that’s difficult to teach, and even to explain to writers, but you kinda know it when you see it.

In the book, the main character creates a list of instructions in her journal on how to steal a dog. The assignment I gave to my students after they read the book was to write their own instruction list for something in the form of a poem, vignette, or short story (for example, one wrote instructions for “How to Make Someone Uncomfortable When You Pass them on the Sidewalk ).

It was a great exercise, so I decided to use it another way. What if the character in your story wasn’t giving someone instructions  on how to DO something, but how to BE something. What about how to be them? This might be a great way not only to develop voice, but backstory, motivation, wound, etc. In other words: character.

YOUR WORKOUT

Set your timer for 15-20 minutes. Put your character in a place (so we know who her audience is): a psych ward, the waiting room of a dentist office, an auditorium, school lunchroom, or maybe just home in bed writing in her diary.

Your start line is: To be me, you have to…

Write without stopping and see where that takes you.

Don’t edit, cross out, or re-read while you write. Keep the pen moving!

If you like the exercise, try it again with another character.

And have a great weekend!

NaNo NaNo!

Weekend Writing Workout ~ Really!

by 5 Comments

My friend Jennifer and I were walking in the park yesterday with her daughter, enjoying a crisp late afternoon under a canopy of bright leaves. When I grew thirsty, she offered me her tic tacs.

“Wow,” I said, “I haven’t had one of those in years.”

“Just put one in your mouth,” she said. “Trust me.”

I did as I was told and instantly had a memory of a shopping mall where my best friend and I bought treats on the way to school.

“It tastes like the 70’s,” I said, sucking on the tiny white thing. “And  bit medicinal.”

“I know, right!” she said, excited. “They’re really small, but so potent. You only need one, and, BAM, you’re transported back in time.”

She was right. There was something about that kick of taste that brought me back to my childhood.

What small, simple objects transport you back in time?

What small, simple objects transport your character back in time?

This weekend, write about a memory that strikes your character without notice. That hijacks their thoughts. That intrudes on their mood, their day, their conversation.

YOUR WORKOUT

1) Pick one of your characters to use for this exercise.

SET YOUR TIMER for 7-10 minutes.

Start with the line:
She/he stopped in her tracks, for on the ground was a …

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

2) SET YOUR TIMER for 10-12 minutes.

Start with the line:

“What’s that!” she/he exclaimed, pointing to the …

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

3) SET YOUR TIMER for 15-20 minutes.

Now write a SCENE in which this object INTRUDES upon your character’s activity, be it a walk, a fight, a conversation, a meal. Have it invoke a memory, and a feeling along with that memory. Have it TAKE THE ACTION in a new direction.

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

 

And have a great weekend!

Hellooooooo! Weekend Workout: We Got Talent

by 1 Comment

Wow. It’s been over a month since I’ve blogged. I’ve been trying to get back to it, but life kept happening. I won’t go into all the details, but let’s just say the circumnavigation included a computer death, a back injury (unrelated to the computer death), 3 elementary school visits (also unrelated to the back injury), a flashmob, a haircut, completing my latest rewrite on a new novel (yay), a dream about a roller coaster for executives. And this:

steaming jar of

The back injury happened while falling into a pile of logs trying to retrieve this one for my garden:

garden log

Okay, the part where I carried this by myself to the car may have exacerbated my back injury a bit. But lookie how cool my garden driftwood log is! And my free beach log only cost me $300 in massage and chiropractor expenses!

So, while I was grumbly and lying around recovering, I entertained myself by watching 2 seasons of The Killing – a really fantastic series (oh, but don’t tell my husband I watched season 2 without him) and inspirational youtube videos of X Factor auditions.

I’ve never watched X Factor, American Idol, The Voice, or any of these other singing shows, and I don’t think I’d watch a whole show or a whole season. But what I loved over and over again was when the person auditioning  took the judges by surprise. I loved when what they expected was turned on its head.

A few of my favourites included:

Jeffery Adam Gutt
Panda Ross
Tate Stevens
Luke Lucas
and from Britain’s Got Talent, Charlotte and Jonathan

The list goes on, really (I probably watched 100 videos). And it’s made me think both about expectation and inspiration. We can’t help but to judge people the moment we see them. It’s human nature. And I find it completely inspiring when my own expectations are blown out the door.

YOUR WORKOUT

Literary agent Donald Maas, author of Writing the Breakout Novel, says that to make your characters universal, you have to make them unique, which sounds like an oxymoron. But, he explains, that our uniqueness is the universal thing about us.

What’s unique about us might be a talent – a small one or a large one or a quirky one. Remember in BREAKFAST CLUB when Claire (Molly Ringwald) placed her lipstick between her breasts and put it on without her hands, claiming it was her only talent? John Green’s protagonist in AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES  has a talent for making anagrams.

What is your character’s talent? Is it integral to the plot or a bonus character trait? Does your antagonist or villain have a talent as well?

1) Pick one of your characters to use for this exercise.

SET YOUR TIMER for 7-10 minutes.

Start with the line:
If my character had nothing to do all day, he’d occupy himself by…

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

2) SET YOUR TIMER for 10-12 minutes.

Start with the line: My character is most proud of the way he…

3) SET YOUR TIMER for 15-20 minutes.

Now write a SCENE in which another character comes upon your character doing this thing at which he or she is so talented.

Make the scene awkward for the character by either a) making the character ashamed of being caught, or b) making the person who catches him in the middle of this thing either critical or snide about it.

Start with the line: Character X walks into the room and laughs …

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

Weekend Writing Workout: Add a Little Magic

by 2 Comments

I’ve developed a course called Introduction to Speculative Fiction and there’s a particular brainstorming exercise where students do sub-genre mash-ups to generate stories.

Once when I was teaching the class there was a woman in the front row who spent most of the class scribbling in her journal. She was a contemporary fiction writer working on a semi-autobiographic story. I thought she wasn’t interested in the class and was off on her own adventure. Turns out she had been inspired by the exercise.

She told me later that she had been stuck in her writing and depressed about it. She had been having trouble letting go of parts of the story that weren’t serving it because they were “true.” Even though it was a work of fiction, she was attached to these “truths.”

After our genre exercise, just for the heck of it, she decided to add a magical realism element to her “real world” story. She said not only did  it make her story more interesting, it freed her from this need to stick to “reality.” She apologized after class for spending the whole time working on her story and I said, “by all means, it was a perfect use of the time!”

from Wikipedia:

As recently as 2008, magical realism in literature has been defined as “a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the ‘reliable’ tone of objective realistic report … fantastic attributes given to characters in such novels—levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis—are among the means that magic realism adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagorical political realities of the 20th century.”

YOUR WORKOUT

1) SET YOUR TIMER for 10 minutes.

Think about a moment in your life when you had to say good-bye to an inanimate object (a car, a dress, a book, a couch).

Start with the line:  It was time to say good-bye to …

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

2) SET YOUR TIMER for 12-15 minutes.

Now make the object animate in some way. Give it a magical property. Have it visit you in your dreams. Give it some way to communicate with you.

Start with the line: The (object) looked at me and …

3) SET YOUR TIMER for 20 minutes.

And now write the SCENE between you and the object if you haven’t already.

Start with the line: In this scene …

Write without stopping, crossing out, rereading, or editing.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend Writing Workout: Invasion of Space

by Leave a Comment

I’ve been reading an excellent book called SelfDesign about the life long educational philosophy of Brent Cameron. In it he states that in order to stay balanced within ourselves and our relationships we have to learn not to extend ourselves into other people’s domains, violating their boundaries. He theorizes that if we stay 2/3 in our own space and share a consensual space of 1/3 each, we can keep our relationships in balance.

1622308

Think about the over-bearing mother who smothers her child and is 3/4 in his personal space. He will definitely find ways to express his anger.

I haven’t tried this one yet, but I thought it made an interesting idea for an exercise about what transpires when characters invade each others’ space.

I think ideally this ends in writing a scene between two people who have “space” issues, but take it wherever it goes.

Your Workout

1) Set your timer for 5-7 minutes.

Start at the top of the page with the following startline:

The demon my character always keeps at bay looks like . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

2) When the timer stops, Set your timer for 7-10 more minutes.

Start with the following line: 

My character’s personal space is violated by his (mother, sister, brother, uncle, etc) when  . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

3) When the timer stops, Set your timer for 10-12 more minutes.

Start with the following line: 

To assert his personal space, my character…
OR
My character’s inability to assert his personal space stems from…

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

4) NOW, set your timer for 10-15 more minutes.

WRITE THE SCENE in ACTION and DIALOGUE ONLY (to keep you moving forward – don’t get caught up in the minutia of description) in which this character is confronted with this invasion of space.

Use the start line:  Character B stepped closer to Character A and . . .

Even though you are writing a scene, just WRITE, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

Read your exercises and your scene, make notes, highlight what makes sense.

And have a fabulous, healthy weekend.

Weekend Writing Workout: Seven Deadly Sins

by 3 Comments

I’ve been zonked with a nasty head/chest cold this week and am feeling a bit behind. But, since I feel behind most of the time, I’m not going to fret about that. I do wish I could breathe through my nose, though.

This week’s exercise was inspired by an interview with author Jack Remick. I believe it was the interview on the The Ashley Fontainne Show on Artist First Radio Network: https://www.artistfirst.com/ashleyfontainne.htm

(and even if it’s wasn’t, you should listen to the interview anyway, because Jack gives great interview)

300px-Boschsevendeadlysins
Hieronymus Bosch’s Seven Deadly Sins

The interviewer brought up the idea of working with the seven deadly sins, which are: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. I’m sure each of us has experienced every one of these sins personally in some way, shape, or form. Perhaps we can relate to one of them more than the others. I’m not so much a wrathful person, but my pride has made me stubborn in the past, and hindered me from looking at something from someone else’s point of view. In the end, it was only a disservice to myself.

Which is how I want you to view these “sins” in terms of your characters. Which sin resembles the cause of each character’s misery? Is it envy that spikes her bitterness toward her sister? Is it pride that won’t allow him to forgive his best friend? Is it wrath that guards her heart?

If you’re not sure, try several of them on for size and see what fits. And try this out on multiple characters, not just your protagonist. Every character deserves a sin!

YOUR WORKOUT

1) Set your timer for 5-7 minutes.

Start at the top of the page with the following startline:

My character is stifled by the sin of  . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

2) When the timer stops, Set your timer for 7-10 more minutes.

Start with the following line: 

She/he must confront this sin when . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

3) NOW, set your timer for 10-15 more minutes.

WRITE THE SCENE in ACTION and DIALOGUE ONLY (to keep you moving forward – don’t get caught up in the minutia of description) in which this character is confronted with her sin.

Use the start line:  In frustration, He/She picked up the . . .

Even though you are writing a scene, just WRITE, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

Read your exercises and your scene, make notes, highlight what makes sense.

And have a fabulous, healthy weekend.

Weekend Workout from FaerieCon West

by 3 Comments

Greetings from FaerieCon West, where I will be storytelling and causing mischief all weekend.

Danika and Spring Faerie

Before the workout, I have a few announcements:

First, today is the LAST day to enter the drawing to WIN a copy of the FUTUREDAZE anthology of YA science fiction. Co-editor Erin Underwood has generously donated a copy. (I’ll close comments at midnight PST)

Second, the 2013 Nebula Award nominations are in and Hydra House’s own Cat Rambo was nominated for her short story “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain” from her Near + Far collection.

15940746

The Nebula’s Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy nominees are:

Iron Hearted Violet, Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
Black Heart, Holly Black (S&S/McElderry; Gollancz)
Above, Leah Bobet (Levine)
The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry)
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
Enchanted, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
Every Day, David Levithan (Alice A. Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)
Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr)
Above World, Jenn Reese (Candlewick)

CHECK OUT the entire list of nominees and congrats to all (I wouldn’t want to have to pick a winner from this lot).

YOUR WORKOUT

I NEVER PICKED YOU POEM

This is a BRAND SPANKING NEW exercise that has nothing to do with character or plot or editing. I developed it for a recent writing workshop and had such a good time with it I wanted to share it here.

The workshop was for kids, so it’s broken down into small steps. Feel free to take whatever you’d like from it…

STEP ONE:

Create 5 columns across a sheet of paper and write:  Colour, Fruit or Vegetable, Instrument or type of Music, Location, Day of the Week. Then, below each, list something or place you’ve never really liked in this category. Something that doesn’t appeal to you and you’d never choose it voluntarily.

For instance, you do not like the colour brown, brussel sprouts, harmonicas, Los Angeles, or Tuesdays.

STEP TWO:

Next, under each category, write a sentence like this: “When I think of ______, it reminds me of ______.” Example:  When I think of brown it reminds me of camping in the rain with my Dad.

STEP THREE:

Choose one of the things that don’t appeal to you and write for 10 minutes straight using the start line:

I never picked you _____…

(without stopping, editing, or rereading – the more you write, the more material you will have)

STEP FOUR:

From the 10 minute stream of consciousness writing, circle all the images, phrases, and lines that appeal to you and pull them out of the piece. Rewrite them on another piece of paper. When done, it might look like this:

orange reminds me of my softball jersey in 6th grade
we were the “losingest” team that year
I got in trouble for picking a bouquet of orange California poppies that year
orange is like a prison uniform
orange was never in my favour and i never had an “orange phase”
I had a “purple phase,” my bedroom was purple and pink with white curlies on the bedpost
I also had a “green phase” where everything I wore was green and I looked like a forest
I had a very brief “red phase,” I was trying it on for size
Even though sunsets and fire are orange, I still don’t like orange

STEP FIVE

Carve out your poem from these lines. There are many ways to do so: rearrange lines, leave out words, change words to create alliteration, add interesting space for breath, etc. Expand and change the language where necessary. Add more imagery.

never orange

I’ve never picked you orange
as a favour as a phase        my youth
spent through pinks and purples
stringing the edges of my bedroom
with the white curliness
of imagination

orange was never curly it was
twang and offense
a softball team jersey hoisted upon
the losingest team on the playground
where only once      for a moment
I thought I might find comfort in you
orange, the poppies, sprung about the hill
and me picking a bouquet only to be told
those are California poppies,
you can’t pick them it’s illegal

orange, you betrayer, you
prison sentence
you were never the greens of my wardrobe
of my fern forest         nor were you
my brief liaison with red
when it offered a chance
a sports car
a mini-skirt
a swiss army knife

orange, I’ve never loved you
never let you under my skin
even in your soft sunrise I’ve taken you
for an imposter even in your flames

Have a Great Weekend! I’ll be HERE. 🙂

Weekend Writing Workout and Writing Workout Groups

by 4 Comments

Many people have writing groups where they read and critique each other’s work. It’s definitely a challenge, though, to find a good critique match. You want critique partners who have similar experience and who write in the same genres. And are just as committed to writing and critiquing as you are.

My critique partners are separate from my writing group. I have a handful of friends I trust with early drafts of work and they trust me with theirs. We’ve been reading and critiquing each other for years, growing together as professional writers.

My writing group does something else. We write.

The idea for our writing group stemmed from a long-standing writing group in Seattle called the Louisa’s Writers. (named for both Louisa street and Louisa’s Cafe where the writing happens) Writers show up and write for 45 minutes to an hour, twice a week. I mean write by hand straight, no stopping, no reviewing the work, no crossing out, no editing of any kind. It’s from the gut.

by Alison Woodward
by Alison Woodward

Then the work is shared. No critique involved, although people will point something out later if it struck them as interesting.

When I showed up there last week, there were about 25 people writing. When we started, it went quiet but for the few other patrons. The energy emanating from the collective minds, hearts, guts, and fingers was palpable and the time actually flew by.

Our much smaller writing group (called Louisa’s North, even though it takes place at The Grind) meets every Sunday. We write for 20 minutes, share, write for 20 more, and share again. Same thing – recommended writing by hand, no stopping, reviewing, or editing of any kind.

Why this works: this is far different than writing by yourself into your computer for 20 or 40 minutes. Usually when you write like that you stop and think about your word choice, your plot, your intention, and editing is too convenient. This is riding the momentum of something else. Strange inspirations come when you write with such forward momentum. Directions are explored without attachment. This kind of writing opens you up.

And it doesn’t matter your level of skill or what experiment you’re working on that day. It’s a personal experience. An added bonus to me is the letting go of ego. You read your work raw with no preambles or apologies.

Jack Remick and Bob Ray began the Louisa’s group over 15 years ago. I used to attend back in the late 90’s. Between them they have dozens of books, but they still attend the writing group when they can. And why not?

WHAT THE HECK DO WE WRITE?

We work on whatever calls us to it. Could be a W.I.P. or something new. Jack and Bob used to make up start lines but discovered that whatever needs to be written will come though if everyone simply starts with the line:

Today I am writing about…

And off we go. The mess of the mind, heart, and gut shot through the pen. The rest of the world disappears. It could turn up lost memories, new insights, plot twists, four pages of dialogue, or a monologue from a goddess.

Sometimes I use the startlines I’ve come up with here on my Weekend Writing Workout if they pertain to what I’m working on. Wherever I start, though, something moves.

~   ~   ~

LOOKING FOR OTHER WEEKEND WORKOUT BLOGGERS

Sometimes I can’t get to my weekend workout post due to other writing/life stuff. I’m looking for 4 or 5 other bloggers who’d like to post a Weekend Workout with me on Friday mornings (sending me their links by midnight the night before). That way, writers can jump around from workout to workout, get a whole week full of them, and we can post each other’s links if we don’t have time for an original post. Workouts may vary: poetry, fiction, memoir, etc. As long as it’s a writing exercise AND something you would try yourself.

Contact me at info (at) danikadinsmore (dot) com if you are interested. Please pass the idea on to anyone else you think might be a good candidate.

CLICK HERE for more information about my Weekend Workouts.

Weekend Workout: Sympathy for Bad Boys (and Girls)

by 3 Comments

Last week I posted a workout about creating compassion for characters. More specifically, getting your readers to sympathize with a protagonist who isn’t a particularly nice person. Who probably changes by the end of the story, who probably redeems him or herself eventually, but who starts out as someone you might not want to bring home for dinner.

This is something I am personally dealing with in my W.I.P. for my protagonist IdoLL. I brought this up in my writing group and we talked about the need to create a “save the cat” moment for her.

STCsoftwarev3Save the Cat is a book, and a concept, by screenwriter Blake Snyder (1956-2009). If you want to show who your hero is, have him save a cat early on in the story. Even if the character is a not-so-nice person, we will immediately have sympathy for him if he saves a cat (conversely, if you want your audience to hate a character, my own screenwriting mentors used to say show him “kick a dog” – don’t ask me why the cat gets saved and the dog gets kicked)

This doesn’t mean literally (could be, but careful of not being cliche). It’s simply a moment that shows the person has a heart. It’s a moment of vulnerability.

In my story, IdoLL would never do something that made her feel vulnerable in front of others. Even hugs from friends can’t last too long. So, her “save the cat” moment is while she’s alone and it’s not so much a cat, but a loving moment with a broken toy her father gave her as a child. She even hides it from others. In this secret time, her true character is revealed.

YOUR WORKOUT

This workout is slightly different because you will write the SCENE at the end of it. Your “save the cat” scene or private vulnerable moment.

1) Set your timer for 5-7 minutes.

Start at the top of the page with the following startline:

My character feels broken when she finds / discovers that . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

2) When the timer stops, Set your timer for 7-10 more minutes.

Start with the following line: 

When my character is alone she faces . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

3) NOW, set your timer for 10-15 more minutes.

WRITE the scene in which we feel the pain of your protagonist’s private moment  (just write what’s happening, don’t get caught up in the minutia of description).

Use the start line:  When he/she walked into the room . . .

Even though you are writing a scene, just Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

Read your exercises and your scene, make notes, highlight what makes sense.

Happy Weekend!