Family Past, Present, and Future

Family can be a tough topic to navigate, both personally and in our writing. There are infinite numbers of family dynamics that range from mostly healthy to utterly devastating, each one alternately hopeful and troubling in their own unique ways.

In my own writing, I have recently been working out my characters’ roles within their families by writing them as both children and adults, discovering the continuities and changes in their lives over time. For instance, one of my characters has grown into a chronic people-pleaser after fruitlessly striving to meet his parents’ expectations, while another is following a revenge quest to bring justice against those who perpetrated her mother’s death. 

Our characters’ relationships with family often directly influence their core motivations and values.

Exploring the way these motivations and values show up in our characters’ lives can allow us to better understand their actions and ring true to our readers, making our characters increasingly complex and sympathetic.

The echoes of our characters’ families often ring loud in their present and future.

The following prompts are an invitation to discover some of the dynamics that have seeped into your character’s subconscious and show up in their present day.

1. As a warm up, consider an average day in your character’s childhood. Did they spend their afternoons exploring vast underground caverns? Or perhaps they pickpocketed on the streets of London with a ragtag group of urchins. Maybe they even learned spellwork from a wise mentor and got into explosive scrapes when their magic backfired. Whatever the case, I invite you to write out a day of no consequence, a day so ordinary that your character would not even deign to remember it. Write for nine minutes.

2. Most siblings swing wildly from singing obnoxious duets to arguing over the slightest inconvenience, and our original characters are no different. Imagine your character for a moment, surrounded by their siblings or by friends so close that the difference is moot. How does your character interact with them? Are there inside jokes, passive aggressive remarks, sneaky projectiles, and whispered secrets? If your character is an only child through and through, how does that affect their relationships with other people? Write for six minutes.

3. Now, consider the way your character interacts or interacted with their parents/guardians. Did they have a supportive relationship built on mutual trust? Or perhaps they snuck around and kept secrets from an overbearing adult. Whatever the dynamic, consider how that type of relationship now shows up in your character’s relationships with children or mentees. With your character now in the parental or guardian role, how do the legacies of their own experiences with adults translate to the next generation? Write for eight minutes.

4. In a slightly shifted vein, consider your character in the role of caretaker once their parents or parental figures are unable to care for themselves. Depending on their past with those parents, your character’s attitudes and actions may be quite different. Does your character set their life aside to affectionately attend their loved one, place them in a carefully researched institution and throw away the key, or refuse to take responsibility altogether? I invite you to explore the nuances of this powerful role reversal and how that plays out in your character’s psyche, perhaps as a scene between them and their bedridden guardian. Write for ten minutes.

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.

KAY TEEKELL is Claire’s Summer Communications Associate and fellow creative writer. She has five years of writing and editing experience that ranges from content writing for blogs and magazines to grant writing for nonprofit organizations. Kay is passionate about the power of storytelling and strives to amplify voices that might otherwise be forgotten. She is excited to use her artistic and literary skills in her professional aspirations and will continue to develop her talents for the rest of her life.

Finding the Wonder

While TAing Claire’s most recent Weekday Warrior Mini-Retreat at the Writing Barn, I was captivated by the idea of rediscovering wonder in our work. Over three hours, we talked all about the things that inspire us and the parts of our world that send shivers of delight down our spines.

If you’ve been working on a WIP for a while, you probably know that as a project slogs on, its initial excitement can drain away into resignation and apathy. 

HOWEVER, one way to rekindle that spark is by trying a different creative outlet to use alongside your written work. This outlet could take the form of drawing, painting, sculpting, creating mood boards or playlists, writing a song, creating a collage, recording yourself speaking aloud, or even an improv dance routine (no judgements here)! 

Whatever we do, it is an act of creation, and sometimes shifting the way we express that creativity can open up new doors and solidify ideas. 

Our characters are more than our words!

I took this concept and created a few sketches of characters with whom I’ve recently been wrestling, which are pictured here. Taking the time to think out various physical characteristics and outfits gave me a chance to explore their personalities separately from a written description, considering how they would express themselves to the outside world in different contexts. It also allowed me to figure out what the heck I’m doing in regards to my story’s fashion, which will end up being quite integral to the plot. 

For these guided prompts, I invite you to stretch your creative muscles and try something new. 

1. For a warm up, let’s start with a more traditional writing prompt, shall we? Consider your character in their daily life. How do they express their own creativity? Perhaps it’s something traditional like painting, or perhaps your character creates beautiful items through woodworking or embroidery. For a more *troubled* character, they could even uncover creativity through the use of a few sharp knives or an exceptionally hot fire poker (yeesh!). Think about how their creative outlet feels to them and how it is perceived by others, whether friends or strangers. Write for ten minutes.

2. Now that we’ve gotten a little more comfortable with alternative forms of creativity by living vicariously through our characters, let’s try something new ourselves. Pick a scene, new or old, that you feel has lost its spark. Instead of immediately trying to write your way out of a hole, try creating a mood board! This can take the form of magazine clippings on copy paper, Google images on a fresh word doc, or even a fancy Canva spread. Whatever medium strikes your fancy, go wild and try to capture the atmosphere and aesthetic of the scene you want to write, and see where that takes you. Create for twelve minutes.

3. Amping things up a liiiiiittle more, choose a character with whom you have been struggling, for whatever reason, and draw them. Stick figures are celebrated and honored here! Truly, the simpler your design is, the more you will be forced to choose the most important visual elements of your character, which can help clarify their internal landscape as well. If you’re like me, you might even discover entirely new aspects of their personality! Draw for eight minutes.

4. For those of us who are less visually inclined, I invite you to choose a setting in your WIP or from your mind and create a playlist that you feel best represents it. If you’re considering a broad swath of farmland, folk music might be right for you, while if you’re thinking of a bustling city, techno could sound most accurate. If you have a Spotify account, that can be a wonderful way to compile these songs and even share them with others! If you would rather write out a physical list of titles or arrange a new playlist in your phone’s music app, that is also fantastic. Create for six minutes.

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.

KAY TEEKELL is Claire’s Summer Communications Associate and fellow creative writer. She has five years of writing and editing experience that ranges from content writing for blogs and magazines to grant writing for nonprofit organizations. Kay is passionate about the power of storytelling and strives to amplify voices that might otherwise be forgotten. She is excited to use her artistic and literary skills in her professional aspirations and will continue to develop her talents for the rest of her life.

Vocation, Vocation, Vocation

I don’t know about you, but every time I open my news app, I see headline after headline containing the dreaded word: Employment. DON’T RUN AWAY. I swear not to prod you too deeply into job-related existential crises. Minor prodding only. Promise.

Anyway, the combination of all these news articles got me thinking about my own characters and how they live within their respective economies. 

In fiction, this diversity of career paths can be even broader than what we see in the world around us, which opens up a universe of possibilities. 

How does employment shape our characters’ needs and ambitions?

Because jobs tend to take up a good deal of time in any person’s daily life, they drastically influence the way we live with ourselves, other people, and the world around us. Jobs provide us with financial security (or don’t). They provide a community to exist within (or don’t). They dictate where we live (or don’t). Taking a second to slow down and explore how those influences are expressed in the lives of our characters can be a fascinating way to understand their motivations and talents even more deeply than before. 

For your writing pleasure, here are a few guided writing prompts to help you imagine just how deeply your characters’ occupations have infiltrated their daily lives:

1. In your own life or the life of one of your characters, how does your/their community make money? Social class will have an ENORMOUS impact on the answer to this question. This line of inquiry is especially important for world-building if you are creating an entirely new realm or universe that operates differently than our present reality. Perhaps your character’s community is an elite class of scholars and academics that makes money by researching for their wealthy patrons. Or maybe your character’s community is centered around the naval trade of magical goods, vulnerable to sea and storm. Considering how these community dynamics are expressed in different characters’ lives will give you interesting insight into their own values and talents. Write for ten minutes.

2. Now, don’t freak out, but I invite you to think about your own job (or lack thereof) and how that influences your day-to-day life. Do you or your character diligently rise at 7am every morning? What about the dangers of feeding animals at the zoo or passing machinery down a factory line? Without thinking too hard about this prompt, consider an average day of work in your own or a character’s life, and write it out. Write for seven minutes. 

3. Since we’ve started thinking about specific jobs, whether real or imagined, I invite you to think about how a job teaches skills that seep into personal lives. Perhaps a school teacher constantly finds herself in the role of “mom friend,” or a deep sea diver focuses on his breath when he’s frightened. These tiny details will bring characters to life on the page because they make characters believable, constantly intertwined with their environment in overlapping ways. What skills or talents might you or your character (un)consciously transfer to your/their home life? Write for nine minutes.

4. For this last guided prompt, think about the careers toward which different personalities are drawn. Perhaps an introvert desperately wants to be a master gardener, an analytical thinker tinkers around engineering, or a charming person is drawn to politics. With all these assumptions in mind, write yourself or a character into a job totally at odds with your/their personality type. Write for five minutes. 

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.

KAY TEEKELL is Claire’s Summer Communications Associate and fellow creative writer. She has five years of writing and editing experience that ranges from content writing for blogs and magazines to grant writing for nonprofit organizations. Kay is passionate about the power of storytelling and strives to amplify voices that might otherwise be forgotten. She is excited to use her artistic and literary skills in her professional aspirations and will continue to develop her talents for the rest of her life.

Whole Body Immersion

You know that feeling of being so deeply immersed in a story that when you look up from the page, you feel like you’re underwater? Yeah, that’s a good feeling. But how does it happen? In my experience, one of the best ways to fully engage your reader’s body, mind, and soul is to use sensory imagery.

Of course, you say. Everyone and their English teacher knows that. 

I suppose you’re right, but one amazing way of taking that advice just one step further is to focus specifically on the senses of taste and smell.

Take a deep breath through your nose, and notice the scents around you right now!

Whether you get a whiff of a crayon box that transports you back to Wednesdays in first grade or sink your teeth into a sun-ripened peach, these two senses are incredibly powerful when considering memory and the full body experience. These senses are also the ones I seem to have the most trouble remembering to include in my own work, opting exclusively for in-depth visual descriptions and auditory imagery if I’m not vigilant.

To pull myself (and maybe you!) out of this habit, I put together a few writing exercises to help us explore the scents and tastes of our scenes, whether incorporated into a WIP or fresh from the brain pan.

1. Think of yourself or an original character in the middle of an ancient forest. Perhaps tree roots entangle themselves into intricate mazes, or maybe glowing eyes watch from the darkness. As your character walks between towering tree trunks, their footsteps silenced by a thick carpet of dead leaves, what do they smell? The fresh scent of pine needles? The musk of animal fur? The stench of their own body after wandering for days on end? Record their observations here, and take stock of what details strange scents may unleash. Write for four minutes.

2. For this one, we’re going to think about taste in an unusual situation, and I invite you to build a scene around it. Consider a place with a particularly strong scent, perhaps a perfumery or an underground sewer. In places like these, the smells that surround us are so powerful that they often seem to invade our bodies and coat our tongues, catching in the backs of our throats for entirely too long. Instead of focusing on smell in this scene, concentrate on taste and on your character’s bodily interaction with the oppressive flavor of your choice. Write for ten minutes.

3. As a palate-cleanser *wink,* picture yourself or an original character sitting down to your/their favorite meal. Here, you can explore the way smell and taste work with each other, sometimes agreeing and sometimes conflicting. Anyone who was tricked into swallowing a spoonful of vanilla extract as a child knows what I’m talking about. Feel free to weave other sensory imagery into this scene like the clinking of glasses, the texture of a tablecloth, or the colors refracting through a crystal chandelier, BUT always bring it back to taste and smell. Write for eight minutes.

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.

KAY TEEKELL is Claire’s Summer Communications Associate and fellow creative writer. She has five years of writing and editing experience that ranges from content writing for blogs and magazines to grant writing for nonprofit organizations. Kay is passionate about the power of storytelling and strives to amplify voices that might otherwise be forgotten. She is excited to use her artistic and literary skills in her professional aspirations and will continue to develop her talents for the rest of her life.

Back to Our Storytelling Roots

While TAing the most recent Write NOW event, I had a blast talking about the way characters from our favorite TV shows and films (and even our favorite music albums!) can teach us to create dynamic and beautiful characters of our own.

What is it that strikes us about a particular character that doesn’t let go until our ears ring? Is it the unique backstory? The emotional evolution?

Maybe it’s the highly-specific quirk that makes us feel both called-out and seen.

Remember the stories that first inspired you to create!

If one of your own characters is struggling to come to life, it can be useful to consider why you’re drawn to other characters and fictional universes. If you notice something you love is missing in your own work, see if including it helps spark an evolution that truly makes your character sing! 

To get started, here are a few prompts to help you explore what makes those characters so addicting.

1. For many of us, our writing journeys began when we imitated the writers we admired, maaaaaybe even by writing the occasional page of fanfiction. This is an invitation to delve back into that sweet comfort and imagine yourself, someone from your WIP, or a completely new character interacting with one of the beloved fictional characters who impacted you growing up. Consider the children’s books that shaped you, the cartoons that captured your eyes on Saturday mornings, or the comic books you traced while zoning out during class. Write for six minutes.

2. If choosing a particular character isn’t your style (or if you want some more of that sweet-sweet comfort writing), think of your favorite fictional universe. Are you in a haunted mansion? A wizarding school? A fairy-filled glen? Wherever you are, place yourself or your character into that setting, and see what happens! Write for seven minutes.

3. Now, a memory exercise with no consequences (the best kind, amiright?). Think of an influential scene in a book, film, or TV show that has stuck with you, for better or for worse. What can you taste? Do you smell fresh rain, unwashed bodies, or the mouth-watering scent of fire-roasted lamb? What can you hear? Now, while it’s fresh, write it down. NO CHEATING to look up the scene before you write, and if you wander from the original, who’s going to know? Write for five minutes.

4. For the meta-minded among us, consider a favorite fictional character, either your own or one borrowed from another creator. What would they do if they realized they were a character in a story? Would they fight to break free or work to follow the plot? Perhaps they would rally the other characters into a boycott or use this knowledge to subvert their enemies. Write for seven minutes.

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.

KAY TEEKELL is Claire’s Summer Communications Associate and fellow creative writer. She has five years of writing and editing experience that ranges from content writing for blogs and magazines to grant writing for nonprofit organizations. Kay is passionate about the power of storytelling and strives to amplify voices that might otherwise be forgotten. She is excited to use her artistic and literary skills in her professional aspirations and will continue to develop her talents for the rest of her life.

Coming Home

In my conversation with friend and fellow writer Marilyse V. Figueroa, we really got into this question of timeless characters—the ones who won’t leave us. And why should they? HA!

Sometimes we stick with characters because they feel timely for the world, and sometimes we stick with characters because they are timely for us.

Either way, it’s helpful to imagine the concept of home for these folks.

What is our character coming home to?

We should always be posing the question: What does my character want? But sometimes it’s useful to pose something even more specific.

The question of home for our characters can be a crucial element to their transformation. What are the little homes that anchor them throughout their journey? And is there an eventual spot, perhaps at the bend in the river, where they want to hang their hat?

You can apply these prompts to a brand new character, a character from your WIP, or yourself!

Guided Writing Inspired by Ten of Cups

1. Imagine the perfect house—YEP—either for you or a character you’re working on. What does that mean to you or them? What does the notion of a perfect home look like? How many windows and doors? Are there any windows and doors? Imagine this home using all the senses. Explore every little nook and cranny. Where does it live and what does it contain? What does it feel like to sit down inside this place? How does it sound? Write for seven minutes.

2. Now, consider your life as it is in this present reality (or your character’s). What are the little homes that live in your (or their) world? What are the daily cottages at the bend in the river? What are you always coming home to—whether it's an idea, a person, a passion, or a place? Keep in mind that if you want to use these prompts for your WIP, you can pose these questions to a character, especially one you want to get to know a little better. Write for seven minutes.

3. Imagine yourself—or your character—building the ultimate maypole, whatever that means. The point is to create something that celebrates a season of returning to warmth, or growth, or waking up. It’s a physical structure to celebrate having made it through a winter of some kind. How and where do you build this, and what do the pieces look like? Tell the page everything about this process, and who’s involved. And try and lead up to the moment when you sit back and observe it and really pause and drink it all in. Write for 12 minutes.

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.

Challenging our Characters to Tell the Truth

In this recent Fool & the Page interview with author Carolyn Cohagan, we chatted about her new novel Ida and the Unfinished City, how Carolyn creates both thorny characters and spooky creatures, how she’s learned to come home to the power of telling her own story, and much, much more—plus, we pulled King of Swords as an ally and creative guide.

This card invites you to consider: What is my unique power as a storyteller? As a truth teller?

Oh, and how can I sink into that power, as opposed to questioning it? How can I write boldly and bravely?

Challenge a character who thinks they know everything and encourage them to tell the truth!

It’s fun to rethink our way into story alongside an overly confident character. Even the strongest characters falter—and they have to! Otherwise, we wouldn’t be so interested in them.

Even the characters we know so well can struggle to see things clearly—a notion that inspired Carolyn and I to create the prompts below. Writing these characters’ journeys into truth can teach us a lot about the story as a whole, and maybe even something about ourselves as creatives, as storytellers, and truth tellers.

1. Imagine a character—from your work-in-progress, or someone who wanders into your head right now—who is a know-it-all. Think self-assured, confident, unafraid.

2. Tell us everything about how they look, dress, move. How do they smell? How do they speak? Give us the details. Write for eight minutes.

3. Now present that character with something totally unexpected—it could be scary (a house everyone claims is haunted), or challenging (a confrontation with another character), or surprising (maybe something isn’t quite as they thought it was), and they have to DEAL. Write a scene in which they're forced to confront this unexpected happening and navigate that weirdness. How does their arrogance get in the way? Write for nine minutes. 

4. How does that character find a way to tell the truth after this whole experience? How do they communicate to the world—and that includes themselves—that they've learned something? Or accepted something? Or learned to face themselves? Write a scene in which this character owns up to the truth, letting this character lead you down whatever winding path comes with it. Write for eight minutes.

5. Take a deep breath. Sit up tall. Stretch your arms to the sky. Thank yourself for taking the time out to write and reflect!

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.

Traveling in Darkness

In this recent episode of The Fool & the Page, I pulled The Moon in response to a listener request from fellow writer and fabric artist Casey Bernard. Thanks, Casey!

The Moon begs the question: How can you move through darkness with grace and ease? How can you stay there?

And in my experience, it’s also asking…How can you lean into your weird?

Sometimes a formless phase can be freeing!

In the Pagan Otherworlds illustration highlighted here, we see the wild and the tamed sides of the mind embodied in the dog and the wolf, howling or gazing up at a somewhat disinterested (or loving?) Moon.

The prompts here are inspired by the idea that sometimes our stories feel too big and wild for us, but that’s okay.

1. When have you (or your character) been in a formless phase, when you didn’t know what would happen? If you could describe this phase as an actual place, what would it look and feel like? Write for eight minutes.

2. What about your current project gives you pause because it doesn’t make sense right now? Are there many things? Jot down the words or phrases that represent these things, so it could be: main character’s relationship with mother, OR my inability to write anything about such-and-such, OR my reluctance to sit down with my loom these days, I mean, it could be anything. Write for eight minutes, eventually focusing in on one element that is formless or dark or weird and just spend some time with that character or problem, letting them speak to you and letting yourself sink into the unknown of that.

3. What sources of light do you or your character have in your world that illuminate the path for you? These could be physical things or other characters/people or places. Jot down a list of three potential sources of light and then CHOOSE ONE to sink into and explore, and write for nine minutes, telling the page everything you can about that one, sweet source of light.

4. Take a deep breath. NICE. Thank yourself for taking the time out to write and reflect!

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.

Pausing Under the Archway

In this recent episode of The Fool & the Page, I pulled Ten of Pentacles in response to the question: What is here for the writing in transition?

So what does a card that’s all about stability—a culmination of great effort, a harvest of sorts—have to say about transformation or transition?

Lots.

Your work now, and how you evolve it, is a culmination of all the energy, effort, and experimentation you’ve put into your writing so far.

In the Aquarian deck illustration highlighted here, we see a family looking out at a castle. I like how they’re pausing on their way, stopping beneath this archway to view this beautiful thing from afar.

The prompts here are inspired by that idea of mindful arrival. Enjoy!

1. How do you, or your character, best love to celebrate? Is it on your own, heading out on a beautiful hike, is it in a group of people at a loud, raucous gathering? (This is some wild imagining here, not suggesting that you hang out in a group of people anytime soon, but we can imagine it!) This is a great prompt for fictional characters, because you can really let your character speak, and it’s fun for self-reflection, too. Describe your ultimate celebration, down to the smallest details—what are you wearing, what is the air like? Is their music? Quiet? Conversation? Write for eight minutes.

2. Imagine that you or your character pauses beneath an archway. Focus on the archway first. What is is made of? What is it like to touch it? How does the air feel in this space between things, on the cusp of something? Write for eight minutes. 

1. Now look beyond the archway, either from your POV or your character’s. What is in the distance? Is it an object? A structure? A landscape? Describe how it looks to view it from this high point. How do you or the character relate to what you see? What makes you nervous? What do you hope for? Write for nine minutes.

How did it go? Did you dig it? Subscribe to The Fool & the Page for more guided writing and cosmic conversation.