Things are the stuff of life and this week’s writing exercise uses objects as prompts. At the last session we did a reminiscence exercise where we went back to school – not always a pleasant place to return to… This week we started with the here and now in an exercise intended to ignite the senses – a bit like mindfulness. Here it is if you want to have a go:
Part 1:
Choose an object. Take a few minutes to observe it – pick it up, test its weight, run your fingers over it to feel its texture, does it feel warm or cold to the touch? Notice its colour, lustre, how the light falls on it. Does the object have a particular smell? Now notice if it sparks any emotions in you – good, bad or indifferent.
Do a freewrite using your chosen object as a prompt. This can be a simple description of the object, running through the senses, or it can be written from the point of view of someone observing the object, or even from the object’s own perspective. Write freely for 10-15 minutes and see where it takes you.
Part 2:
Think of an object that has significance for you. It might be something you remember from childhood, or from another time in your life. It might be something you associate with a particular person, place or period of your life. Take a few minutes to recall the object, running through the senses, then freewrite for another 10-15 minutes around this.
In the group I run at Maggie’s we use all sorts of prompts to spark the senses. Images, sound clips, pieces of music, poems, a line or a single word all work well. We’ve even used smells. The great thing about objects is that they work across multiple senses. You can touch, hear, see, smell and even taste them.
And they are great for reminiscence. There is a shop in my home town of Nottingham called Hopkinsons I like to wander round because it is a veritable Aladdin’s cave of stuff. Mooching round inside, I can find myself back in my granny’s cottage, my brother’s bedroom – populated by toy soldiers – or my own childhood. In this week’s session we spent a good ten minutes looking at images of objects from decades past, and letting the memories flow.
Objects are useful devices in fiction. The things a person accumulates and their interaction with those items reveals a lot about character. They’re also crucial for bringing setting to life and can be hugely symbolic. In some cases an object is the focal point of the entire book. We looked at the following excerpts to illustrate this:
That evening the Captain noticed an exquisitely embroidered waistcoat hanging over the back of a chair in the kitchen. He picked it up and held it against the light; the velvet was richly scarlet and the satin lining was sewn in with tiny conscientious threads that looked as though they could only have been done by the fingers of a diminutive sylph. In gold and yellow thread he saw languid flowers, soaring eagles and leaping fish. He ran his finger over the embroidery and felt the density…He closed his eyes and realised that each figure recapitulated in relief the curves of the creature it portrayed.
He opened his eyes and held out the waistcoat to her. ‘This is so beautiful,’ he said “I have never seen anything as good as this that wasn’t in a museum. Where does it come from?”
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin– Louis de Bernieres
Frodo took it from his breeches pocket, where it was clasped to a chain that hung from his belt. He unfastened it and handed it slowly to the wizard. It felt suddenly very heavy, as if either it or Frodo himself was in some way reluctant for Gandalf to touch it.
Gandalf held it up. It looked to be made of pure and solid gold. ‘Can you see any markings on it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Frodo. ‘There are none. It is quite plain and it never shows a scratch of sign of wear.’
To Frodo’s astonishment and distress the wizard threw it suddenly into the middle of a glowing corner of the fire. ..’Wait,’ he said in a commanding voice. No apparent change came over the ring. The room became dark and silent, though the clack of Sam’s shears could still be heard faintly from the garden. For a moment the wizard stood looking at the fire, then he stopped and removed the ring to the hearth with the tongs and at once picked it up. Frodo gasped.
‘It is quite cool,” said Gandalf. ‘Take it!’ Frodo received it on his shrinking palm, it seemed to have become thicker and heavier than ever.
‘Hold it up!’ said Gandalf ‘And look closely.’
As Frodo did so, he saw fine lines, finer than the finest penstrokes, running along the ring, outside and inside: lines of fire that seemed to form the letters of a flowing script. Thy shone piercingly bright and yet remote, as if out of a great depth.
The Lord of the Rings: JRR Tolkien
Each fortnight I am going to publish creative writing exercises that I use in the group I run at Maggie’s Nottingham for people affected by cancer.
Next week, I’m off on a literary tour of Nottingham, kindly put on for the group by local author John Baird. Looking forward to learning things about my city I never knew. I’ll report back.
