Diane Lefer - California Transit

Creative Writing Exercises

My favorite writing exercises are adapted from what I’ve learned in the theatre. This one was developed by Michael Chekhov (Anton’s nephew) for actors at the Moscow Art Theatre. I use it to create three-dimensional characters and avoid what actors call “rubber ducky” psychology. (You know, you’ve seen it. You’re watching a movie about a serial killer and there’s a flashback to where he’s a little boy playing in the bathtub with his rubber ducky and his big brother comes in and takes it, and the poor little kid is FILLED WITH RAGE!!!!) For me, three-dimensionality is about acknowledging the angels and demons we all carry within us at all times—though most of us rarely let them out.

You can use your imagination while seated at your computer, but I think writers spend altogether too much time alone staring at the screen or page. Try this instead in your classroom, in workshop, or with your friends or writers group.

Get on your feet. Open up some space so you have room to move around. If you have trouble standing or this doesn’t sound comfortable or safe, do the exercise sitting in the chair or however it makes sense for you. But remember, our minds work differently when our bodies are in motion. When you’re staring at the page feeling blocked, your mind is running in the same rut. So one way or another--move.

Close your eyes. Relax. Let the tension out of your body. Just flop. Let the worry creases unworry themselves from your forehead. Don’t screw your face up in concentration. Relax the legs, the shoulders, the back. Shake out the tension. Then, just breathe.

One member of the group offers these instructions:

You are the biggest most powerful force in the universe. Not human. You’re not anything you’ve ever seen. But you feel yourself expanding, higher, and greater, and stronger. Don’t think of this as acting. You’re just getting touch with feelings. Now walk as that powerful force, and make a sound. And do something with your arms or your body, a gesture that expresses how huge and powerful and awe inspiring you are. Feel that inside of you. You have that. Don’t be modest or afraid to admit it. You are huge. You are coextensive with the universe.

Return to your self. But stand straight and feel that power inside you. Inside your own self.

Now, you are a tiny speck. A little nothing in the universe. Drifting and floating. So small you are invisible. You count for nothing. But no one can see you and no one can hurt you. Move like a tiny speck. What is the sound of insignificance? What is the gesture of invisibility? Drifting and floating. Nothing. Unseen. Feel that. Return to yourself and feel that tiny speck nothingness inside you.

You are hunger. You are greedy, insatiable, more than any human being can be, you’re like fire, you have to consume everything. You can never never never be satisfied. Selfish. All for me. More. More. I need more. A sound and a gesture of voracious hunger, of never never never being satisfied. Return to yourself. Feel and acknowledge that raging hunger within you.

You are generosity itself. You overflow with kindness and giving and offering. Everything you have is open and offered. What does absolute generosity look like? Unstinting, unconditional. What is the sound of great generosity overflowing? Return to yourself, but know that capacity for generosity within you.

You are rage. You are raging, angry, a volcano erupting. You are a natural force destroying everything in its path. You can’t be held back. You flood with rage. What is the sound of earth-destroying rage? You have that within you. Return to yourself, but stand there and feel your anger.

You are Love. Gentleness and love. Unconditional love. What is the sound of love? What gesture does Love make in the world?

You are the silliest, happiest, most foolish playful giggliest being in the universe. You are silliness itself. You can’t stop yourself from being happy and foolish.

Breathe and be yourself.
Now that you’ve found that incredible range of emotions and capacities inside you, do the exercise again but, this time, imagine the character you can’t quite seem to develop, or like, or understand. What would make your character feel this way? How would your character express these emotions in action?

Take a break and write down what you discovered.

You can take this a step further in an exercise inspired by Lee Strasberg’s Method.
Shake out your arms and legs and your head. Sit down and relax. With your eyes closed, think back to a very emotional event in your life, preferably an incident in which you had a conversation or confrontation with someone during which difficult truths were spoken. Don’t recall the conversation, but try to remember where you were, what the light was like, what the temperature was, where you were sitting. Evoke the scene in your memory. Was music playing? Is there a song from your teenage years that opens up your emotions? Allow yourself to FEEL. Then imagine your character entering the space and walking toward you. Your character addresses you by name and says, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” Open your eyes and write what your character tells you.