This newsletter is for non-fiction writers, but just because you write ‘true things’ doesn’t mean using your imagination isn’t a huge part of our practice. Imaginative exercises like this one help you hone your attention to the world as it is, develop your descriptive writing, and be ‘in the world’ as well—putting yourself in other people’s shoes (and stories), considering from a distance what someone else’s world could be like. Writers who neglect their imagination—that is, the ability to create something in their minds—limit their abilities to do great writing, period.
prompt 002: follow
Sit in the place you’ll be writing. You may close your eyes or leave them open.
Listen for a few moments—one minute or three minutes, maybe.
Make a list of the things you can hear.
All sound is movement.
A truck backing up?
A flock of birds flying over?
The heat coming out of the radiator?
Your own breath?
Where is it going?
Pick one sound and follow it.
This is your writing session. Using your imagination, follow this sound. Write about what you find.
Write about the space that unfolds around the sound as the thing in motion continues. What is the space created by your breath as it moves? Where does heat go when it rises, and how far? Where did that flock come from, who makes up their ranks? The road the truck goes down, what it passes, where it’s headed—what does it all look like? Does your imagination take you to the road or the driver? Any of these might be more or less important as you begin imagining.
So, focus your attention on what you can hear, attend doubly to a specific sound, and imagine the world of which that sound is at the center.
If you don’t hear or want to practice this exercise using a different sense, you may:
From where you are right now, what can you see that’s moving?
What can you feel that is moving?
Follow it. Write about where it takes you.
I love this prompt. I do a meditation exercise designed by Shinzen Young called See Hear Feel. I like how your prompt asks to see hear feel, first in the specifics and then to follow flow to access spontaneity. Thank you.