Stolen from actors: the movement journal

One surprisingly helpful class from my undergrad days was a theatre course I took called "Basic Movement." In it, we learned some of the tools of the trade of acting--stances, carriage, gestures, playing to the audience, and of course, choreographed violence.

An ongoing assignment throughout the semester was keeping a "movement journal," in which we recorded observations about how certain body types move, motions unique to certain activities, and how people express emotion through movement. The goal of all this analysis was to build up our own repertoires of motion, so that we could embody various roles.

I've at times joked here about "stalking" students who remind me of my characters. These motion studies are particularly what I try to do. Once I've found the right body type, I've got the perfect model from which to get the data I need. I observe his stride--smooth, bouncy, swaggering, trudging? What's his usual posture? Is he apt to smile at strangers, or have a more closed expression? How does he hold objects? Ham-fisted? Gently by his fingertips? Loose and relaxed? Precise and uptight?

Emotional exchanges go on all the time on the college campus where I work. Because of that movement class, I now watch for the postures and gestures that make up the physical expression of those emotions. You don't even need to be in eavesdropping range to discern the kind of emotions people are expressing. Their bodies shout them.

A particularly powerful lesson from that class was our focus on the body rather than the face as an expressive vehicle. We had to wear dance unitards to every class, and did most of our in-class exercises and performances wearing masks. In many classes we did charades-like exercises: a pair would act certain emotions toward one another without speaking and in masks, and our classmates would have to guess what we were expressing. Those who'd put in the time researching for their journals usually won big time.

If you struggle with "talking head" dialogue, I recommend spending some time people watching and gathering data on how they move. Watch not only faces, but necks, shoulders, spines, hands, legs and feet. An acting class can be surprisingly horizon broadening, too.

Because this kind of research has borne so much fruit for me, I created a tool to help you create your own movement journal and keep those observations organized, to use in any fiction project, no matter what genre: Emotions in the Wild: A Writer's Observation Journal.

This pocket-sized paperback is easy to tote with you and turn waiting in the doctor's office, carpool line, or checkout lane into rich research time.

Get it here: Amazon (US) / Amazon (UK) / Barnes and Noble / Book Depository (free shipping worldwide)



How might a "movement journal" help your writing?

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Do you feel it? Emotions writing prompts

I've been hard at work on several collections of writing prompts that I hope to release in the coming months. Just for fun, I thought I'd give you a small taste of what's in store. The prompts below are a very small sampling of the character and emotions prompts collection, over 1,000 in all. on 40 different emotions and numerous aspects of character development.

(Update: 1001 Evocative Prompts for Fiction Writers is available NOW!)

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Emotions are the raw material for all creative writing (and quite a lot of nonfiction as well). Use one of the following prompts to delve into a strong emotion, writing as yourself, a fictional character, or a poetic persona. Let your exploration lead you toward the beginnings of a work of memoir, fiction or poetry. Some hint at a particular genre, others could be spun to fit multiple genres.

Amusement / Mirth

• The best prank I’ve ever pulled / heard about.
• How the court jester turned back an invading army.
• Ten terrible metaphors and/or similes
• Epic fail involving a skateboard, trampoline, or rope swing.
• Mischievous magical folk create havoc in a village one spring evening.
• Ten of the most ridiculous ways to kill off a character.
• I can’t keep a straight face when I see ____.
• A group of stand-up comics is taken hostage and must joke their way out of captivity.

Boredom

• The most boring family event I can remember (or imagine)
• You are a spinster noblewoman in 1815 England.
• An athlete recovering from a concussion may not do, watch, or read anything to rest his/her injured brain.
• A child’s eye view of a wedding.
• You work as a lifeguard at a lap pool in a retirement home.
• The diary of a prisoner in solitary confinement.
• To marry your true love, you must attend weekly three-hour prayer meetings with your future in-laws for the next six months.
• The dullest person you have ever dated.
• An astronaut must live alone on a space station for a year.

Defeat / Discouragement

• A setback or failure from which you thought you would never recover.
• You missed the last bus/train/flight for the day.
• Your science fair invention works perfectly until the judges come to observe it.
• A false rumor causes everyone to shun you.
• In a team competition, your teammates suffer a series of injuries, one after another.
• Your corporate sponsor threatens to withdraw funding for a minor mistake.
• You can’t hold a job because of a crazy relative who makes trouble everywhere.
• A chronic illness makes it impossible to complete an important task.

Embarrassment

• I have never been so embarrassed as when ____.
• A beauty queen gets a nosebleed/gas attack during a pageant.
• A dignitary comes for dinner and you/your child/your pet vomits on him/her.
• Your swimsuit gets gobbled up by the pool drainage system.
• Your parent with Tourette’s Syndrome chaperones the class trip/school dance.
• The bakery accidently sends a lewd bachelorette party cake for Nana’s 90th birthday party.
• The fart that changed my destiny.
• Your doting mother shows off your baby pictures/awkward adolescent pictures/dweeby polka-band pictures to a potential mate.

Hope

• You romantically connect with someone on a chance encounter, and the person asks for your number or gives you theirs.
• A woman who has suffered several miscarriages enters the 36th week of a healthy pregnancy.
• Describe the bodily sensations you have when you are hopeful.
• Interstellar explorers find what looks like a viable planet for colonization, capable of sustaining human life.
• A cancer patient begins an experimental treatment.
• Police get an anonymous tip about a cold case.
• The addict you love reaches their first anniversary of sobriety.
• A group of castaways finds a crate on the beach full of farming and fishing equipment.

Shame

• I could never tell ____.
• How someone with an eating disorder might think about his/her body.
• What deeply shameful experience could I more easily write myself free of if I gave it to a fictional character?
• What skeletons do my parents have in their closets?
• The day I realized there was something deeply wrong with me.
• What shameful secret might my antagonist hide at all costs?
• Deeply religious parents learn their child is leaving the faith because…
• You learn that your parent or grandparent was once a Nazi, a torturer, or slave dealer.
• A doctor makes a simple error that causes a patient to ____.

Interested in doing more with emotion in your writing? Pick up my guided journal Emotions in the Wild: A Writer's Observation Journal. This tool, based on exercises used in method acting, leads you through observation activities so that you can better describe character emotional responses in your writing. 

Pocket sized, with plenty of space to record your observations, this is a tool useful for writers of any genre. 

Available here: 
Amazon / Barnes and Noble / Createspace / Book Depository

Which of these prompts appeal most to you? Why?

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ARGH! Writerly frustration and how to channel it

Summer is an innately frustrating season for working moms who write (people like me), because the usual routines that help us keep some balance between roles are mostly gone. The kids are at home, there's no homework to fill the evenings, and night owl sleep patterns of the rest of the family can keep one from getting one's usual rest. I often struggle with being perpetually grouchy in the summer months because my writing time gets squeezed more than usual by family needs, and when I can eke some out, it is often interrupted.

By Alex (Flickr: [1]) via Wikimedia Commons

I recently had another layer of frustration added on. Both neighbors with whom we share walls had workmen in--basement repair guys on one side, demo and rehab guys on the other. Between the squealing saws, booming hammers, grumbling cement mixer, and pounding hard rock radio station, I thought my head would split in half. Headphones and music didn't help, because some of the pounding was my own rising heart rate making blood thump in my ears.

I wanted to scream. Throw a tantrum, Or snap my fingers and mute the world.

But I'm a writer, so I didn't do any of these things.

Instead I sat very still and listened. Listened to what my body was telling me, listened to my inner monologue--both what I did  and did not want.

Why? Because frustration is one of the key emotions that drives fiction, one commonly triggered by an unmet desire.

And we all know what unmet desires are, don't we? They are the driving force of tension. And tension is what moves stories forward. (For more on this helpful definition of tension, see Steven James's Story Trumps Structure.)

So the next time you feel like punching someone because you are stuck in traffic, or the dog ate your shoes, or the kids won't give you ten minutes of peace to write, stop. Pay attention to how your body feels. Listen to the words screeching in your head. This is an emotion you need to know inside out, because it will help you write stronger scenes.

And when you're out and about and witness someone else about to explode, watch (from a safe distance) and record what you observe.

• What facial expressions does a frustrated person have?
• What postures, gestures, and motions does the person use?
• How does the frustrated person talk about his/her feelings?
• What colorful phrases and idioms come out?

More ideas on observing and journaling emotions for use in fiction can be found in my new book Emotions in the Wild: A Writer's Observation Journal.

How might you use your writerly mind to turn everyday experiences into fiction fodder? 

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