We all get lost in the internet, clicking from link to link to link so I can’t tell you how I first came across the article about great tips from writers but having read it and shared it with a friend of mine, it’s started off a bit of a creative writing game and I’ve really loved playing it!

I do enjoy finding out more about story telling, writing and language but I’ve not attempted any creative writing since I was at school and in fact one of the reasons I started this blog was to boost my confidence in my writing. My friend Eliza on the other hand is an avid writer and has studied creative writing on more than one occassion.

Having read through the article and passed it on to Eliza I was still stuck on the idea at the very end of the article. It was all about unpacking the thought. This was advice from novelist Chuck Palahniuk who had set a challenge to writers. His challenge was this:

“From this point forward… you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.”

He goes on to explain that instead of writing something like ”Kenny wondered if Monica didn’t like him going out at night…” you’ll have to unpack that to say something like: “The mornings after Kenny had stayed out, beyond the last bus, until he’d had to bum a ride or pay for a cab and got home to find Monica faking sleep, faking because she never slept that quiet, those mornings, she’d only put her own cup of coffee in the microwave. Never his.”

As the author of the article Matt Gilligan goes on to explain, by taking up this challenge there are no more short-cuts, "Don’t tell your reader: ‘Lisa hated Tom.’ Instead, make your case like a lawyer in court, detail by detail.”

So, I took this challenge and laid it out to Eliza who agreed to give it a go. We both gave each other a brief “thought” or scenario and we went off to unpack them.

Yesterday I received this link back from Eliza aka Word Ferret with her unpacked thought on her blog elizadashwood.com. Take a look and see what you think of her unpacking. I love it… wait, do I need to unpack that??

Anyway, what about my attempt? Well, if you scroll down you can see the scenario prompt Eliza gave me and my unpacked response but before that, there are a few thoughts and scenarios you might want to try unpacking and if you do, I’d love to read them.

Happy writing, folks!

Barnet x

Thoughts for you to unpack

• Kevin hated Nick. Brothers, told from Kevin’s point of view. 

• Brian is frightened, he’s alone and indoors

• Gillian is excited and ready to start something new

• Samantha loves Daniel. They are not together. Told from Samantha’s point of view.

My challenge from Eliza: A young woman stands opposite an empty chair, someone is watching her from the doorway.

My attempt to unpack it…

Maggie had come so far today. The biggest step, that first one out of bed, had seemed the hardest and had taken all her efforts to achieve these last few days but she’d taken it this morning almost without thinking. She’d left the room that had been her cocoon for the last week and for the first time since she had returned home that morning from the hospital, she climbed downstairs to the main floor of the house, their home. Her home now.

From the bedroom and now as she moved through the ground floor, she heard what had become a new pattern of noises in the house, the sounds of her sister arriving for her daily visit and the preparation of food which, despite having been declined every visit, continued to be made and brought upstairs by Emma with a gentle smile failing to conceal growing concern.

Today, like her sister, Emma’s routine would be changed.

After finishing up the lunch tray and taking a much needed breath, Emma walked towards the stairs in the large square hallway but before she could take her first step towards the upper floor, she became aware of movement in the back room. It hadn’t crossed her mind that Maggie would be anywhere but the bedroom upstairs. So used to her sister’s recent detachment from the rest of the world, Emma hadn’t called out when she arrived and hadn’t made her way to the room at the back of the house, the room where she’d always found them when she’d visited throughout the years. It was the heart of this old and sprawling building and the reason Maggie had first fallen in love with the house, tucked away from the busy road out front, looking out to the garden beyond. It had always been their favourite space, Emma’s too.

Emma made her way now towards the sound but on approaching the doorway she stopped. The chair. How could she have forgotten the chair? She could see Maggie standing opposite it now, taking in every fibre of its old worn covering and every dent and curve of the squashed cushions still shaped from their owner’s constant use over the last eight years. It was turned towards the door where Emma stood almost as if someone had just left it moments ago and it was waiting, ready to welcome them back.

Maggie didn’t turn around although she must have known Emma was there, she was simply transfixed, not by the chair itself, but by what was missing from its comforting embrace and what would never be part of this room or her life again.