Aaron's WRITER'S TIDBITS - Exercise #3: Haunted Past

John Brill, “Bad Memory Untitled # 732-16” (2004–2006). Toned Silver Gelatin Print. Courtesy of Kent Gallery.

  

Future's Past Character

Negative emotions create strong memories.  In Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston College psychologist, Elizabeth Kensinger's research reveals that negative events are remembered in greater detail than positive ones.  This is an interesting fact to ponder upon, and ponder upon we do, helplessly.

Our childhoods are as a great expanse of darkling farmland, now ripened.  We may pick the evil fruit from that nebulous intercerebral landscape and examine it with such an authentic lucidity that we often resurrect our experiences; and, consequently, our emotions reflexively and undeniably respond, as if time itself had been ripped away, and the event lay before our mind's eye as fresh as the moment that it had occurred. 

As you read this, dear reader, we conjure up the unsettling character dwelling within your mind since your youth.  Someone who triggered strong negative emotions within yourself—envy, fear, hate, resentment.  They were very influential; they held power over you—had the power to make you take risks, had the power to make you miserable.  The might have been your childhood tormentor, might have been your friend.  And there that person is; immediately standing before you, clear as a bell, eyes smiling, with mocking smirk.  You had their name on the tip of your tongue all this time.  That's the one.  We shall use that one.

WRITING EXERCISE

We now have our real-life character.  Write down the details of what your remember of the person.  Did you ever have any encounters with them, or had you only observed them from a distance?  Be specific— relive your memories vividly in your journal, and expose emotion.  

Next, if you have not seen this person in several years, place their character in the present time.  What are they currently doing?  What is their role in society?  How might they live?

Now, place their character into the future.  Where will that person be ten years from now?

Example:

Hidden Giant