Person, place, object

One of the exercises I've done with creative writing students is the person, place, object game. I prepare three sets of cards and have my students pull one of each.  The person cards might describe an occupation or an attitude of a character.  So you might draw a card which says engineer or astronomer or teacher, or it might say stroppy teenager, unhappy wife, adventurous woman.

My places cards are chosen to help evoke an emotional reaction from the character.  So they might be sunrise on the African savannah, or the seashore on a winter's day.  Or I might choose a bleak headland, or a lush valley or a run-down hotel.

The object cards include things like keys, a pebble from a beach, a locket, or an old and faded diary, objects which provoke the asking of questions.  What does the key open?  Who did the locket belong to?  Is there something important inside it?  Why has someone kept that pebble? Who did the diary belong to, and what explosive secrets lie within its pages?

Pulling one each of these three cards gives you a person, place, object combination that you might not have naturally chosen.  Perhaps they're a slightly awkward fit, and you have to work hard to find out how they fit together.  Sometimes that produces some of the best writing.  

Years ago I did a workshop at the Caerleon Writers' Conference where we began writing, then we were read words at five minute intervals.  We had to incorporate the words into our writing at the first opportunity.  The words we were given included window, skylight, and pineapple, and I managed to weave all three into an SF story about loss of a dear friend.  The random words forced my writing into tracks I wouldn't have thought of myself, giving it a richer quality.

The English Writer's Forum magazine includes an article incorporating a Fiction Square, which is a variation on the card theme where you roll dice to choose a word from the square.  I've used that variation too to choose my person, place and thing for a story.

If you're in need of a jolt out of your comfort zone and looking for a new way of writing, give the person, place, object idea a try.