Challenge Yourself

Learn to “stretch yourself” as a writer – go beyond what the norm is – go beyond your own personal comfort level. Even if it is just for you.

While we’ve been told many times over to “write what you know” and to write what you would like to read, there comes a time when we have to force ourselves to grow up a little. Write beyond your area of expertise.

For instance if you feel comfortable, and have already, written sweet romance – try porn or sci fi or slasher. Again, this is not necessarily for publication, it is to force yourself to communicate a thought, to produce words, and to find the ability deep within yourself. This is a marvelous exercise and while you might be too embarrassed outside of the “comfort zone” and not want to share with others, that’s okay. After you finish your work, put it aside for a day or so – then look at it with fresh and critical eyes.

Do you feel that your characters are “real”, do they have depth and real emotions? Too often we tend to create flat characters if we don’t feel comfortable with our subject, but as writers we need the ability to create anyone in any situation.

Take a scene, any scene – it can be from a movie, a book, one of your own short stories or even from your own life. Focus on a character and list some of the motivations and history of that character (Remember that a character’s personal history will influence the way they see and react to things). Now transport that scene into another genre and using the SAME motivation and history, let your character react.

Let’s choose a simple scene such as sharing a meal with another person – we’ll name our character Henry. What do we know about Henry? He’s a hard worker, a physical man, he enjoys the finer tastes; he also had a hard life, grew up in poverty, is a bit skeptical about the world, and is a self-made man.

In a contemporary “generic” genre, we might emphasize Henry’s appetite and activity level by the amount of food he devours. Since he has an expensive taste, he can order a fine wine. Overall he will probably have a sense of satisfaction that he has been able to achieve this level of comfort. In a sci-fi, he might look at tiny, yet vitamin enhanced and nutritious portions on his plate with disbelief and cynically question what his host was thinking to serve him such fare. Same setting in porn, Henry’s appetite is for more than just food, he eyes his partner with a feeling of entitlement. In a slasher type of scene Henry is sure that his dining companion is going to try to kill him, but he feels confident that he has the physical abilty to fight back and survive, after all he wasn’t raised without having to battle for everything he has.

In each case our character has the same motivating factors to deal with each specific situation – the fact is the character has depth. It doesn’t matter if, in the end, you rip your work to shreds and discard it – it is your job to be able to write it. Newspaper and magazine reporters are often given assignments and their job is to produce articles on any project – it can be about weddings, cars, garden pests, financial investments, schools or any random topic the editor assigns. A writer needs to be able to write about any subject and write well.


Writing exercise: As we did above, write the “same” scene with the same main character in at least four different genres – make sure you include genres you do not normally write in. Critique your work and make sure that neither your character nor your setting seems flat.

Writing prompt: List your ten most memorable fiction characters and include at least one attribute each that made that character memorable.