How did s/he get that way?

Last week, I led a workshop on memoir writing at a local senior center. Amazing stories came out, funny, sad, and precious. Here’s a variant of an exercise we did that I think would be useful for writers, and just people living in families with people who are not exactly, precisely like ourselves.

HOW DID S/HE GET THAT WAY?

Think of family member (living or dead) with a strong characteristic, positive or negative: generous or stingy; faithful or faithless; hard-working or lazy; honest or sneaky, etc.  People say: “Well, X has always been that way.” Answer the following questions, inventing what you don’t know.

1. Name:

2. Characteristic:

3. As an example of the characteristic , , ,

4. Impact of that characteristic on the family and/or the person’s life:

5. Name or invent an incident or a time in the character’s life which may have shaped or created that characteristic.

6. S/he was __________ years old and felt . . .

7. S/he so wanted . . . .

8. At that time, the best course was to . . .

9. Later, the characteristic really helped, like when . . .

10. But sometimes, there were/are problems, like . . . .

13. Something changed when . . .

About Pamela Schoenewaldt

Pamela Schoenewaldt, historical novels of immigration and the search for self in new worlds: WHEN WE WERE STRANGERS, SWIMMING IN THE MOON, and UNDER THE SAME BLUE SKY (all HarperCollins).