Post Secret: Writing Exercise

 

 

 

I hate my daughter because I’m afraid she will be more beautiful than me.  I actually don’t like my stepmom’s signature apple pie.  My husband’s best friend is better at kissing but I still prefer to sleep at home.  Everybody has a secret:  hidden, shaming, repulsive.  Everybody has a surface, too:  shiney and bright and inviting.  And so these two aspects of the self exist as binaries:  moon and sun; saint and sinner; virgin and whore.

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Perhaps this is the single problem that most beginning writers—and even veterans—experience: their tendency to dwell on the surface…without taking into account the underneath that is enriched by the world of the half-hidden and repressed.  What will give your protagonist depth is prying open that small dusty box that your character keeps hidden in the closet of the self and discovering this:  his secret.

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I pattern this exercise off of the hit website Post Secrets.  Never heard of it? “PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard”—that’s what the website says. Quite often, people elaborately decorate the cards:  glitter, paint, collage, photography—you name it; the methods are as diverse as the participants.  Some of the art is strictly amateur hour; a lot is extremely punk rock…in a good way…with that DIY aesthetic:  the objects organically express the peculiarities of the secret in a meaningful way.  Isn’t that what great art is all about?

Here are some examples from the Post Secret Website:

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See what I mean?  This exercise is fun and crafty.  It will allow you to fuse the writer inside you with the inner Martha Stewart.  You could do this exercise many alternative ways:  as a series of lists, for instance.  But I choose this method—turning it into a craft project—precisely because physical objects are easier to focus our attention on.  Isn’t that what souvenirs are all about—repositories of memories that, otherwise, would evaporate?  Once you have this physical object in your hot little hands, you will have gotten a handle on many things.  But don’t let the novel quality of the assignment fool you:  this exercise will work all your writing muscles—from your quadriceps to your glutes—until you feel the burn!

 

One thought on “Post Secret: Writing Exercise

  1. Khanh – Thanks for sharing this. It sounds like a really powerful exercise for filling out a protagonist’s character (or for the matter of that, for developing any character). And I think you’re right; a project (rather than just a written description) appeals to all of one’s intelilgences and really allows the writer to tap his or her creativity.

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