What If?

“I want to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I want to explore all the things I’m afraid of.”- Joss Whedon

What if you won the lottery? What if you were accused of a crime you didn’t commit? What if you were betrayed by someone very close to you? What if someone you love was in danger? What if your dream came true? What if…

Consider the people around you, and then let your imagination run wild with “what ifs”. The good thing about drawing from the world around you is that it gives you the specificity, and emotional knowledge, to render it strongly. HOWEVER, don’t forget to let your imagination have fun by putting your characters in real predicaments. 

Be inspired by the people around you, but don’t be constrained by their daily actions. Instead imagine what they would do in extraordinary or huge circumstances. Force your characters in tough, dramatic, frightening, thrilling circumstances and make them work themselves out of it. Do not be easy on your characters. Don’t give them the luxury of being able to pontificate endlessly, or speak eloquently about their life/and others. And once the conflict gets going, don’t let them off the hook by quickly ending the scene- don’t let up until somehow the conflict gets “resolved”….