You have a photo album, right? Those faded snapshots from childhood, the bad-hair-day graduation pic, the formal wedding portrait…and the next wedding shot from the chapel in Vegas? Or maybe you don’t keep any photos but your mom has scads. Or yours are on MySpace or Facebook. Or your ex posted a few on the net. Or (even more interesting) you’ve destroyed every likeness of yourself.
Your fictional characters have their own “Kodak moments”. Take ten minutes and daydream about one of your characters and those celluloid and digital snapshots of her life. Discover one that she keeps hidden. Picture it in detail and begin to write. Where does she hide it? Why? What emotions does it evoke in her? What could be threatening about its discovery?
Now write three very brief scenes that center around the image. In the first scene it is hidden; in the second scene, your character or someone close to her discovers it; in the third scene…you’re the author, I’ll leave it up to you and your imagination.
