Say it in Six: Plugging characters into the 6-word Memoir

Today I want to share a writing exercise I learned in graduate school that is designed to help students distill the essence of a novel or character in a brief sentence: the six word memoir! I think this exercise can also help writers to better understand their own stories. Writing a succinct pitch is already hard enough, so why cut the kernel sentence down to just six measly words? Because characters all have conflicting desires that result in different choices, consequences, and outcomes, and confining those truths to just 6 words can lay bare core traits.

For example, here is a pair of 6 word memoirs I made up for Harry Potter and Voldemort:

Friends—loyalty more powerful than magic.

Kill you first to live forever.

Perhaps this is just a fun little exercise, but maybe it can also teach you about what your character is willing to risk, or where the heart of your story lies. The core of several of my novels can be summed up something like this:

True magic is will over wand.

Even fool's courage sparks dragon fire.

Sun shines second star to sisters (accidental alliteration, I swear!).

Meditations on Ink Asterisms

I recently read Brakkton Booker's NPR article on new research into the darkening of the universe. My mind has already been inundated over the years by material on how our universe is inevitably dying and twinkling stars winking out one by one as they consume their fuel, but I was stunned by the revelation that the universe is now only half as bright as it used to be. Well, a small portion of the universe that was studied, to be precise: 200 thousand galaxies glowing half as bright as 2 billion years ago.

Why does this slow, yet dramatic fade strike a chord with me?

Perhaps because as a writer on the submission circuit, I sometimes feel like I might already have burned up my best creative fuel, that I just don't have what it takes to make it. That perhaps I missed my chance to ignite into a celestial ball of burning glory and shall fizzle into an ignominious brown dwarf! So why do I keep stoking the embers of ideas that spin and glow in the deep recesses of my brain? Maybe because even just one scintilla is worth marveling over. The Child-like Empress reminded Bastian of this very truth by gifting him Fantasia's last shining grain of sand. My characters and their (mis)adventures bring me joy and hair-tugging and laughs and sorrow and my universe is better for their gleaming silhouettes, even if one day, we must say goodbye, and move onto another story. I can't promise that I will coolly turn the page. But I will be grateful for what light, what ink asterisms were mine.

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Sunset

©Sarah Page 2015

Farewell Nihon Part II

Goodbye, beautiful Japan! Thanks for the memories.