Hello, friends! I hope this week has treated you kindly. Today, we’re going to torture our hobbits a bit more, all right?
Two weeks ago we began with JRR Tolkien’s line, “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.”
We spent time creating our own hobbits, careful not to copy Mr. Tolkien’s ideas. Once our hobbits were created, we came up with a plausible reason for our hobbit’s underground living arrangements.
So many creative ideas, you guys! I was very impressed.
Last week, we took the exercise a step further: we gave our hobbits a problem. So many problems to work with too. You’ve all outdone yourselves. Good job.
This week, we’re going to push things even further. We’re going to make things worse for our hobbits. In doing so, we’re going to make their situations more important to both them and our readers.
As an illustration, I’m going to steal an example from last week’s comments, okay? Olivia gave her hobbit a fantastic problem. She decided that her hobbit’s undergound home was filling with water.
NOW! There are several ways we could make this worse for Olivia’s hobbit. We could:
1. Explore the avalanche effect: We could allow this one problem to be just the first in a connected series of instances. For example, when the underground hobbit hole begins filling with water, maybe it puts out all the lights, which causes our hobbit to get turned around. Now, instead of making her way out and into the safety of fresh air, she’s burrowing further into the quickly filling hole. It’s no longer just a matter of our hobbit losing her beloved sleeping place; now, she suffocating. The situation has become deadly.
2. Get personal: Perhaps we need to delve into our hobbit’s psyche. Water in a hobbit hole isn’t the worst thing that could happen. Unless, of course, our hobbit has a deep fear of water. What if our hobbit nearly drowned as a youngin’? What if our hobbit does everything he can possibly do to avoid water? What would the constant drip, drip, dripping do to his nerves? Suddenly, an easily resolved problem is torturous.
3. Up the stakes: What if Olivia’s hobbit has a very important job? What if he is the keeper of all the hobbit selfies? What if every selfie in all of Hobbiton is stored in this one hobbit’s underground home? Water would certainly be a problem! He could lose all the hobbit selfies! Silly, yes? But what if it isn’t selfies that are stored in this hobbit hole? What if it’s something more important? What if every bit of hobbit history is kept in hand-sorted files and stored in this hobbit hole? What if every record ever kept is slowly being eked away by the water leaking into this underground home? The problem is suddenly much more desperate, isn’t it?
4. Add an antagonist: Perhaps the water isn’t an accidental occurrence. What if our hobbit has an enemy? What if the enemy decides to take advantage of the distracted hobbit by sealing up the entrance to his underground home? However will our hobbit escape?
5. Give him a lie to believe: Let’s say our hobbit believes that only the most blessed of hobbits are lucky enough to have water dribbling into their homes. What if he believes that he was gifted with the ability to breathe water? What happens if he gleefully watches the hole fill? Day after day, the depth grows until our hobbit comes face to face with this lie. Can he indeed breathe water? What does the truth do to his belief system?
Now, it’s your turn. Take that hobbit you created, and the problem you gave him, and make it worse. Again, I’m going to ask you not to solve the problem. That is not today’s goal. Your goal is to torture your hobbit a bit more.
REMEMBER! When you participate in our writing exercises you can enter to win an opportunity to ask Jill, Steph and me a question for one of our upcoming writing panels. Once you leave your response to the writing prompt in the comments section, use the Rafflecopter below to enter. Next week, Rafflecopter will select one winner and we’ll contact you for your question via email. Happy writing, friends!