Writing about Place -- Listing Exercise

For this exercise, you will not write in complete sentences. You will make lists. Lists help us think in different ways, and can inspire us to remember more about place as we write. You will dig deep into one specific memory, and trick your memory to reveal more than you thought it could.

Step 1: List emotions that are strong to you.



Step 2: Circle one of those emotions to focus on for this exercise.



Step 3: List moments (of an hour or less) when you experienced that strong emotion.



Step 4: Circle one of those moments.



Step 5: Who was with you? Make a list of the people who where there.



Step 6: What did you hear? Make a list of the sounds you heard.



Step 7: What was in the space? Make a list of the objects that were there.



Step 8. What did you touch? What did you feel with your hands, with your body, with your skin? Make a list.



Step 9: What did you taste? Make a list of what you tasted, or what could have been possible for you to taste.



Step 10: What did you smell? Make a list of all the smells that would have been possible.



Step 11: What did people say? Make a list of topics of conversation, or even lines you remember.



Step 12: Finally, now you can write a plot outline of what happened.


After you have finished the 12 steps, now you can start writing your story, but make sure you look back at your notes so that you get all 5 senses in there, and you give us a sense of a specific place and a specific moment in time. Go for concrete so that when you get to the abstract, the reader feels grounded enough to fly with you.