Life and Books

Life is like writing a book; things never come out the way you had expected them to.


Pretend you’re writing a book. There’s no specific genre or anything, you’re just writing a book. Now, this book is about your life, and the main protagonist is you, the “hero” of the story. I want you to think about the characteristics of this protagonist, looks and personality. Are you tall? Generous? Maybe you have a bit of a temper?

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Now I want you to think about the other characters that will be in your book, only the good guys though, your “sidekicks”. Who has stuck with you through it all? You’re friends, your co-workers, you’re boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe your family? Your dog or cat? … Do you have them in your head now? Once you do, start thinking about their traits, like what you did for yourself earlier. Are they nice? Do they have good style? Are they fun to be around?

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Now I want you to think about your main antagonist, the “villain” of your book, or maybe you can’t narrow it down to just one, in that case just jump ahead and think of all of your antagonists. Afterward I want you to characterize all of the people, or the person, you just thought of. What makes them so “evil”? … Now for those of you who only characterized one antagonist, think of some of the other people you would consider a villain in your book and characterize them afterward.

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Now think of the history between you and the other characters. How did they come to play this part in your life? What was it that has made them feel this way towards you or other characters?

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Now that you have all of you characters, think of the storyline. What has the storyline of your life been so far? Have you suffered from a traumatizing event? Does your life involve a lot of romance? What has happened in your life up to this point?

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Now think, where do you want this storyline to lead up to? Not what it’s going to lead up to, what you want it to lead up to. What does the ending look like? … It’s a happy ending, right? Now think about how you’re going to get there. Like any book or life, there are, unfortunately, crazy and confusing obstacles. Nothing comes easy does it? So, think. How are you going to make it through? As the protagonist and the writer, how are you going to get yourself through all of this to reach your happy ending? What methods are you going to use?

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Now start writing, start living your life the way you had just planned it all out. You know who your friends are, you know who your enemies are, and you know where you want to go and how you’re going to do it. But think again. You’re writing this book right now and suddenly you’ve come to a stand still because the plan you thought was going to work out, didn’t. Let’s say a friend has just stabbed you in the back, they turned against you. Now what? All of that planning and work, for nothing. Now you have to re-work everything, re-think who your friends are, who your enemies are, and now come up with a different plan to get to your happily ever after.

I guarantee you that this will happen a second time, and another, and another, and another, re-working and re-thinking all that we had just planned out for ourselves. This is because everything is constantly changing, later on you may decide that you don’t want to go through with your plans, or your relationship changes with one of the other characters, or perhaps it turns out that you don’t want that happy ending you were shooting for in the beginning. Things happen unexpectedly, they never ever come out the way we had originally planned, and that’s okay, because it’s not the end of the world, you just have to redo everything. And, you’re not alone. People are constantly re-writing and re-thinking their books everyday.

Now, I want you to think about the reader, the anonymous person who, for whatever reason, buys your book. What do you want them to think of it?