Card Exercise II

Yesterday I wrote about an interesting little card exercise I did while reading a forgotten book about the art of writing. Continuing, here is a list of unappealing qualities that particularly strike me in literary characters as well as the real people I meet, and the images such qualities provoke:


Greed / Money Fixation
An old man counting stacks of silver coins
A bunch of Wall Street brokers out to lunch
Someone who says "coin" a lot

Habitual Loss of Temper
Road rage
A man who beats his children with his belt
Pulling out one's hair in clumps

Procrastination
Turning on a laptop, sitting at a desk, and turning it off again
Couch potatoes
"I'll do it tomorrow."

Stupidity
Young drunk girls flirting in a bar
Tattoos, gold chains, gold teeth on young men
A man reaching for a cigarette after he's quit for a year

Low Self-Esteem
Shyness to the point of autism
Allowing a bully to walk all over you
"I'm so stupid - such an idiot!"

Arrogance / Misplaced Pride
I only talk to you when I need something from you
The factory owner who doesn't see his employees though he walks through his shop every day
The pampered actor belittling the makeup artists

Negativity / Pessimism
Constant sighing
A vulgar mouth
Someone who has nothing good to say about anyone

Lack of Conscience
A boy torturing a small animal
Real estate salesmen swindling the elderly
"You know I love you. Let's sleep together."

Effeminacy in Men / Masculinity in Women
Women action heroes in movies
Lisping men overly concerned with fashion
Anyone who believes in the Sixties' version of feminism

Overindulgence in Food
A fat couple in a fast-food restaurant
A ten-year old boy with boobs
Someone slurping down his food using his fingers

Drunkenness
A man stumbling down a dark alley with a bottle in hand
Breaking open your kid's piggy bank to get enough change for a sixpack
Slurred singing, "I love you man"s, a pass at your friend's wife

Habitual Cheating
A man glancing at his opponent's cards
Using someone else's password to obtain incriminating information
A man in a hotel room with another's wife

Poor Hygiene
A kid with bad acne drinking Coke at eating chips
Someone who doesn't shower but sprays on cologne
A girl with a dead tooth

Intimidiation of the Weak and Helpless
A gang encircling a young boy coming home from school
Two mafia thugs collecting their "payment"
An orderly physically abusing an Alzheimer's patient

Worldliness
A fat man with rings on his fingers
People who live their lives through reality TV and gossip mags
A couple frolicking on a bed covered with $20 bills

Cowardice
A soldier fleeing the onrushing enemy
A politician justifying his bill to weaking Defense by pleading for "understanding"
"That's a job for someone else."

Laziness
"Where's the damn remote?"
A fat middle-aged man in an electric wheelchair
"I'll write that chapter ending tomorrow."

Habitual Lying
"Baby, you know I love you."
Shifty eyes
Someone who just never seems to have his act together

Sexual Promiscuity
Teenage girls showing way too much skin
An unwed mother with several children from different fathers
The night club scene

"Oiliness"
A used car salesman who talks over you
A guy in a too-expensive suit with greasy hair
"Have I got a deal for you!"

Now, what's the purpose of this exercise? Well, in addition to teaching you to think with the internal editor off, you now have at your fingertips the building blocks of characters for your novels and short stories. Possibly, even, situations and plot points you can throw in. You can take a good quality and a bad quality card at random, and see what happens. For me, how about the first two from each set: Serenity / Peace of Mind and Greed / Money Fixation. What would a conversation between one person with the appealing quality and another with the unappealing quality sound like? What situation would even find two such people conversing? How about if one single character somehow had both sets of traits and images? What type of character would that be, and what type of situations would evolve?

While this is not the way I write my short stories, I can see the value of the card exercise. In fact, for Father's Day, my wife bought me a writing game based on similiar premises, and I do want to see what I can churn out the next time I have a free couple of hours. I think it would be either interesting or productive, and - who knows? - perhaps even both.