🧠 TREE 732: Weird brain usefulness

You know how you can have conversations with other people in your head? How many times have you had a full-on argument with someone else entirely inside your brain?

I’ve come up with a way to put this ability to good use. I’m sure this has been done before but I wasn’t consciously aware of this technique until the idea popped into my head during a shower last week.

(Ideas love a shower. Hypothesis: the hot water opens your pores allowing ideas to slip through your skin more easily.)

I’m working on a Bonanza Clementine story. I have a good outline of the major plot points, but didn’t really know who she is and I was struggling to find my way into the actual story writing (a bit like Frodo struggling to find a way into Mordor but without Gollum or the annoying bromance with Sam).

During the aforementioned shower, this aforementioned idea that made its way into my brain:

I could interview Bonanza Clementine.

So I’ve started typing out a conversation with her. I decided that the conversation would take place after the events of the story so that she has had some time to reflect on what happened. I also decided that instead of me asking the questions it would be a really good reporter who is skilled at getting people to open up. As soon as my reporter asked the first question she started talking. The answers come quickly. Sometimes faster than I can type. I’m learning so much about her. She’s also said things that helped me realise I had a couple major pieces of the story wrong. She’s a fascinating person. And this reporter – he’s good.

This is all happening in my head!

Somehow, having a conversation with Bonanza has unlocked a flood of information that was inaccessible to me when my method was the more straightforward imagine this character.

My point is that the weird things your brain does can be super-useful.

After I wrote what you just read I Googled ‘interview your characters’. Of course there were a kajillion results. Surely I’ve read about this technique before and the memory disappeared until I needed it.

What I’m doing different from the search results I saw is that I’m not working my way through a list of planned questions. The conversation between Bonanza and the reporter is free-flowing. None of us know where it’s going, although I’m sure the reporter has things he definitely wants her to talk about.

Grow slowly
Jeff