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When my children were young and finding bedtime difficult, we made it routine to slowly think back through each of their days. I would have them recount what they considered to be the most memorable events, from the moment they opened their eyes to their current situation, usually lying in bed having just changed into pjs and brushed their teeth. It was grounding, a way of settling down and preparing for the next step—sleep.

How might one of your characters retrace their steps, and why? Are they looking for some kind of resolution, or an explanation of how they got to where they are now? Maybe they’re preparing to take a big leap forward . . ..

What about your evolution as a writer, or your story’s evolution? Can you think back through how and why your techniques have changed? Or how and why the plot/tempo/narrative voice has changed over the last month? The last year? The last five years?

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Something that is vital is absolutely necessary. It is essential. Cutting a vital connection, then, would be risking death.

Often drastic change feels like death. Or birth, I suppose, thinking about what it means to cut a baby’s umbilical cord, which has, up until that moment, been the baby’s total and complete source of life.

Does one of your characters need a drastic change? Do they need their lifeline cut in order to be forced to take a breath? Do you?

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Maybe more than any other experience, that of feeling embarrassed is what binds us to one another, for we all know well how humiliation cuts deep and quick, to the very core of who we think we are.

Find a moment in which one of your characters feels shame. How does it affect the narrative arc? Does it stop any forward momentum, force a change in course? Who else witnesses this embarrassment? How does this shared experience change this relationship?

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I used to study the traditional drumming of the Ewe people of Ghana, and my teacher would often say that the best way to see change was in attempting to do the same thing over and over again. Repeat this pattern, he’d say, and he’d play a sequence for us. We’d attempt it, and continue to play it until—like a child repeats the same word over and over again until they no longer recognize it—we’d discover an entirely new world of sound.

How do you, as a writer, view your repeated actions? Can you see differences emerge over time? What about one of your characters? Perhaps they avoid doing the same things; perhaps they’re always seeking newness. What are they scared of discovering?

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Often we associate extreme actions with impulsive reactions, followed by handwringing and regret. What if the extreme actions are premeditated and meticulously planned? What if the move back to a comfortable, or reasonable, place is a ruse, meant to obfuscate malicious intent?

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Who goes outside and doesn’t shut the door?

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In Yoko Ogawa’s science fiction novel "The Memory Police," life on an unnamed island is plagued with disappearances—everything from perfume and stamps to plants and animals. Soon after, all memories of what has disappeared are gone, as well.

In the following passage, the narrator, whose father was an ornithologist, contemplates a bird in the sky, knowing it is the last bird she’ll ever see:

“I tried to hold on to the way it looked in flight or the colors of its feathers, but I knew it was useless. The bird, which should have been intertwined with memories of my father, was already unable to elicit any feelings in me at all. It was nothing more than a simple creature, moving through space as a function of the vertical motion of its wings.”

How do memories function in your narrative? How are they evoked, and why? And what of the people or events that we, as authors, forget in order to survive?

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Is one of your characters especially hard-headed? Or, is one of your characters especially insecure, and recoils at the thought of anyone knowing something that they don’t? Or, this is a good one: you could have one of your characters accept advice knowing it’s bad advice, expecting the consequences to be horrific. Why would they do that?

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Does your narrative revolve around questions of power? You may ask, Who decides who is qualified, and why?

Or, perhaps the idea of ‘unqualified’ results in a surprise revelation, as when one of your characters knows something unexpected, something they shouldn’t.

Or, worse, how can being ‘qualified’ also be a short-coming? For example, in Jerry Saltz’s book, Art Is Life, he describes a meeting that took place in October of 2001, in which architects gathered to discuss the future of the World Trade Towers site:

“At a packed assembly of architect in Cooper Union’s Great Hall, professionals from around the world met and spoke about the tragedy in ways I hadn’t heard before or, thankfully, since. I love contemporary architecture, but I was appalled by the breathtaking opinion, expressed by many in attendance, that architects were the only ones who understood the site ‘in the deepest sense.’”

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When your characters face obstacles, what do they do? Reassess their strategies, change tactics, try something else? Perhaps they are fiercely stubborn and refuse to admit they were wrong. Perhaps you, as a writer, have a difficult time knowing when to stay the course and when to admit defeat.

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I would never willingly omit the Oxford comma . . . Or would I? Under what circumstances would I agree to such an egregious act? As for one of my characters? Delphine would never cross over into Rhona Forest. Hypatia would never hurt an innocent animal. What about you? What about one of your characters?

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Give your character pause to look inward. Give her time to reflect on what’s just outside her conscious mind, knocking to be let in, and then see where that takes her. Or, take time to explore what’s been nagging you, as a writer. Perhaps it’s about a specific character, or the voice you’ve given her. Perhaps it’s a decision you made a long time ago to excise a character, plot line, etc.

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Why would your character engage in a boring activity? Is it a means of procrastinating? What is your character trying to avoid? Or perhaps she’s waiting and simply needs to fill the time. If that’s the case, why does she choose to do what she does?

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This card -- and its scare quotes -- make me think of the conversation around Simple Sabotage and being a Secret Agent from last night's conversation about literature and activism. For anyone who wasn't there, the questions raised included whether it could be more effective (both narratively and politically) to represent one's ideas, values, vision of the world in a covert, non-didactic, way, telling stories, not making diatribes or publishing tracts, building irresistible empathy for an outsider character rather than including a praise song of them or explicitly lamenting their disenfranchisement, etc.

Or, on another not political front, what if a place a character thinks is safe turns out not to be?

On a more meta level, what if you start out telling a story in a comforting, conventional way and entice your reader into a more complex, even dangerous, type of story that subverts literary conventions?

Or hey, what if a story opened with a bunch of kids playing Ollie Ollie In Come Free... Will the character make it back to the home-base rock alive? Will what happens in the game become a metaphor for larger narrative gyres?

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Something the narrator of your story tells one of your characters. Something one of your characters tells another character. Something your main character tells herself.

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Water is frequently transformative, but always essential.

Here is Marilynne Robinson, in Housekeeping, describing a house that was built on land that was once the bottom of a lake.

“Sometimes in the spring the old lake will return. One will open a cellar door to wading boots floating tallowy soles up and planks and buckets bumping at the threshold, the stairway gone from sight after the second step. The earth will brim, the soil will become silty water, and the grass will stand in chill water to its tips.”

How does it function in your story?

Does it reveal something about your character? Maybe, like my mother, your character doesn’t drink water. Only coffee, iced tea, or vodka tonics. Or maybe your character is obsessed with drinking water.

Does it define your setting? Landlocked or oceanfront. On the banks of a river, which, depending upon which side you live, can represent either a promise or a threat

Can it manifest as motif? As rain, ice cubes, urine, or sweat. As relief, in the form of a hot shower or an open water swim. As disaster, in the form of a hurricane or flood.

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This could be a question one of your characters asks another. It could be a question you ask of one of your characters. A question one of your characters asks herself, in a moment of self-reflection . Or . . .

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Liz York, a writer in a workshop I teach took 3 OS cards and created this delightful cartoon. Enjoy!  Emily R.

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Liz York, a writer in a workshop I teach took 3 OS cards and created this delightful cartoon. Enjoy!  Emily R.

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It's the anniversary of the idea for this site (among other things).... I love this strategy, gets to the guts of what art can and should open up...

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I needed this today.

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The instructions.....  You can order a copy of Oblique Strategies from Brian Eno's web store: www.enoshop.co.uk

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The instructions.....  You can order a copy of Oblique Strategies from Brian Eno's web store: www.enoshop.co.uk

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I've been wanting these and asked for them for my birthday. I'm going to draw a card every day and share it. I hope they help you with your work!