There are a lot more nuggets of insights around who we are as people in the mundane; chores, tasks, or errands the can plague our to-do lists offers a look at our needs, our choices, some barriers, and even a guilty pleasure or two. And the same can be said about the characters that craft.
An exercise from the college years that is frequently revisited in writing groups is known as the shopping list exercise, wherein you take a character whom you are wanting to explore more.
Step 1: Select a Character - Identify a character who you’re wanting to analyze and explore more. You can also do this with a new character who you’ve already started developing—but this exercise becomes difficult if you need a brand-new character who you have no context for yet. The end goal is for you to have new insights into this character, what drives them, and some decisions they make.
Step 2: Pick a Place & Make List - You take that character and you make a shopping list for them—the list can be for whatever location you see fit.
The place can be at a grocery store, a dollar store, a big box store, a garage sale, a magic shop, a salvage yard on a derelict world, a black magics marketplace in a pocket dimension that is only accessible on a blue moon, or even the scariest of places (which is anywhere as the doors open on Black Friday Sale). You can have this place be relevant in the world your character exists in or not. You can have Yewlejin from your sci-fi novel show-up at a Walmart and make decisions that way—this prompt is meant to examine your character, what you create from this exercise may not end up in your final draft of your work.
But once you have the character and place, mediate on what the character would need and make a list of around 10-20 items they would get at that store. And be intentional, challenge yourself to sit with why your character is getting that. Is it new? Is it used? Is it fresh? What would they be getting it for? You could even integrate how they would be drafting this list (on a scroll, on their phone, on their arm) and you make little asides or reminders about each item. For you, as the writer, this should allow you to ground this character more in the details of their choices. (You may even have an item listed, then scratched out, knowing they either can’t find it, can’t afford it, or some other obstacle has presented itself.)
Step 3: Write out a scene - Once the list is complete and you eel good about it. Begin to draft out a scene. How would this character move through this space? What would some of their reactions be if items they yearned for aren’t there? What would their decision-making process be between the more expensive item and the Safeway-select option that’s available? How’re they interacting or haggling with some of the people who work there? (This is where you might find some levity or humor in a character who doesn’t exist in our world engaging with it.) But as you draft out the scene, which again, may not be canon in the piece they’re from, but should strength your insights into who your character is.
Step 4: Reflect - After writing out your list, your scene, reread what you wrote. Consider some of these questions in your reflection:
-What decision surprised you about your character from this exercise?
-What item(s) from this list may have relevance or significance in the piece this character is from?
-What did you learn about your character in exploring this exercise?
-What underlying trait, motivation, or curiosity is highlighted about your character from this list or scene?
-Any other interesting musings you have about your character from this exercise…!