Exercise Wednesday: Learning and regrets

“You know I believe we have two lives, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that.” — Iris, The Natural

Regrets are a byproduct of learning. If you never learn how to do things better, you can’t regret what you screwed up in the past. Today’s writing exercise is about regrets. Your character should meet someone or have a discussion or revelation that leads to an understanding of who he or she is, and who he or she was. The work around this piece involves the gap between the two.

Is the gap a good gap? Is the character moving in a good or bad direction? Are the regrets current regrets or regrets over things that happened long ago? Is the character happy with the change, angry, sad, wistful, excited, resigned?

Does the character even have regrets? Is the character regretless because of blindness or because of a positive outlook?

You can frame this any way you want. The character can meet an old friend, hear a song, go someplace that was meaningful earlier in life.

Time limit: 25 minutes

About these ads