Bring a character alive with animal imagery

In Session 7 of our book Write What You Don’t Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow, we set the prompt of comparing a person to an animal. It’s a terrific way to generate vivid description of a character—and it often produces unexpected insight as well.

Arlene Burns wasn’t actually writing to that prompt when she generated the piece below. In our Prompt of the Week online gathering, we used a photograph of a tarsier—and what Arlene wrote has resonance far beyond that little creature! Imagine how the imagery and insight and emotion she accessed in just 10 minutes could translate to a human being—or simply enjoy this remarkable piece as it stands.

Am I the one to fear? Or the one afraid? 

Cowering, hiding behind an inadequate blade of grass, the world is ominous. Out of my element, afraid of light.  

I am made to fly in the pitch of darkness, not to cower in the sun. My eyes are too big to see with light, but in the night I thrive. I use radar, even: waves become my eyes, depicting invisible shapes that I can maneuver around with the grace of an acrobat, devouring your pesky bugs before I retreat to my cave to sleep off the day. 

How can we be so good at one thing and so utterly miserable at another? Which defines us: the light or the dark, our mastery or our failures? 

  In the light I am a creepy alien baby, wild-eyed and clinching, resistance is futile.

  If frozen in stone I am a gargoyle, protecting the fortress while exuding fear and disgust. 

In the moonlight I am free and magnificent, an essential ingredient in the web of life. 

Both our mastery and our failures define us, each one a tip to a spectrum. Ugly and beautiful, balance is encompassing the whole and getting carried away in either direction. 

I am harmless, my precious.

Let the Imaginative Storm inspire you! You can find an archive of intriguing writing prompts on the Imaginative Storm Circle and on our YouTube channel, as well as daily prompts on Instagram @imaginativestorm).

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