family values

With all the hype about maintaining and sustaining family values these days, you'd think all families had the same ones. But clearly, that is not the case. Every family creates their own morality, their own subtle set of values that may or may not be verbally communicated, but which exist all the same. Revealing those values can be the key to creating a believable family in your writing.

The following prompt comes from Everyday Creative Writing by Michael Smith and Suzanne Greenberg.

Fill in the blanks in each of the following sentences:

The event/relative my family never talks about is ___________________.
The only thing my parents ever lied about was _________________.
In my family, the worst thing that could happen to you is ________________.

Look over your responses and freewrite on some of the values your family held. Be sure to focus not only on the values they claim as values, but also those implied by gestures and behavior.

posted by lit lover at 11:04 AM