The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 8 May 2010

Here's the task. Suppose that your character finds a mysterious bundle. Cardboard folded and fastened around a piece of glass, a handwritten note, and what looks at first glance to be an invoice.

Where did they find it? We'll let you invent the place -- in a box, a locker, under the bed, in the trunk of a car, in plain view in an antique store, or whatever -- and what the character is doing when they find it. You might also take liberties with that fastening -- string? ribbon? tape? Something even more exotic? Your choice! And feel free to fill in whatever other details you like.

Now use this bundle as the inciting incident, or as a distraction from the main plot, or perhaps as a revelation or a turning point, but show us -- what was that bundle? What did it mean to your character? What did they do after they had found it (and perhaps unpacked and looked at it, even expressed an emotional reaction)?

Come on, tell us a tale of a bundle...