Id Lists and Pillow Books: How to Crank Up All the Feels in Your WIP
I was recently introduced (thanks to the brilliant Anne Hawley) to the fabulous concept of an “Id List.” According to Jennifer Lynn Barnes, the concept’s creator, you should keep an ongoing list of all the things that you absolutely love, things that if you happened upon a movie featuring these elements, you would watch it no matter how bad it was. There are personal id lists and there are also categories that, according to Barnes, are universal to Western culture. Some of my Id List items include teams working together (à la Ocean’s Eleven), descriptions of overgrown gardens (like the one in the Italian villa in The English Patient), and sexy priests (obviously I’m talking about the sexy priest in Fleabag). Some of the universal categories include wealth, games, and beauty. Barnes has an excellent video lecture that will give you all you need to make your own lists.
It can feel vulnerable to create, let alone share your list, but I promise that it will reconnect you with the joy you felt when you first started writing, before you started guarding yourself from feedback, criticism, and self-doubt. So what would you put on your Id List? An enemies-to-lovers trope? A creepy old mansion? Descriptions of gemstones? Kick-ass women in the Wild West? Whatever floats your boat, no matter how specific or seemingly random, there are plenty of people out there who are drawn to same things as you.
If you are still doubting the power of an Id List, let me tell you a quick story. A few weeks before I learned about it, I read a YA book that I didn’t exactly love, but couldn’t put down. It was full of elements that were pretty engrossing: makeovers, mansions with secret passageways, a scavenger hunt with real-life consequences, and a love triangle. After listening to the Id List lecture, I googled Barnes to see her book list and…I’m sure you see where this is going. Barnes was the author of the compelling YA book. I was already planning to make my own Id List but after this I sat right down and started compiling. A few months later, my Id List had grown to many pages and I had inserted a number of items from it into my WIP. Then, I got a little stuck.
I realized my story needed something else, something on the flip-side of Id Lists. I needed to amp up the problems, the discomfort, the crappy situations for my main character, and I wanted readers to experience all of these emotions along with her. I went back to my scene outlines (yes, I’m a plotter) to think about where and how to inject more, well, bad feelings. I wished I had something like an anti-Id List to pull from. And then I remembered an odd little book that I’d read years ago: The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon.
This is an actual diary written by a courtesan in tenth-century Japan. In addition to Shōnagon’s account of her life at court, it also includes very specific lists, many of them definitely anti-id, things like: Annoying Things, Very Tiresome Things, Things That Certainly Won’t Come True, Things That Make A Bad Impression, Inappropriate Things. (She does include lists of nice things too but I’m more struck by the specificity of the less pleasant ones.) So, I made a list of her anti-Id List categories and got to work. Here is a sampling of what I came up with:
Things that give an unclean feeling
Stepping stocking-footed into spilled water
Greasy hair
White cuffs that are grubby
A smear of burnt candle wick on one’s fingers
Hairs and dust at the base of a toilet
Grit, dirt, or pine needles inside your tent
Situations that you have a feeling will turn out badly
Carrying something large stacked on top of something much smaller
A small child near a cat or skittish dog
Any sentence that starts out with “No offense, but…”
Things that make the heart lurch with anxiety
Not finding your dog after noticing that your front door is open
Driving to meet someone you know is about to break up with you
Smelling something burning and only then remembering you have food on the stove
Surprising And Depressing Things
Finding holes that can’t be repaired in one’s favorite clothing
Noticing that your pet’s fur has gone grey
Occasions when the time drags
Watching someone read your work
Waiting for a sauce to thicken while you stir it
I’ve got a much longer list than what I’ve shared with you here and I’m still adding to it. I’ve started imbedding some of these into my WIP and I’m very happy with how much more uncomfortable I’ve made my main character. Hopefully my readers will feel bad too, at least until they encounter the next Id-List item I’ve left for them.
You can brainstorm items for your Id and anti Id-Lists as a writing warm-up. If you are going for a certain feeling in the scene, start with ten minutes of listing everything that you can think of that would trigger that feeling. It doesn’t have to fit in with the genre or world of your story. You can figure out how to do that later. For now, just jot things down as fast as you can.
Here is a longer list of Shōnagon’s categories, so that you can give it a try:
Hateful Things
Depressing Things
Awkward Things
Things that give an unclean feeling
Boring Things
Things people despise
Infuriating Things
Situations that you have a feeling will turn out badly
Occasions when the time drags
Things that make the heart lurch with anxiety
Things that just keep passing by
Things that no one notices
Embarrassing Things
Surprising And Depressing Things
I hope you come up with your own categories. If you do, I would love to see them, along with your list items. I would also love to know how you use these lists in ways I haven’t thought of. You can visit my original post to drop a comment and here’s to making our characters (and our readers) feel ALL the feels.
Oona Cava is a freelance editor and writing coach. Before becoming an editor, she was the education director and a mainstage performer at the Upfront Theatre, owned by Ryan Stiles of Whose Line Is It Anyway. Oona uses improv exercises with her clients to help them break through writers block, enhance creativity, and increase their productivity. When she isn’t working with writers, she is working on her own YA series, playing with her miniature dachshund Momo, and growing dahlias.