The Vivisection (or Vivid Section) Method: A way to connect more with your characters.

Something that always stands out to me in successful Storytwigs is the creation of fully embodied characters. One way I like to foster this in my own writing is through “the vivisection method” (or vivid-section, if you’re avoiding violent language).

The Vivisection Method

To use the method, start with a scene you’re working on. Then, all you need to do is split your character(s) into as many distinct body parts as possible. Then, list out what the character is interacting with, feeling, or doing with each of those areas of the body. At first, this may seem incredibly boring or cliche, but write everything out anyway. Do this for each character in a scene.

Let’s see it in action:

Example Scene: Devlin is writing on his laptop and struggling to finish work before going out for lunch with an old friend.
TIP: Run through the list a few times. I added items from my second run-through in italics.

• Head: wearing a hat, needs to get a haircut. slight hangover headache. caffeine-focus cutting through a light brain fog

• Eyes: sleepy and a bit itchy from allergies. looking through dirty glasses

• Ears: headphones, white noise for focus

• Mouth: coffee breath, chapped lips, and next-day alcohol breath

• Arms: Sore from trying to get back into working out

• Hands: need to clip fingernails. clacking away quickly/frantically on laptop to finish work.

• Torso: not much going on here. maybe a bit itchy from a clunky/coarse t-shirt

• Stomach: not super hungry, a bit nauseated from drinking the night before

• Pelvis/butt: not much going on here. sitting?

• Pelvis/private area: not much going on here. has to pee from coffee?

• Legs: sore from trying to get back into working out. leg is jittering up and down from caffeine

• Feet: itchy from dry skin, need to clip toenails. a bit sweaty in his house slippers

Analysis/Next Steps:

So, there’s a lot of boring stuff & a few tropes. We’ve all read a million stories where someone’s leg bounces from jitters, or a shy character twirls their hair. But this exercise gives us three things:

1. An opportunity (as the writer) to connect more with our character physically

2. The potential for the standout items to make their way into the scene to move things along or develop our character

3. The potential for themes/groupings to move things along or develop our character

So, how does this apply to my example scene?

1. An opportunity as a writer to connect more with our character physically:

   • It’s clear that Devlin doesn’t really take care of himself, but is trying to…

     • Sore from working out

     • Not bad hygiene, but he’s certainly unkempt (hair, nails)

     • Uses alcohol/caffeine, and they affect him

2. The potential for the standout items to make their way into the scene to move things along or develop our character

   • I don’t see any major stand-alones here, most of these are groupings (alcohol, coffee/caffeine, unkempt, post-workout soreness). If he had a sore tooth or an old injury, maybe that would stand out in the scene

3. The potential for themes/groupings to move things along or develop our character

   • The hangover-coffee mix is interesting, especially as it indicates him trying to change his mood through chemicals & struggling to balance different sides of his personality

   • The fact that he’s going to go meet up with someone but is so unkempt is also interesting

Now, we can pepper in these details to this scene, or we can keep these details in mind as the story moves along. Does Devlin have to race to finish work and make himself presentable? Does Devlin continue to fight back nausea at lunch? Does Devlin feel self conscious at lunch (due to his appearance)? Is he even aware of his unkemptness? etc.

These questions and ideas will open even more doors once we have done this exercise for other characters as well. Remember that these details are often the things that one character will notice about another.

Examples from successful storytwigs:

These writers probably didn’t use this specific technique, but here are some good body-specific lines that can serve as inspiration for how these bodily details may make their way into a finished piece. I’ve underlined the words or phrases I want to call out.

Draft Marks on a Sinking Ship, by Elle Hanley
(from January 2022: Draft)

She sipped the wine and rolled it around her tongue, absently adjusting the jacket over her arm. Her shoes pinched, but the date had promise. And she’d wanted to see an O’Keeffe.

She stopped in front of the painting, vaguely interested at first in the intensity of color. Suddenly engulfed, she was taken by the white hot folds of the flower, the pulsing power of movement, in and out of the sticky petals. Her lips parted and she started to sweat.

“I’ve always found her paintings too…accessible. Boring, really,” he said, resting his arm across her shoulders. “Dinner?”

“Sure.”

My Last Memory, by Maria Ramos-Chertok
(from September 2021: Mine)

The signals of decline reveal themselves, disguise themselves.  A printing business closes after many years.  A fingertip is sliced off at a new job as a dishwasher.  A faraway look takes over.  The paranoia visits – he screams that my two friends are spies.  “No, they’re not, papa.”  He is institutionalized in a County Hospital: indigent with no insurance.  I visit him.  There are crazy people screaming.  Some shuffle listlessly. He recognizes me a little.  The last memory I have of him is my stepmother feeding him sweet, homemade cornbread as if he were a little, damaged bird.

Sea Biscuits, by Autumn Bettinger
(from August 2021: Spike)

Lara watched as he loosened the net, a bundle of urchins tumbling onto the sand. As she peeled off her wetsuit, Lara focused on her instructor’s hands as he untangled the delicate purple spikes. With an attentiveness that made Lara flush, he meticulously separated the little shellfish, careful not to harm them. Lara began daydreaming about what else those hands could do.

CRACK.

Her eyes flew down as he began ripping the urchins apart, his fingers splintering skeletons and popping out joints. He scraped out the wet, yellow innards and offered them to Lara.

“Uni?” he asked.

And so it goes…

The vivisection technique can help you get into your character’s body, find details that may help a scene stand out, and discover common themes across the body that tell us more about the character or story. It can also create really vivid and interesting intersections between characters, especially when we are looking at certain characters through the eyes of our narrator or main character.

Hope this is interesting/helpful. Take all this with a grain of salt…

Reach out at storytwigs@gmail.com with questions, comments, concerns, or compliments :)

-Devon