WRITER'S DIGEST WRITING PROMPT

The Coma

Write from the point of view of a person in a coma. This is a permanent condition. The patient will probably never come out of the coma, but still haltingly comprehends the outer world. The voices of loved ones are familiar, even initimately familiar, but the comatose character cannot attach names to the voices. The patient has lost this capacity. 500 words.

This is an exercise about death-in-life. The person who is telling us this story is technically alive and is obviously narrating the tale for us - to us - but people in the room with him do not really know if the comatose person is alive or dead. This is also simply an exercise in sensory deprivation, like Plato's cave - shadows thrown against the wall of a character's consciousness. The people in this piece will be barely human - they'll be words, perhaps an odor, maybe a dim memory evoked.
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Excerpted from The 4 A.M. Breakthrough: Unconventional Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction by Brian Kiteley