Object monologue: give a wind chime a fictional voice

An object monologue gives an imagined household item a speaking part. For this creative writing exercise, I have made a fictional wind chime the narrator and a newly arrived blue flowerpot its silent listener. The chime is vain about its place beside a kitchen window. You can read its complete speech below, then try a different object and attitude in your own notebook.

Choose the speaker before beginning

The narrator belongs entirely to this invented scene. It has thoughts, remembers conversations and addresses another object because the author grants it those abilities. Real wind chimes have no such awareness. The house, its inhabitants and their habits are fictional too. The speech does not describe either retail item linked later in this article, or report an experience of owning one.

I want this speaker to sound like a long-established resident giving an unsolicited welcome. It remains beside its window throughout. The blue pot sits on the sill beneath it and never replies. That arrangement gives the speech an addressee without requiring a conversation. The chime can reveal its own preferences through what it chooses to tell this newcomer.

The narrator knows this kitchen and the patch of garden visible from its window. It cannot follow the people when they leave. I have allowed it to remember what happens within its fictional view, while keeping distant rooms and private thoughts outside the speech. Those are choices for this particular piece; another author could invent an object with a wider world.

Read the complete fictional monologue

“You are very blue. I thought I should mention it before we become accustomed to each other. Everything that arrives here eventually gets called the old something, and I would hate for you to become the old pot before anyone had properly admired that blue. I have been here long enough to know how quickly an adjective can settle over a thing.

“I am the chime above you. Please look up when convenient. You cannot move your neck, of course; I should have remembered. I have no neck either, though I sometimes feel that the people expect me to nod. They stand in the doorway and say, ‘Still here, then,’ as though I might have gone out to buy bread.

“The bread arrives in a paper bag most Thursdays. You will see the bag on the table. Sometimes there is a second bag, much smaller, which goes into the cupboard before anyone admits to buying anything sweet. I can see that cupboard when its door opens. I cannot tell you what happens after it shuts. You may find the suspense difficult at first.

“Your place on the sill is a good one. The woman who put you there moved the jam jar to make room. That jar had been empty for weeks and behaved as though the whole window belonged to it. I have watched plenty of objects arrive in this kitchen, but none has looked quite so pleased with an absence as I was when that jar went away.

“There used to be a postcard propped against the frame behind you. A beach, a stripe of red umbrellas, somebody’s thumb over one corner. I liked the thumb. It made the picture seem less certain of itself. The postcard is in a drawer now. I saw the man put it there, under a folded tea towel. I wish I could tell you why.

“I know very little about drawers. I can describe their fronts with confidence and their contents only when somebody leaves them open. The people assume that being in the same kitchen for years gives a thing an opinion on everything. I have several opinions about the drawer handles. About the letters inside, I have none that would survive an honest question.

“You have a little chip near your rim. There, facing the table. I saw it when the woman turned you towards the window. You need not hide it from me. One of my cords has a knot that appears in all the photographs taken from the doorway. I used to resent that knot. Now I think of it as the part of me the camera remembers.

“I wonder what they will put in you. Something with leaves, perhaps, though I am only guessing. The woman said she would decide after lunch. Lunch has come and gone, and you are still empty. People often speak as though their next meal divides the day into dependable chapters. I have watched a great many decisions drift beyond the washing-up.

“That is all my advice for the moment. You are welcome to remain quiet; I have done enough talking for both of us. When the light reaches your blue side, I shall have a better look. Until then, please enjoy your window. I have never had a neighbor quite that color.”

Listen to this narrator’s particular manners

The opening compliment is also an intrusion. The chime announces that it has inspected the pot before introducing itself. Its concern about becoming “the old pot” gives it an interest beyond the color in front of it: the narrator dislikes being taken for granted. I chose that small vanity as the voice’s starting point, and let the welcome develop from there.

Its requests are slightly absurd. “Please look up when convenient” treats the pot like a guest capable of looking around; the next sentence catches the mistake. The chime then admits its own lack of a neck. I like the speaker more after that admission. It can be pompous about its established place while also recognizing the silliness of what it has just asked.

Several sentences give it the manners of a nosy neighbor. It watches shopping bags and resents a jam jar. Those observations belong to the invented speaker’s taste. You can disagree with its judgment of the jar and still follow the speech. There is no need for the commentary to establish that empty jars are unwelcome, or that kitchen objects generally behave this way.

Keep the view attached to the window

The cupboard door closes, and the chime loses sight of its contents. A postcard enters a drawer, and the narrator cannot explain why it was put away. These are useful places to hear the difference between what the speaker sees and what it imagines. Its speech can acknowledge an unanswered question without asking the reader to solve a concealed household mystery.

I have given the narrator a clear opportunity to overreach when it discusses the letters. It refuses an opinion that would not survive an honest question. That choice also makes room for its next, much smaller concern: drawer handles. The move feels appropriate to a speaker whose claim to authority rests on occupying one particular corner of a kitchen for a long time.

The narrator’s guess about a plant is identified as a guess in the speech itself. Nothing later confirms it. I leave the pot empty at the end because the welcome is already complete. Giving it a named plant would introduce a new event, and I prefer the speaker’s anticipation of a better look at its blue neighbor. The person’s delayed decision stays a passing observation.

Give the speech a closing gesture

Near the end, the chime notices the pot’s chip and admits its own conspicuous knot. The welcome becomes less grand after those details. It has started by admiring a color from a position of seniority and ends by accepting that the new neighbor can remain quiet. That change in manner is enough movement for the short piece I wanted to write.

The final sentence returns to the pot’s color without repeating an exact refrain. It belongs to this speaker and its curiosity about an arrival. I have left the listener’s response unwritten. You could imagine one later, but the complete monologue here ends with the chime waiting for the light to move. It does not need a reply to finish its welcome.

Use catalogue images as optional visual prompts

The Cohasset Gifts & Garden Tractor Bamboo Wind Chime account shows a green tractor-shaped upper element above a horizontal cap and hanging brown tubes. Its sole image cuts off the lowest cords. That visible arrangement can prompt an entirely new fictional speaker; it does not establish the material, sound or personality of the item.

The Basic Design silver-tube wind chime account shows a hook, shallow patterned cap, straight tubes and a plain circular lower sail. Its gallery includes component views and a reference sheet. Those pictures provide optional visual details for writing. No recording was played, and no sound, tuning, dimensions or performance was verified for this exercise.

You can use a household object already familiar to you instead. Write down the features you actually notice, then decide which invented attitudes you want to give it. Keep a visual observation separate from a fictional addition in your notes. A chipped edge can be something you see; an object’s embarrassment about that edge belongs to the story you choose to tell.

Compare two other creative choices

The chess-piece microfiction gives personified characters opposing aims over a map and follows a consequential choice. That offers a different writing activity. Here, the pot remains silent while one chime speaks, and the exercise concentrates on the manners of that single voice. You need not add a negotiation to imitate this particular monologue.

The reader-knowledge wrapped-gift scene lets a reader see a mug being packed while the absent recipient remains unaware. It preserves that information difference and denies the mug awareness. This exercise deliberately grants an object fictional awareness instead. Its speech supplies the experience directly through an invented narrator, rather than building a gap around an unopened gift.

Write your own object’s welcome

Choose an object that stays in one place, then put a newly arrived item within its imagined view. Decide whether your speaker is pleased, possessive or merely curious. You can choose another attitude entirely. Write a complete welcome in the first person, letting the object address its listener directly. The listener may remain silent, as the blue pot does here.

Read your finished speech through once as that speaker. Notice any sentence that suddenly tells you what happens in a room it cannot see, unless you deliberately gave it that ability. Look for a phrase you like enough to keep even if it makes the speaker a little awkward. A particular voice can have an ungenerous opinion about a jam jar; you can let the reader hear it.

Keep the complete monologue with your notes. If you return to it, decide whether you still like the narrator’s attitude and the place where its speech ends. You may want a more reserved speaker next time. For this version, I am happy to leave the chime above its silent blue neighbor, waiting for a patch of light and another occasion to offer an opinion.

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A writer gives an imagined household object its own voice.