When we first begin to write it can be a difficult process to access language because we live in a visual culture that is largely centred on the screen. As writers, we need to be aware of this. We cannot assume that the visual life is there, as with a film. Through a creative exercise that explores relationships between characters and activity, we will seek to ‘collect’ a language; the right, specific and powerful language that transforms the ordinary to reveal a bigger world and set of contexts that will speak to the reader.