Take a look around you.  What sort of character are you, and in what sort of genre?

For me, when I look outside I see a bruised indigo sky with trees skeletal against it.  An upstairs light is on in a house at the back of my garden, and a selection of white goods, fridges from what I can tell, are standing proud in that house’s garden.

Drawing my attention inside, the curtains at my window are a fresh green, against the equally vivid blue of the walls.  A suit jacket hangs from the door, and there’s a bag bursting with clothes between the door and the blank-walled corridor outside, a Sopranos DVD box set and a book on Stonehenge also visible.  Looking at those, I’d conclude I’m someone who travels in a hurry, but doesn’t take time to unpack. 

The room itself is on the first floor, and two of its walls are lined with shelving.  A third has standalone bookshelves the other side of what seems to be a chimneybreast, though there’s no fireplace.  The shelves are stacked with books.  Psychology, science, mythology and Forteana seem to be favoured topics, though on one wall all the books are either screenplays or books to do with film and writing.  Another bookshelf has an assortment of indie-looking comics on its bottom shelf.

There’s a stereo, all black separates, and wooden speakers on metal stands, on a polished wooden floor with a patterned blue rug.  But much of the rug is invisible under random stacks: boxes of CDs, paperbacks, a mobile phone box, a shoulderbag with index cards poking out. 

There are more index cards on the top of a Frank Zappa CD on a desk looking out of the window assembled from a large wooden surface and two old style filing cabinets.  Mostly though, it’s occupied by a stack computer, printer, modem, and speakers.  And more CDs – jazz and left field rock by the looks of things – envelopes, and paperwork from a regional screen agency.  To the right of the desk there’s an ivory phone, and on the wall above it a calendar with a black and white picture of an old man walking towards a pair of windmills, perhaps in France or Spain.  No other pictures are hung, but there are three of different sizes facing the wall by the door.

Based on all that, I conclude the occupant of the room is some kind of researcher or writer.  But that still doesn’t help identify the genre.  The clues there are outside, with the sky as indicated before, and Fridgehenge.  All that points to me being in some kind of thriller, perhaps with an otherworldly twist, directed by David Lynch maybe.  Or a tv drama by Alan Plater, king of the idiosyncratic detail.  On reflection, I’d prefer that, not least because I’d have a better chance of surviving whatever comes next.

This exercise is one I’d recommend that you try for yourself.  It points to the assumptions that we make based on the choices of directors and their art directors, many of which could do with being challenged.  Like, why does it only rain in thrillers, or if a couple need to be grudgingly forced to share an umbrella in a romcom?  What would happen if female characters were shown to read books, and not just magazines: is it because they’d intimidate men in the audience?  Why do so many protagonists live in well-designed and sizeable homes, when their likely economic circumstances would dictate otherwise (aka the Friends conundrum)?  Anyway, food for thought…