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The technique title is a reference to the facets of a diamond in that different slices through the situation or incident are described.

Reorganising and recombining these different views through the creative work, each picked out by its illumination of creative detail, produces a bright and vivid depth to the creative work.


ball bullet How does Facets work?

The steps of the Facets Technique:

  1. Select different views of the section or passage to describe.
  2. List details or conditions that can be used to define these view. This could be essential plot devices, sensory perception, character viewpoints, development of themes etc.
  3. Using other mixology or cultivation techniques can help in establishing these details or conditions.
  4. Further expand the content of these lists into points of departure for a creative sentence, passage, scene etc.


ball bullet Illustration: Facets

The following shows how the Facets technique has been used in the construction of The Tailor.

The selection of a Facet and the elements that describe and define this Facet:

ball bullet Facet: Defining the Character of Anjali’s Uncle:

  • Ambitious
  • Skilled in organising
  • Family orientated
  • Entrepreneurial
  • Persuasive

ball bullet Text passage derived from the above Facet:

Anjali’s uncle first arrived as an immigrant in a grey town at one end of a wet valley, which was bordered at the bottom by the sea. A river ran like a silken ribbon along the seam of the valley and into the ruffled salt waters of the estuary.

Her uncle was the first member of her family to set down his sewing machine in this valley.  There were no other tailors in the area, and the rental on one end of a once abandoned warehouse was affordable.

With a skill for organisation, and a skin as thick as a cotton canvas, her uncle was soon successfully stretching the family’s tailoring reputation from the higher and wealthier end of the valley, all the way down to the poorer housing estates at the very bottom edge of the town.

Damp and cold are the perfect business partners of any tailor,’ wrote her uncle in response to Anjali’s father’s suggestion that there could be more temperate places to settle.