A Writing Prompt by Sarah Freligh
WHAT CONDITION MY CONDITION WAS IN

The conditional tense—sometimes called the conditional mood—is a wonderful way to explore and convey the great big holy “if” of a character’s life in both fiction and nonfiction. That is: what happens, will happen, might have happened, or would have happened if that character does, will do, or did do something? It’s really useful for fiction, which relies on invention and nuance, but especially so for nonfiction where the “creative” part of the equation often compels us to muse on what we don’t know about a character or only suppose or even wish had happened.

I love how beautifully Vincent Chavez deploys the conditional in the story “Heirloom” (which originally appeared in Wigleaf) and how subtly and seamlessly he conveys the “if”—that is, the conditional premise of the story—in the first sentence: 

In another dimension, I got superpowers.

YOUR PROMPT: The Conditional 

This exercise is great for conceiving new characters or going deeper with an existing character:

Pick a character and write a story in conditional tense—what will or might happen if…

300 words.

Sarah Freligh is the author of seven books, including Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize; Hereafter, winner of the 2024 Bath Novella-in-Flash contest; and Other Emergencies, the 2025 Moon City Press Editors Choice Selection. Her work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologized in New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (Norton, 2018), and Best Microfiction (2019-22). Among her awards are poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Saltonstall Foundation.

If you’re interested in getting more helpful tips and prompts for expanding your characters’ perspectives, check out Sarah’s Cleaver class, The I’s Have It: Variations on First Person Narratives (Sun, April 26th).

Read more from Cleaver’s Writing Tips.