17unreadpages
Prompt idea by 17unreadpages:
Write about a man named Donald who loves hats. News reporters claim he killed his cat, Sally. Is he the murderer, or is there something deeper?
Hahaha this is the funniest prompt in ages!
Read followers’ works inspired by this prompt:
- Poor Donald by AlmostSilent
We had a discussion about character development earlier this week, so here is a link to those posts.
I’d also suggest some chart exercises. There’s this one, which has you pick a few positive and negative traits for your character:
I feel like I mentioned this recently (I can’t find the post though), but last fall my professor thought our class wasn’t creating dynamic enough characters, so he had us fill out character outlines. I’m going to make one myself and put it in a post after this one.
Another thing that helps me is to just think about him/her for a long time. Think about getting to know real people—it takes a while before you learn all of their traits, right? Same with your own characters. When you first think them up, you might think of their names and physical appearances—which is the first thing you “absorb” when you meet a real person. After a little while you get a sense of their personality. When you really get to know them, you can recognize their quirks, weaknesses, hopes and dreams. Same with characters. Just keep thinking about them. Take notes. Be patient.
Hope that helps! Anything to add, anyone?
