Characters are arguably the most important part of your story.
They are the people we travel with, the heart of the stories. They are there to show us the world, and how people interact with the world. They are there to entertain us, and make us laugh and cry. And they are there to let us experience what is happening in the story.
A good plot is needed, and decent writing is a must, but if people cannot empathize with your characters, or understand them, then it might be hard for them to turn a page. Because why go on when I don’t care about the person that the story is following?
Yes, characters are the most important things we have in our stories. So, we should get them as perfect as possible. We should understand who they are, where they come from, what they do, and what their purpose in the story is.
We should ask questions of them to get a deeper understanding of them as full-fledged people, and we should treat them with respect. But even though there are posts devoted to those two things, I think there are some things that only come with the experience of writing these characters out.
And that brings me to this post. This session will be a writing prompt, but it will be a different writing prompt compared to the other sessions. The reason for the difference is because while the other writing prompt sessions are all scenes that you should put in your final story, the scene you’re going to write for this session should not be written with your final draft in mind.
In fact, I’d prefer you to make the scenario so outlandish with respect to your story that you can’t put the scene into it. Because the aim of the coming activity is not to write something; it’s to get a better feel for your characters by placing them into an environment they usually wouldn’t be in – in other words, taking them out of their comfort zone.
With that said, here’s the task: I want you to put your characters into a scene. I want you to put them into a ridiculous and/or dangerous situation, and write how they go about getting out of it. And to be clear, I mean all your important characters, villains included. Put them all into the scene.
And when I say put, I mean exactly that. Design the scene in your head and then just plop your characters into it. Don’t try to think of history for the world. Don’t try to get it to make sense. Just think of problem after problem, after problem, and then write what happens.
Think of a scene that is nothing like the ones in your story. If you can’t think of anything, then take a scene from your favourite movies/books and put your characters into that, and see how they react. Be as outlandish and creative as you want, because the scene won’t matter. But the characters in the scene will.
The point of this exercise is not to create a fun adventure but to see how your characters react to what is happening around them when they’re put into an unnatural situation. And when you write, don’t plan what happens next except for the new problem. Other than that, write freely.
Write what you think your own characters would do if they were real people. Write them as though you’ve just met them and you want to see who they really are, down to their core. See their resourcefulness, and courage, and cowardice, and strength, and empathy, and selfishness in how they act is bad situations.
Let your characters come alive, in a scene with no pressure to you, because it will never see the light of day.
Let your characters be true to themselves, and let them introduce themselves to you.
Maybe they won’t surprise you in what they do. But I’m willing to bet one of them does, and when that character does surprise you, it will be the best feeling in the world.
Because in that moment this person you have created will have become a full-fledged character in their own right.
Thanks for Reading, Fellow Writers!
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Professional Amateur Writers 