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Creative Writing Exercises – Character Sketches
By Deb Gallardo
Here’s another creative writing exercises post related to character. When it comes to developing characters, some writing resources suggest creating detailed biographical sketches, including such minutiae as favorite colors, favorite foods, where they went to high school or their first jobs, to name a few. These traits can be helpful in getting a handle on our characters, but may not bring them to life.
Jennifer Jensen suggests asking thought-provoking questions that will reveal character, and then to write character sketches that put your people into action in order to reveal traits that wouldn’t otherwise manifest themselves. Below is a list of probing questions. Pick only two or three to answer and then write a scene to develop the characters in a richer, fuller way than creating a mere list can do.
- What is your character afraid of?
- What gives your character joy?
- How does your character show love?
- What makes your character angry?
- How competitive is your character?
- What does your character think about during downtime?
- What “unreachable” dream does your character have?
- What would your character have to give up to realize this dream?
Read Creating Characters That Live (Opens in new window)
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- Creative Writing Exercises – Description and Character
2 Comments »
September 23rd, 2011 at 6:10 pm
[...] Character Writing Exercises – PG TELCO Writers’ Trust of Canada Character Development – UT Dallas The Story Ideas Virtuoso [...]
September 24th, 2011 at 10:06 am
Thanks for the trackback mention on your blog!
Deb