Thursday, March 15, 2012

Does Your Story Need Some Character?

Hey all, sorry for the delayed posting.  As the semester starts winding down, the work load increases, if that makes any sense.  Anyways, here is a bit of an exercise for adding a fresh character to your story.  We did this in writer's group a while back and it actually turned out pretty good.

Items you'll need: A phonebook, doesn't have to be local, just a phonebook.  Paper (or if you're hip and modern a laptop), and your imagination.

Process: With this kind of excercise, instead of starting with a character in mind and giving them a name, you'll start with a name and give them a character.  Open the phonebook to a random page and choose the first name that you come to.  Take that name and build a person out of it.  Some things to think about while doing this if you get stuck: Do they have a family?  What do they do for a living?  Where do they live?  What do they look like?  What kind of history do they have?

Result: Congratulations!  You now have a brand new character to complicate-I mean spice up your current story or you can take them and start a whole new venture!  The possibilites!

Now go forth and populate your literary worlds!  Happy writing!

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