This is not a new thing, but it’s something I’ve found while looking for stuff to talk about at my writing club.
(There’s a link to the video I saw down there ↓↓↓)
The girl in the video (her name is Shaelin) is talking about exercises to develop characters that go beyond filling out a character sheet! (Though I do still think knowing facts about characters is important.)
One of the things she said was to “basically write fan fiction for your story” meaning to take your characters and put them in different situations that can be handled in a bunch of ways.
This makes complete sense if you think about it. In real life you don’t get to know people by memorizing a list of facts about them, you hang out with them, spend time with them.
Here’s an example that I did for my main character:
Stuck in Conversation: This is likely to happen since he’s so social. He would not work too hard about not showing (through facial expressions) his boredom/discomfort with the conversation and would escape at the first chance he gets (even if it’s a little rude) and go talk to somebody else.
You can write an actual short story about it or do like I did and write a short description of what would happen.
Something I discovered in doing this, is that I got to know my character better in situations he’s not likely to end up in better than in the situations that he’s definitely going to get in.
I already knew that he was social, so I’ve already thought about how he would be in social situations (but I did learn that he can be a tad rude from this) but I feel like I found out more about him in this situation:
Sent to Camp: It’s not likely that he’d be at camp of his own free will, he’s not an outdoorsy person. He wouldn’t like it if his parents sent him, but he’d make friends with the people in his cabin (which might be harder to do if they’re super excited about camp) so he’d have someone to talk to. Yet he would find someone who also isn’t happy about camp and end up being good friends with them.
Here I learned he wasn’t outdoorsy and that he has a little go-with-the-flow in his attitude.
I think it’s important to put them in both kinds of situations because you can learn more about them with every situation you see them in. Here are some more examples of situations that I came up with to get you started:
- Bored at the Park
- Church
- Library
- At the Beach
- Fancy Restaurant
- Invited to Party They Know They’ll Get in Trouble for Going to.
- Riding on Bus
- Late for Meeting
- Confronted by Bully
- Seeing Friend Get Confronted by Bully
- Someone Tries to Break In
- Concert
Note: The situation doesn’t have to be realistic for the character. If the character lives in a fantasy world, has some handicap, is a certain age, or something else that would eliminate all possibilities of certain situations, you can still put them in those situations! The point is taking their personalities and asking: what if…?
That’s all I have to write about today. I hope you got something out of this post and that you don’t feel like you wasted your time reading it (and if that’s the case why are you still here?)
You can put some examples of doing this exercise for your own characters in the comments (as well as how many times you think I said “Situations” in this post.)
Bye! RRAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRRRRR!!!!!!!
Oh yah, here’s a link to that video: Hi! My name is Link! Click me! (please?)