A Character Development Writing Exercise

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Similar exercises

Get your creative juices flowing with these similar writing prompts.

Charity

Your protagonist has just been bequeathed $5 million dollars. The money came from an anonymous benefactor who wants your protagonist to donate all of it to five charities. How does your protagonist react? In a short story, write down what would happen next.

Character Development

A Day in the Life

Write about the hero of your story going on the most mundane errand you can think of. Rely solely on the character to make the story interesting.

Character Development

Put Your Characters Through The Wringer

Develop your characters by placing them in a situation where they are faced with a challenge. For conflict inspiration, look no further than these classic moral dilemmas (and, of course, analyze them from the perspective of your character). For an example of a moral dilemma, search "The Trolly Problem."

Character Development

Reputations

Have each primary character free-write what they think about the other characters in the story. This will also deepen the secondary characters.

Character Development

#TBT

Create a timeline of the significant moments of your character's life. Like many authors, you can use post-it notes or a big whiteboard to visualize your character's life. You can easily move or add events until you feel your character has a well-developed history. After you've finished the timeline, distill it into the top 5-10 moments that have shaped your character. For instance, if loss is a thematically important part of your book, perhaps a significant part of your character's past is when they lost a grandparent as a child.