Find the perfect editor for your next book
Over 1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.
Humans are highly resistant to change - for a character to believably undergo a personal journey that substantially alters them, something HUGE and specific must happen to them. This event doesn't have to happen in your story, but once you can identify your character's limits, you can determine what is required to create a potential change in their fundamental nature.For this exercise, determine what this catalyst for change might be by considering situations or attributes that feel counterintuitive. For instance, if your character is a Good Samaritan, it is unlikely they would commit a crime. What would have to be at stake for this unlikely situation to happen - and for a core part of your character to change?
Feel inspired? Share your story below.
Get your creative juices flowing with these similar writing prompts.
Are you finding it difficult to get to know your fictional characters and/or differentiate them from yourself? Try this: Choose a character from your project and let her/him take a walk into a place you know well. Then describe this place from this character's perspective and ask yourself:
Develop a character that's an author. Write a short story from the point of view of that author.
Further chip away at your character and establish how they present themselves to others by imagining how they would briefly describe themselves in the following situations:
NEW VIDEO COURSE
How to Write a Novel
Your story matters. Unlock your potential with daily video lessons from bestselling ghostwriter Tom Bromley, and finish your first draft in just 3 months.Learn more →
What does your character want most? Now consider what he needs most. Is what he wants preventing him from gaining what he needs? Or will he have to find what he wants before he can achieve what he needs?
Second-person point of view is an intimate way of looking at a character's thoughts. As an exercise, take a scene from the book you're writing. Choose a character, and then re-write the scene entirely from a second-person POV, noticing what details shift because of this perspective change.
Enter your email or get started with a social account: