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Take your main character and describe the best day he/she has ever had. This is a prompt that will generate questions like, "Why did the character think that was their best day?"
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Get your creative juices flowing with these similar writing prompts.
Keep asking your characters why. Here's an example:
"Patience is something you admire in the driver behind, but not in one ahead" _ Bill McGlashen. Your protagonist is one or the other. Pick one, and roll with it. Go!
There are those who believe that there is a science to personality. Out of this belief developed some popular personality tests that are designed to help people learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. The biggest ones include: Myers Briggs, The Big Five, and the Enneagram Test.Try taking each of the above tests, but here's the twist: take them as if you were your character. Does it match up to what you had in mind? Do the results reveal anything new or surprising about your character's traits?
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Develop a character that's an author. Write a short story from the point of view of that author.
Choose a random occupation, a random personality trait, and the trait's opposite. Now, outline a train of events that explains how a person of your chosen occupation changes from having the random trait to having its opposite. Let's take, for example: "martial arts teacher," "shy," and "confident." What would make a shy martial arts teacher change into a confident one?Care for a double challenge? Try plotting the opposite path, too: a confident martial arts teacher turns into a shy person. What would cause that? Experiment with unusual occupations and traits to challenge yourself. Find a collection of traits for download at the end of this article.
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