Character Development Exercise

So it's time for another activity suggestion courtesy of me! I am constantly on the look out for projects or activities that might help me improve or encourage my writing, and I thought of one a while ago, but just got a chance to try it out this week.

The concept is pretty simple and involves taking pictures  throughout your day while jotting down a few quick notes at each location. For me, it involved taking my camera on campus  and taking pictures while I traveled to and from classes. At the end of the day I uploaded my pictures and used my notes for each one to create a mini storyline. I used the character analysis I had already done  to basically re-write my day in terms of a main character. Essentially, describe your day as though a character of yours lived it instead of you.

To Recap:
1. Take pictures throughout the day.
2. Jot down notes  of what you were doing, thinking, etc. at that point.
3. Upload pictures and review your notes
4. Last, and probably most fun, re-write your day as though one of your characters lived it instead.

Good luck, and I really hope you give it a try because it was actually fun!

(I took all of these photos today, and the captions included are the portions of text from my re-write. Because I couldn't fit much else into the captions, here are a couple things you should know:
-The only building photographed is University Hall on BGSU's campus.
-The rest of the images were taken in my apartment building and the local cemetary, which happens to be right in the middle of campus.)

That being said, here's my day as if it were lived by Brina Claramund, my main character:



Having trouble seeing the full captions? The click HERE .

How To Show Instead of Tell

I haven't had much time lately for leisurely reading, but over the weekend I picked up my copy of  F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and was reminded just how powerful good descriptive writing can be. Absolutely nothing Fitzgerald writes about is a prop or remains motionless. Every door creaks, light glows, windows harbor loitering individuals, etc. Reading his words makes you feel as though you are walking through the streets of New York alongside his narrator .

Keys to impressively descriptive writing like Fitzgerald's include, aside from practice, imagining yourself as a part of what is happening. If you were there, how would it unfold, by using this technique while writing down each and every step of the action you can create an environment that pulls your readers in. Also, something I've already discussed , use your characters wisely. Don't merely tell us what or how they are manuevering in your world, use detailed descriptions as well as the actions of your characters so show us.

The best way to achieve successful and immersive description is to utilize the five senses. The human brain  is incredibly complex, and something as simple as a mention of a particular scent can bring to mind a flurry of memories, sensations, feelings, and emotional reactions. This sense-memory  is only one example, and to reach your readers you should employ similar methods. So describe a scene based on the sights as well as the smells, sounds, and even tastes it encompasses.

Below is the example from The Great Gatsby that exemplifies descriptive writing at its best.So, read, enjoy, and feel free to share your favorite descriptive paragraphs.

I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I like to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for the solitary restaurant dinner-- young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.


Again at eight o’clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties were five deep with throbbing taxi cabs, bound for the theatre district, I felt a sinking in my heart. Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlined unintelligible gestures inside. Imagining that I, too, was hurrying toward gaiety and sharing their intimate excitement, I wished them well.

Character Personalities

Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

Last semester I was enrolled in probably the hardest class of my college career: Marketing 300. While the concepts of marketing are interesting, the way it was presented in this course was only slightly more interesting than doing laundry, and this, paired with the fact that the professor was an incurable braggart made the class nearly impossible.

That being said, there was one single part of the class that actually turned out to be very helpful. One assignment for the course was to take the online VALS survey to discover our marketing personality (of which there are four according to the survey) and in doing this I discovered a truly helpful way to test the characters I was creating. By taking the survey and answering the questions the way I thought my characters would I found a concrete way of making sure my characters remained consistent throughout. The survey results would also give me an interesting character summary to stick to.

So try it out some time! Take one of your characters, go to http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/surveynew.shtml, fill out the survey based on the character analysis you've already done, and see what you come up with.

Forget the Legos, It’s Time for Some Character Building!

Just like those towering contraptions we used to construct out of Legos as kids, crafting a novel is very much a work in progress. The tools you have and the ideas you have come up with are those blocks to be stacked, and the glue that holds them together includes all of your characters. You can’t have a plot readers will enjoy without first having compelling characters for them to relate to in some way.

Your newest task in the novel-writing process is to get to know the characters, or the people you want living in the world you are manufacturing. I really haven’t found a sure-fire formula for doing this, but I think any reader and aspiring writer knows what works and what doesn’t. Some possible methods for achieving such characters include:

1. Establish the number of characters  your story will focus on. Keep in mind that in order to help your readers become attached to your characters they must empathize with them. If the reader can become entangled with the life of a character, feel their feelings, and genuinely worry about their fate, their enjoyment of your story will be amplified.

2. One effective way to help readers to feel for your characters is to build your character with depth. Rather than a skeleton, give readers the flesh and blood version. This can be accomplished through back-story , but the most accessible characters are those that grow with the story and allow readers to learn a little bit about themselves at every turn.

3. One idea for achieving this involves something I have already talked about: brainstorming. Divide pieces of paper into four squares and in each square write the name of a character you want to bring to life. Underneath the name list a DETAILED description. In this description, you should include: age/birthday, nicknames, favorite food, fears, desires, habits (bad or good), hobbies, skills, weaknesses, personality traits  (organized, motivated, sloppy, hot-headed, etc…), and everything else you can think of.

4. Use your descriptions to really get to know your characters, and by the time you go to write their first scene you will know without hesitation what they would do. If you develop them clearly enough, it will be as though they were standing right beside you whispering answers in your ear.

5. Lastly, don’t be afraid to make your characters flawed. Not only are flawed characters more entertaining, they are easier to write as well.