I was a creative writing major in college, and I had a professor who was absolutely convinced that the only way to accurately write a character was to get to know them just like you'd get to know any flesh and blood person. For those of us of the introverted persuasion, knowing where to start can be difficult. You know you need a name, you know you need an age, a race, physical characteristics. But what about all those weird little quirks that people have?
Enter character prompts. For example:
If you could raid your character's MP3 player/CD stash/album box/sheet music collection, what would you find?
And since this is the first post, let's throw in a bonus question for good measure:
Say your character is building a house. What three features would they absolutely be unable to live without?
Not all of this stuff will make it into your story, and it shouldn't necessarily. But having the knowledge in the back of your head will help you understand your character a little bit better and let you make informed decisions about their movements and thoughts.
All prompts on this blog are free for personal and instructional use, but cannot be republished without the permission of the author.
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