Last month, I participated in author Grace A. Johnson's Instagram challenge called "Fall in Love with Writing February." One of the many prompts was to share my top writing tips. On my blog, I want to expand upon my top three tips from Instagram and will share a writing exercise with each one in the weeks ahead.
Today's top writing tip is to make the reader care. The reader has to be invested in the characters enough to care about what happens to them. Bottom line: if the reader doesn't care, they will stop reading. Characters have to be believable. Readers want characters who they can see themselves in.
Writing Exercise: Character Building
In my creative writing class, I always have my students look at the graduation composites in our front lobby. These photographs date back to the 1920s, when our high school was founded. Students choose any person from any year and are allowed to snap a picture with their phones. When we go back into the classroom, students get to work on their "character sketch."
Step One: Historical Research
For my novels, I always go in deep with historical research, but for my students who likely have never done anything like this before, I start with the basics. For this writing exercise, students research the time period in which their chosen person lived. They have a rubric to go by, which you can access here. Research topics include popular fashion trends, slang words, world issues, and popular musicians. I always tell my students that if you do not immerse your character into the time period, even if it is as recent as 2010 or as distant as 1940, the character and the story itself will not be believable.
Step Two: Character Sketch
This is something that I have done since my junior high days. It helps me get a visual of who the character is: how they think, what their flaws are, what motivates them, who and what they care about, etc. With a character sketch, you are building the "skeleton" of what you will be working with throughout your story. The basic template I use with my students can be accessed here. I also recommend using The Meyers-Briggs Foundation website (click here) as a resource for personality building. The character cannot be "Superman-who-can-do-no-wrong." They have to be flawed and have real conflicts/struggles that real people go through. The Meyers-Briggs website details the 16 personality types: basic outline, type in everyday life, etc.
Step Three: Character Story
With this story, the goal is for students to make the story purely character-driven. Students consider their character research and character sketch and will write a brief scene--two pages–not a long story. However, it should also feel complete to the reader when it closes. It should have a clear beginning, middle, and an end. To help keep the scene brief, don’t include a lot of characters. One or two additional characters is enough to work with. Use direct descriptions that focus on the physical traits of the character and/or you may use indirect descriptions where readers decipher the traits of the main character via their dialogue and response to other characters and the situation. Be careful to show the scene and not tell it.
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