1. Character Notes
Creative Writing

2. Jumpstart Think about your favorite character from any book or movie
What is his/her name?
What makes that person your favorite character?
Is this character realistic? Why or why not?
Does this character help drive the story?
Discuss with someone sitting next to you. Don’t leave your seat.

3. Group Activity Character Responses: Five people are in an elevator.
-Groups of five. One paper with responses/group
Character Responses: Five people are in an elevator.
Suddenly, the elevator lurches to a stop, and the lights go out.
a. Give them each a name and a one-sentence background.
b. List one physical and one verbal response each would have at the instand of the event.
c. Describe how each would act after the first minute.
Try to create characters who are distinct from one another.

4. Discussion “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.
I am vast.
I contain multitudes.”
-Walt Whitman
What does this quote mean?
Is it true? Do we contradict ourselves sometimes?
Try to think of a personal example to share where you contradict yourself.

5. The important question isn’t what it should be about, but
Character Comes FIRST!
Most beginning writers begin by wondering,
‘What should my story be about?’
Usually this only gives us situations, not stories.
The stories don’t come into being until the character gets life.
While plot is crucial, the story goal is nothing unless we have someone interesting who wants it. So, no matter how important we think plot or action might be, or how fascinating we find the places and history and technology, it all collapses without the people. Readers may want to be entertained, but if the characters don’t‘ seem full and believable, no amount of flash and bang, slap and tickle, is going to make up for it.
The important question isn’t what it should be about, but
“Who should be in it?

6. Character Connection
Well-conceived and well-conveyed characters establish an emotional connection between the reader and story.
This connection is at the real heart of why we read, which is to find out about the people, how their lives and hearts are different from and the same as our own.
Readers read to feel what it is like to be someone else.

7. Sensory Experience
For the duration of the story, they want to become the character, to sense what the character senses.
They want to think, “That’s what I would have done. That’s what I would have felt under those circumstances”- even though they may never be in that situation
Readers want to believe they are reading about real people with real emotions and real reactions (even if the real person in question is a cat)

8. From Character to Story
A lot of writers talk about their characters’ taking over, writing the story themselves. As weird as that sounds, there is nothing mystical about it.
If you build your people well enough from the start, they will generate your story.

9. Character to Story- STEPS
Using experience, observation, and imagination, construct a portrait of an interesting, believable person.
To establish the major goal, ask the story question: “What does my character want?”
Provide a considerable adversary, something or someone powerful that stands in the way or works actively against the character
Set the character into action—and make her fail.
Allow the character to react to the failure, then keep acting and reacting until the issue is resolved.

10. Three C’s
Consistency- Make sure you are writing about the same character throughout the piece
1. Physical - If they are 6’2” in the beginning, keep them 6’2”.
2. True to Type or Class
As much as we would like to believe in individuality, we also have a type.
We have great wads of attributes in common with other people that are our “type”
3. Internal – keep their values/qualities the same
Our values tell us who we are at our center. Their influence colors every thing we do.

11. Complexity
While we may all fit into certain types, we are not stereotypes.
Include the quirks that make your character different from those who are like him.
Whatever oddities you add to your character must come logically from his background.
We contradict ourselves. The contradictions should be rooted in reason though.
The character should also have flaws.
These flaws/issues/shortcomings can play a role as an INTERNAL CONFLICT during the story.

12. Change
As you build your character, you need to decide who she is, what she wants, and what getting it or losing it is going to do to her.
The story events MUST impact and affect her in a significant way.
When you’re deciding how the events will affect the character, make certain the character’s ultimate reactions are something she is capable of having.

13. Change
Here, as in all aspects of your writing, keep the relationship between cause and effect firmly established.
The changes your people make must be the plausible consequences of what happens in the story.
The events and the personality of the character are the causes. The change is the effect.