WRITE ABOUT A NON-HUMAN CHARACTER
Can you write a non-human character without making it react like a human? How would a table/tree/robot/alien think? How would it speak? How would it react compared to the reactions of someone born and raised in the West in the 21st Century?
Can you write a truly non-human character?
Go!
DELAY THE APPEARANCE OF THE MAIN CHARACTER
Sometimes it’s a problem to create enough suspense in a short story to keep the reader engaged. An interesting way to do this is to delay the appearance of your main character until quite far into the story. This follows on from yesterday’s prompt where you kept your protagonist off-sceen. This time, however, you can build them up and then allow them to take the stage.
How does this feel? Better? Did you keep the tension going even after the character appeared?
Keep Your Main Character In The Wings
Go!
NEVER LET YOUR CHARACTER APPEAR
Write a story in which the main, most interesting character never actually appears ‘on-stage’.
Everything the reader learns about the character should come in opinions, comments and conversations between other characters in the story. What do we learn about them? How important do they become? How difficult is it to keep them ‘off-stage”?
The Hidden Protagonist
Go!
LET YOUR CHARACTER TALK
Tell a story where everything we learn about the character comes from the things they say.
Does what they say match up with what they mean? Iin what ways do they lie about themselves when the speak? How do people react?)
Tell Us About Your Character Through Their Voice
Go!
This week all the prompts are going to focus on Character. Here’s the first:
REWRITE A CHARACTER FROM YOUR PAST
Pick a character, a real person, from your past. Put them into a story. Be as kind or as cruel as you like (you might want to change their name…)
Use a real character.
Go!
PICK A SONG TITLE AND USE IT AS YOUR STORY’S TITLE
Scan this page quickly and pick a title that leaps out at you. Browse around a bit if you need to but use the rule of three: if you haven’t found something on the third page, tough. You’re stuck with it. Pick one and write the story.
Use the title as the title of your story. (It can be very, very tenuously connected to your story.)
Steal someone else’s title for your story
Go!
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A 6-part journey through the short story.
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