What Does Your Character Want? Five September Writing Prompts

This week’s prompts have all been about exploring character needs. Without a desire, why are we reading about your character? Without an obstacle to that desire, where’s the story?

Use these prompts to spark a few stories of your own. Don’t forget to leave a comment and let me know which ones worked best for you, and be entered to win a copy of my Time To Write Workshop.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Prompt 1 — Filthy Lucre
Your character needs money, and fast! Why? How? You tell us!

Prompt 2 — Gimme Shelter 
One of the most primitive needs of any person is a need for shelter. This prompt explores that in ways from primitive to more civilized.

Prompt 3 — Feed Me, Seymour!
Staying with the basic needs of humanity: your character is hungry. Why? What’s stopping them from ordering in? Tell us the story.

Prompt 4 — Belonging
Now that you’ve explored the most basic needs of your characters, what next? Well, let’s assume they’re safe and fed. What do they want now? To belong. Tell this story today.

Prompt 5 — Appreciate Me!
Beyond mere belonging, people need to be appreciated for who they are. Write the story of someone fighting to be appreciated.

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Video notes

  • Chuck Wendig actually blogs at terribleminds.com, not the fake site I made up in this video!
  • Also, I forgot to mention James Scott Bell, the most generous man in publishing, and Stuart Horowitz of bookarchitecture.com, will both be speaking too. It just keeps getting better 🙂
Keep writing,
Julie
P.S. Don’t forget, everyone who comments this month will be entered in a drawing to win a free copy of the StoryADay Time To Write Workshop.

[Writing Prompt] Appreciate Me!

This week’s theme has been ‘character needs’. Today we assume your character has all their basic needs covered (they can eat, breathe and drink; they have a roof over their heads and they have some sense of belonging). And suddenly that’s no longer enough. More than merely belonging, your character has a burning need to be appreciated.

The Prompt

Write A Story In Which the Character is Striving For Recognition

Military Child Appreciation Day

Tips

  • This need brings your character into the realm of “esteem” needs — they’re no longer fighting for survival but for quality of life.
  • The challenge in this story is to make the reader empathize with a character who might, if handled carelessly, seem a little whiny. I mean, no-one’s dying so why are you whining?
  • The good news it that this kind of need is easier to write about that the needs at the top level of Maslow’s Hierarchy, which tend to really make your character seem like a spoiled brat (“Oo, I’m trying to self-actualize and no-one’s helping me, wah!”). And yes, I’m being harsh here, but I think this is why so much literary short fiction is hard to swallow. A lot of it focuses on this last level of needs. So chill, we’re doing the stage that’s a level lower down and a little harder to screw up 🙂
  • Think of characters like Ann in Ann of Green Gables or Jo from Little Women in this story: life isn’t terrible but she’s struggling to be what she knows she could  be if she’s true to her talents and needs.
  • A way into this story might be to give your character an opportunity to advance, even though it’s against her real desires. It seems like the safe option (take the promotion to manager instead of quitting and becoming a freelance writer!) What would your character do and how will that affect the reader?

Go!

 

 

 

[Writing Prompt] Belonging

This week our themes are focused on characters’ needs. Today, something above a survival need, but something that is nevertheless deeply important:

Cafe BeLong at the BrickworksThe Prompt

Write a story about a character who desperately wants to belong

Tips

  • This can be any kind of relationship story: love, friends, family, career.
  • The character must NEED to belong so badly that they’re willing to go through hell to pursue their need.
  • Your story should take your character somewhere: will they change to fit in, or will they realise that’s too big a step for them. Will they be OK with that (in either case)?
  • Show us why your character needs to belong and how that need drives her every action.
  • Put obstacles in her way as often as possible and show us about your protagonist’s character by showing us how he/she reacts to the obstacles.

 

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Food

Following this week’s theme of giving characters a basic need, today’s prompt is one of the most basic needs of all: food.

The Prompt

Your Character Needs Food

I Think We Need To Have A Little Chat About Hygiene...

Tips

  • Remember that, to make this story and your character interesting, they must need food above all else at this particular point in their lives.
  • Figure out how they got into this state and why they can’t just pop down to the vending machine and satisfy their hunger. Don’t launch into this explanation right at the start of your story.
  • Start with the character’s feelings of hunger/weakness and give us some character insights by showing how they deal with this adversity.
  • Give hints about why this is more than just normal hunger (perhaps they are stranded somewhere, perhaps they’re trapped in an interminable meeting).
  • This prompt easily lends itself to both comedy and horror. I can even see romance coming from this…
  • Remember to put obstacles in your character’s way. If possible include other people and movement so that your character is not simply in his/her own head.
  • Feel free to experiment with form. Have your stuck-in-a-meeting character texting a friend who is sending him pictures of the sumptuous lunch she’s having right now. Or include items from menus and recipes if your character has reached the hallucinating-about-food stage. Have fun with this.
  • This is a great opportunity for sensory descriptive writing: have me licking my lips or clutching at my stomach as I feel and taste what your character feels and longs for.
  • Don’t forget to resolve the problem. Will they find food? Will they find a way to deal with the hunger?

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Shelter

This week I’m providing you with something your character needs. Your job is to create someone who needs this thing, REALLY needs it. Not wants it. NEEDS it.

And then torture them.

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, security (of the body, of employment, resources etc.) is pretty high on the list of basic human needs. Today we’re working with one of them:

The Prompt

Today your character needs a secure place to shelter

Bothy

Tips

This can be as simple as someone out walking in a storm, searching for a place to get out of the rain.

It can be someone whose house is being foreclosed on, or bombed, or overrun by zombies.

It might be someone who has challenged themselves to build a tiny house that they can live in

After you decide on the specifics of the NEED that will make this interesting for you, you must then figure out why the character NEEDS it so, so badly. What is there, in his history, that is driving him to find or protect or build this home? Why does it matter on a psychological level as well as a physical one? You don’t need to be explicit about this in the story, but you should know enough to slip in a few clues.

Next, think about some ridiculously challenging ways that the bad buys/the weather/the forces of evil or indifference can thwart your character’s plans. Make him really squirm. (NB This is why he must have an unusually strong desire for this shelter at the start. He’s going to have to overcome some interesting things. If he doesn’t want it badly enough, he’ll just give up).

 

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Wants, Needs, Desires

Every character (every story) wants/needs/desires something.
Every story needs this desire to be pursued, frustrated, attained, or pursued again.
In the process the character or situation changes.
That’s what story is.
This week I’m providing you with a list of needs. You choose a character and a situation in which they can pursue that need.
Money

The Prompt

Your character needs a lot of money, fast.

Tips

  • Before you write a word, sketch some notes on who your character is, why they need the money, why they need it quickly.
  • Think about what your character believes will happen when they have the money. What has your character failed to realize?
  • Why doesn’t your character have money now? You may or may not want to weave this information into the story, but you should probably know it.
  • What obstacles stand in the way of your character getting rich, quickly?
  • What three things will your character try to get the money?
  • Which ones will work? Which ones won’t? Why?
  • Is the story that is forming in your head tragic? Humorous? Poignant? Thrilling? Romantic?
  • Try to enter the story as late as you can. Don’t introduce the problem first. Start with your character’s abortive first effort to get money and feed us the information as you go through the actions.

Go!