Your Flawed Protagonist

Today we’re moving on to another element of story: your protagonist

The Prompt

Write a story with the flawed protagonist

Tips

  • This is kind of a cheat because every protagonist should have a flaw, but today we’re going to focus on that.

  • Characters are interesting for many reasons. They can be interesting because we identify with them, because we don’t like them, because they’re better than us at something, because they have some special gift, many reasons. But they are not interesting if they are perfect.

  • Think about Luke Skywalker, the hero of the Star Wars original trilogy. He has a gift, but is really annoying at the beginning of the story. He’s whiny. He’s immature. He’s rash. He puts other people in danger, all because he’s bored. All of which means that he has an interesting character arc on which to travel.

  • In the Amelia Peabody mysteries Amelia is ahead of her time: a brilliant Egyptologist, she’s rich, she has a fabulous husband, she’s very confident… she’s also hysterically self delusional, and fails to admit any of her own faults, while pointing out those of everyone else, at all times. She is a fun character, not because of the stuff she’s good at, but because of the stuff she doesn’t even realize she’s bad at.

  • Who can you write about today? Write a list of their attractive qualities and then give them one big weakness. It doesn’t have to be a fatal, heroic flaw that’s going to cause their downfall, although it can be if that’s what you want to write. It could be something as simple as Hermione Granger, being a bit of a pain in the neck, even though she’s so clever. In the first Harry Potter book, that flaw isolates her from her friends at the very moment when she needs them.

  • Concoct a scenario for your character where they get to show off their good talents but where their flaw is going to cause them problems. Then, write your way out of it.

  • If you get stuck at any point simply start a new paragraph with the words “And because of that…” and continue writing. Do this at least three times, then resolve the situation and you’ll have a complete story.

  • Remember, use these tricks, and then clean them up in the rewrite. It’s not like you got anything else to do in the month of June, is it?

Leave a comment to tell us what flaw you chose for you protagonist. Got any tips on how to keep writing as we head in to the middle of the month? Share them here!

When Your Character Is Not Like You

Today we’re turning yesterday’s prompt inside out.

The Prompt

Write a story about a character as unlike you as you can manage

Tips

  • All those characteristics about yourself that you thought of yesterday? Age, gender, etc. Today were going to throw them out of the window and you’re going to write a story about a character who is diametrically opposed to all of those things.
  • If you wrote about a woman yesterday today, you write about a man. If you wrote about a middle-aged person yesterday, today you write but someone very young or very old.
  • When trying to get inside the head of this person, it can be useful to think of someone you actually know who is very different from you. Think of someone who does things that you would never do, that you despise, or that you secretly admire. Start with their external actions (what do they do when someone cuts them off in traffic that is so different from what you do, for example.) Backtracked from there to try to figure out what is going on in their head and their heart in that moment.
  • Put this character in a situation where there is conflict or stress and where their reactions are going to be really different from how you would react. Write the reactions, and as you’re doing so, unpack the story behind this person.
  • Don’t worry about trying to have a clever plot in this story. It can be something as simple as: this person gets cut off in traffic and how they react. The point of this exercise is to investigate the psyche of somebody very different from you. There’s a danger in always writing characters that are too sympathetic or similar to yourself.
  • Writing about somebody you dislike or someone unlike you can be very difficult. To make them more sympathetic, give them something there really, really good at. They might be charismatic. They might be really good engineering. But everyone has some areas where they are competent even if they are incompetent in every other sphere that matters to you!
  • This is not an exercise in writing a villain. This is an exercise in writing someone very different from yourself. It could be someone you admire.

Leave a comment, letting us know what you did with this prompt!

When Your Character Is Like You

Today I’m limiting your character choices.

The Prompt

Write a story featuring a character very like you

Tips

  • Think about the things that make you you: Gender, family roles, occupation, age, body type, religion, hobbies, outlook, genetic heritage. Are you curious, or cautious? Musical or tone deaf? Extroverted or introverted? Content or endlessly searching?
  • Put this character, who is both you and not you, into a situation that you might run across in your everyday life. Or put them into a situation you would like to find yourself in. For example, I am always dreaming up new business ideas. I don’t have the time or ability to pursue any of them, but I love to daydream about the businesses I could run if I had a thousand lifetimes. Take something that you care about — something that you daydream about anyway — and put your character into that situation
  • Now, you have to make something happen, so think about the ways that the situation could go spectacularly wrong. This can be funny, like Fawlty Towers, or serious like the TV show 24. It depends on your preferences and what you feel confident writing.
  • Again, you’re not writing a feature film or novel. We don’t have much space here. So don’t spend much time setting up the situation. You can start by having the character talk directly to the reader. Or you can plunge directly into the action. Or start with something cheesy like “it all started to go wrong when…”. Do whatever you need to do to get you into the story. It can all be fixed in the rewrite. (Or ignored for the rest of your life, this is a story just for you.)
  • Now that your character’s in trouble, how do they react? Do they react the same way you would? Do they react the way you wish you would if you weren’t so polite? Are they cooler than you? More skilled? More James Bond like? What are the consequences either way?
  • This is a really fun exercise. It captures all the best things about writing: What if…? The ability to live multiple lives in one life, is the gift of being a writer. It’s the ability to be better than you are, or worse than you are, without any of the consequences. Let loose with this exercise. Have some fun (and yes that does include doing terrible things to people if that’s how your story comes out. Don’t worry that you’re a psychopath. You have my permission to be bad.)

Go!

Leave a comment to know what you let your alter ego get up to, today!

[Write On Wednesday] Myers-Briggs-plosion

Myers-Briggs

Today I’m encouraging you to put some personality conflict into your story.

The Prompt

Put a particular personality type into a situation they would never choose

Tips

Use the Myers-Briggs personality types (hover over the table at the bottom of this page, to get a list of characteristics for your main character).

Take some of the traits that define your character and put them in a situation completely unsuited to those traits. See what happens.

For example, Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Myers-Briggs-plosion”

May 27 – Character Study – Fill In the Blanks

The Prompt

A [adjective, unlike you] [noun, like you] decides to [action – something reasonable] except [something unreasonable]

It’s getting late in the month. Either you’re ticking along with no problems or you’re getting a little desperate by now. Either way, this fill-in-the-blanks prompt should help you come up with a story today.

The Prompt

A [adjective, unlike you] [noun, like you] decides to [action – something reasonable] except [something unreasonable]

Tips

  • Here’s my example: a fitness-obsessed 40-something woman decides to train for a marathon except her husband objects.
  • I’ll have to drill down into why her husband might object, what kind of woman is she, what she thinks running a marathon will do for her, what she will never do, what she needs to do, what the state of her marriage is now and will be if she ignores his objections, if that matters to each of them. Then I’ll have to decide on her voice, whether she is strident, aggressive, funny, charming, wheedling, whiney, a doormat. I’ll have to decide when to enter this story (when she tells him her plans, when she’s already half way through the race reflecting on how she got there, when she’s in divorce court, retelling the story…)
  • You can flip the ‘unlike me’ and ‘like me’ and the ‘reasonable/unreasonable’ tags if that makes the process more fun for you.
  • Even the most mundane of ideas can become something wonderful if you think hard enough about pieces and let the characters come alive.
  • Don’t over-write this. Think hard, then imply. Remember, if you’re telling a story to your best friend, you don’t give her much backstory, and you certainly don’t give her both sides of the story. Write this story that way.
  • This story will work best if you let one voice ring out strongly, with all the whitewashing and self-justification we do without noticing!

GO!

Post a comment at the blog to let us know you’ve written today, or join the community and post in the Victory Dance Group.

May 25 – Character Fit For Purpose

The Prompt

Resolve the Conflict In Your Story Based on Your Main Character’s Abilities

 

This is inspired by an idea shared on the Writing Excuses podcast. They did a wonderful series of shows about how to make a character more sympathetic without making them inhumanely good/evil. Check out the first of the shows.  

Conflict can be “Oh no! The world’s about to end! How do we stop it/escape?” or it can be “Oh no, my mother-in-law’s coming for the holidays and she’s insufferable”, or it can be “I need to do something I really don’t want to do because…”

One way to create sympathy for a main character and keep the conflict in the story, is to use the character’s abilities (or lack thereof) to show how they are a good fit, a mediocre fit, or a terrible fit for the challenges they face.

The Prompt

Resolve the Conflict In Your Story Based on Your Main Character’s Abilities

Tips

  • Your character can be a good fit for the challenges but hindered by circumstances (Superman and his need to keep his true identity hidden).
  • Your character can be a poor fit for the challenge he faces, but willing to give it a shot (Bilbo, in The Hobbit. He is certainly not the Burglar Gandalf claims him to be, but he gives his best to the adventure, in spite of being a poor fit for the life).
  • Your character is a reluctant hero. He has the skills and the opportunity, but doesn’t particularly want to be a hero (Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element — in fact, Bruce Willis in a lot of roles!). What inner conflict is stopping him from helping resolve the outer conflict? What will change his/her mind?
  • What if your character is really, really good at one thing and is suddenly thrust into a world/situation where all their skills mean nothing…at first? Can they adapt? Can they find a way to use their skills? Can they partner up with someone whose skills compliment their own? Can you find a way to let them use their existing skills in the end, so they don’t seem like a pathetic character?
  • What if your character is the sweetheart who glues together an otherwise incompatible team of highly skilled, irascible experts?
  • Make us root for or against a character by showing how they employ their talents (or fail to).

GO!

Post a comment at the blog to let us know you’ve written today, or join the community and post in the Victory Dance Group.