Brainstorming Characters Pt 2

Today’s Tiny Task in preparation for StoryADay May is to expand your pool of available characters in a different direction.

Make a list of characters who are unlike you in specific ways.

  • External features: External features: race, gender, socioeconomic status, job title, role at your work, role in your family, height, weight, athletic ability, hair color…
  • Internal features: how your character reacts to stress; how they talk to people; their attitude to people who are different from them; their level of courage and fear (not the same things!); their ability to control their emotions; what they would define as a ‘good’ outcome in any situation…

It can help to think of specific people who are very unlike you–whether you admire or despise aspects of their behavior–and make a list of the actions they take, the words they say, the body language they employ, that help you understand how they are different from you (remember that, in storytelling, showing how characters act can be more powerful than simply giving us the narrator/protagonist’s opinions).

Further reading: a writing prompt

Discussion

Are you excited to write about characters who are not like you? Were you able to identify aspects of specific people that are different from you? What kinds of roles will these characters take in a story? (Will they always be the antagonist/bad guy, or did you list some features you admire, too?

Get Started on Settings

Today’s Tiny Task in preparation for StoryADay May is to make another list, this time of places where you might set your story.

Answer these questions quickly, without thinking too hard:

  • List 5 Big-Picture Settings (e.g. Contemporary USA, Mars settlement in the early days, cargo ship in the age of sail, cargo ship in the far future when space travel is relatively routine, fantasy kingdom with dragons…)
  • List 5 Close-Up Settings (e.g. the engine room, an open-plan office, the back of an Uber, the throne room, walking the Yorkshire dales).
  • For each, write down what thrills you about that setting, what possibilities do you see (could be: ‘I don’t have to do any research, or ‘I can mash up Star Trek and The Expanse’ or ‘I finally get to hang out with Heathcliff’)
  • For each, write down one physical detail that springs to mind about your setting
  • For each, write down one detail that might not be so obvious on a first glance.

Circle (or highlight) the three that you think will work best for the fast-drafting world of StoryADay May (hint: the ones that require lots of research might slow you down too much).

P. S. Check out this roster of wonderful writers who have already given us writing prompts for StoryADay May, with more to come!

with writing prompts from guests: P. Djèlí Clark, Mary Robinette Kowal, John Wiswell, Lori Ostlund, Kim Coleman Foote, Sasha Brown, R. S. A Garcia, Jennifer Hudak, Tim Waggoner, Rachel Bolton, Julia Elliot, Kai Lovelace, Anglea Sylvaine, Rich Larson, F. E. Choe,Emma Burnett , Patricia A. Jackson, Allegra Hyde, and more...

Guest prompters include: P. Djèlí Clark, Mary Robinette Kowal, John Wiswell, Lori Ostlund, Kim Coleman Foote, Sasha Brown, R. S. A Garcia, Jennifer Hudak, Tim Waggoner, Rachel Bolton, Julia Elliot, Kai Lovelace, Anglea Sylvaine, Rich Larson, F. E. Choe,Emma Burnett , Patricia A. Jackson, Allegra Hyde, and more…

DISCUSSION

Did your choices have more to do with your current life, or your current reading tastes?

Start Collecting Story Sparks

Writing a story a day for a month is exhilarating…and a little exhausting.

That’s why I send you writing prompts, but the prompt is just the start.

You have to take that idea and develop it into something that interests YOU, and hat can be hard to do every day, when you’re in a time-crunch.

So let’s do some prep this month.

Start Colleting Story Sparks Today

What is a Story Spark?

Read all about it and download your free Story Sparks Catcher here.

Start collecting three Story Sparks a day today, and you’ll have enough details to draw from throughout the whole month of May

Discussion questions: have you used Story Sparks in past challenges? Did they help? What advice do you have?

[Write On Wednesday] Flexing Your Writing Muscles

We are one month away from StoryADay May, people! This is not a drill.

Actually, yes, it kind of is.

This is THE PERFECT TIME TO WARM UP your writing (take it from someone who didn’t, the very first year I ran this thing. I thought it would be smart to save all my ideas until May. Um, wrong!)

Photo by Eugene Chystiakov on Unsplash

One of the easiest ways to get into the flow of writing is to minimize the amount of stuff you have to invent. So today I have two prompts for you, from the archives, which help you take that ‘write what you know’ thing and have a little more fun with it than if you were simply journaling.

The Prompt

Read through these two prompts from the archives and decide which one is most interesting to you.

When Your Character Is Like You

When Your Character Is Not Like You.

Tips

Pull out your Short Story Framework and brainstorm that story. Then: write!

Try to get to the end of the story today. Bonus points: write to the other prompt tomorrow!

Remember, if the story is getting away from you, to limit it only to the essential characters, settings and details. Just enough to paint a picture for yourself.

Also: don’t worry if this story is not ‘good’. It’s only a draft.

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

Ready For More?

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