Character prompts

Random Prompts for Character Development
Last year, I bought Natalie Goldberg’s book, Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir. A friend saw Goldberg present at a bookstore about this book and was impressed, so I bit.
Now, I’m not much into writing a memoir. My life has been pretty average. But I’ve kept this [...]

Sports: Passionate characters

Sports books are action-oriented, fast-paced and full of memorable characters; but the core of a sports book–fiction or non-fiction–is people. Characters make sports interesting. Granted, these characters are constantly on the move and not inclined to deep musings about life. Yet, it is the character interacting with the unique aspects of a sports novel that [...]

5 Questions about First Person POV

First person point of view stories are introspective, selfish, all about me, me, me. Before you write or revise a novel using this POV, you should ask youself a couple questions.
It’s All About Me, Me, Me.

Main Character or Observer. Is the POV character the main character or an observer? Often it’s [...]

The Versatile Point of View

When you write a novel, or revise a novel, the default point-of-view and the most common used is third person. (Though, first person point of view is giving it a run for its money these days. )
The Versatile Point of View
Think about point of view as a camera. In the 3rd person [...]

5 Secrets about your Characters’ Secrets

What is your character’s deepest, darkest secret? What is it that s/he doesn’t want anyone to know?
When you write a novel or revise a novel, YOU must know these things.
5 Ways to Use Secrets to Develop Characters

Using the Secret as a Plot Twist
When we find out that Luke Skywalker’s father is Darth Vader–the revelation [...]

When Characters Show Their Weakness

Character’s strengths and weaknesses influence plot, character relationships and how well we like a character. Before you decide on these, think about how these characteristics will ripple through the story.
Character Strengths and Weaknesses

Inherited or Acquired?Are your character’s strengths and weaknesses inherited or acquired? If inherited, they may be accepted easily by the character, [...]

A Year of Voice Descriptions

Before December 11, 2006, I wouldn’t have thought to describe a character’s voice. Then along came Vocal Impressions on National Public Radio. Wow! It’s evocative to describe a character’s voice, and if you use a metaphor that also evokes a character quality, you’re even farther along!
Raw Voice + Apt Metaphor = Characterization
From [...]

Improving Character Description With Body Language

Characters Who Move
According to Mehrabian, 55% of communication depends on body language, 38% on tone-of-voice, and 7% on the words used. That’s bad news for novelists because we don’t have direct access to the body language as we work with our fictional characters – they are just words on a page. Adding body language [...]

Character names and nicknames

This is part of a series, 15 Days to a Stronger Character
Names and Nicknames: Echo Character Traits
Let’s start with the basics. What do you call this character? What difference does a name make to effective characterization?
I recently heard of an inner city family whose oldest child is named Chris and the second oldest [...]