Character Activities

Here are a bunch of really random character activities. Have fun!


List ten things your character believes with all his heart and soul.

List five ways that your character is ordinary (for his world).
List five ways that your character is unordinary.

Go to your refrigerator and write down 10 random or odd items in there. Write the introductory paragraphs of a character who only has those items in his or her refrigerator. (Alternatively, go to the grocery store and go hog weird wild to choose 10 items.)

Write a list of emotions – then, every day, for fifteen minutes, free write about what your character thinks about that emotion, what experiences your character has had feeling that emotion or being around people with that emotion. (You can find lists of emotions online – try wiki).

Write 100 sentences (or more) about your character. Just write, without stopping. These sentences should be fairly short, and should not relate to each other. Just write, without stopping, about your character.

Listen to music with your character in mind. What does he think of the song? Why is he listening to it? What does it make him think about? Free write (in 3rd or 1st person – or, heck, 2nd if you’re feeling… um… strange?). Try music that you don’t particularly like as well as music you love – maybe your hero has different taste!

Choose something you do not like, that your character DOES, and write about it from your character’s point of view. Do the same thing about something that you like that your character DOESN’T.

Your character has to wait for a dentist appointment. How does he respond? How does he respond to waiting in line at an amusement park? Driving in congested traffic?

THE SOCIETY OF LITERACY AND BANANAS! ASSOCIATION