Characterization Essay Prompt

For example, if the character’s Problem involves falling in love, then issues of commitment and self-worth will often be part of her Problem.So you’ll want to explore past moments of pride and success as well as shame and rejection to flesh out how she’s come to feel the way she does about herself, and how she behaves toward people she’s attracted to.

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But through seeing the character in these life-defining moments, she becomes palpably more real to These remain our key areas of concern, but instead of just accumulating information, ask: How does my character’s physical, psychological and sociological makeup affect his interactions with others?

This forces you to picture the character in scenes, in which this or that element of his personality or past affects how he interacts with the other characters in the story.

That said, dreaming up emotionally revealing scenes that you may ultimately discard is no waste of time; it’s an inevitable part of the writing process.

Whether or not they have a place in your final story, it’s important to delve into key moments of real emotional impact—scenes of —that in some way changed the character’s life, her understanding of herself, her standing among others.

At other times, each father displays strong respect for the other.

How are the two men different from one another, and how are they are similar?Our inner lives matter in exact proportion to how much they motivate .What I’m about to discuss is most critical when creating your protagonist, though it also can be valuable when developing your opponent (so that you make sure the conflict between these two main characters is meaningful and interesting, not just a clash of wills or personalities) and key secondary characters (those who have a profound emotional impact on the main characters).Her Insight will require understanding how these past incidents have shaped and limited her.Her Decision will involve a determination to somehow overcome them. This guide brings together smart, creative character-crafting advice from an array of the best writing instructors around, with sections devoted to protagonists, antagonists, supporting players, POV, dialogue, conflict and more.Once you have a decent understanding of those elements of your story, you’ll have a ballpark idea of what biographical information from a character’s past is most valuable to pursue.You’ll also have a reasonably good idea of what secondary characters need to be in the story, what roles they’ll play and how deeply you need to understand them.Ultimately I discovered the truth to what many writers had told me (but I hadn’t quite believed)—that once the writing started, the characters took on “lives of their own,” taking me in directions I hadn’t anticipated.Now that’s all well and good as long as the characters take you somewhere interesting.It often matters little how we feel or what we think—thoughts and feelings can be changed, replaced by other thoughts and feelings.Our actions, on the other hand, occur in the world, and cannot be taken back.