Character Exercises | Jamie Provencher

Earlier this week I wrote an article for Fantasy Faction called “FLESHING OUT YOUR PROTAGONIST – WHO AM I?“

Here are a few more exercises to help that Protagonist go from 2D to 3D –

Exercise 4:

So now that we have explored the values and morals of your protagonist, researched your character, and identified your protagonist’s unique quirks, it’s time to give your protagonist a voice. The best way to do this is to find a sheet of questions and then “interview” your protagonist. Pretend she/he is sitting across from you and as you ask each question, answer the questions as if you were her.

For example:

Who was your first boyfriend? Amanda: Wow.. that’s a tad personal isn’t it. How is this relevant to anything? Well if I have to answer, hmm, I guess it was Todd Hobert, this sort of geeky ninja boy I went to school with at the ninja academy.. wait no. Do you mean boyfriend boyfriend or the first guy I snogged? Oh well it doesn’t matter. Todd Hobert was my first boyfriend, though not my first kiss, that was Scott Fish. He was such a great kisser (dreamy eyes – look of confusion as she realizes people are watching her) What was I saying? Oh yes Scott.. We weren’t dating. We just liked to kiss every now and then..

Etc.

You can find these lists online by googling them. My favorite is: http://www.writing4success.com/dl/character-interview.pdf

Answer the questions being as true to your protagonist as possible. Even if you feel like these questions can’t possible benefit you or your writing, it gets you into your protagonist’s head and you may learn something you didn’t know before.

Exercise 5:

Now that we have your protagonist’s voice, what is your protagonist’s backstory? My suggestion here is to create a timeline. This is also great if you have want to map out the history of your world. Anyways, back to your protagonist: Create a timeline that starts at their birth. Who are their parents? Create 10 events that happened to your character before they were sixteen. Continue creating the timeline up to where you begin your story. If you know what’s going to happen in your story, keep going with the timeline. Later you can have your protagonist reflect on these moments and give him/her some depth. Your character wasn’t born the moment you started your story. They had a whole life before you got a hold of them and began to subject them to your nefarious plots. Listen to your character while you create your timeline and do these exercises. They will speak up; let them guide you – don’t force something that your character wouldn’t want to do.

Exercise 6:

Lastly, it’s time to create a fact sheet for your protagonist’s binder: This is just basic information to keep at the front of you binder to review so you don’t forget important facts (like me: before I made this my protagonist’s hair color and eye color would change constantly throughout the story!)

The fact sheet should list these things:

Name, Gender, Ethnicity or Species, Education Level, Current Occupation, Income, Previous Occupation/s, Date of Birth, Birth Location, Current Age, Current Location, Housing (Rent, Own), Bad Habits, Redeeming Traits, Career Goals, Marital Status, Height, Hair Color/Style, Astrological Sign, Aspirations Fears, Illegal Activities, Skills/Training, Physical Ailments, Blood Type, Identifying Features/Scars Mental Conditions, Religious Beliefs.

Character’s Past: Parental info – Name, Date of Birth, Date of Death, Occupation, Parent’s Religious Beliefs, Ethnicity/Species. Answer the same for any Siblings, Former Spouse or Significant Other (For Spouse/Significant Other – add Date of Marriage, how long they’ve been together, Where and how did they meet.

Character’s Present: Current Spouse or Significant Other (*Same info as above), What’s currently going on in the character’s life.

There you go! Stay tuned for more articles and more exercises to help make you a better writer and increase your chances of getting published!

Writing is not something someone wakes up and just decides to do one day. Oh, writers will claim that, but when it comes down to it, writers are haunted by characters that just beg to have their stories told. It’s our job to capture that character and share them to the world (and keep ourselves slightly sane)! A couple month’s ago, a fellow employee approached me. He had heard that I was a writer and felt that need to talk to someone who could understand the “crazy”. “Do you ever feel so consumed by a character that you can’t focus?” I chuckled, knowing that just that morning I had made the 1-hour trip to work without actually remembering the drive but during that time I had fleshed out another piece of Rally’s back-story. I then asked him “Well who is this person?” He began to tell me about his protagonist and the rough sketches of a story. What he really had was a rough sketch of a promising protagonist and an interesting plot. His first question to me, “Where do I start?”

TURNING THAT PROTAGONIST FROM 2D TO 3D!

For a moment, think about your favorite character. Why do you like that character? What makes you relate to them? How much do you know about them? Can you picture them? Lets face it; characters are what make the book especially when it comes to genre. You can have the most interesting story but if your readers can’t relate to your protagonist, your story is dead in the water. On that same note, you can have a cliché story, with sub par writing, but it seems new and interesting because of a great characters. As a writer, it’s your job to take those characters living in your noggin, and make them sing on paper. Unfortunately, the number one issues writers face is that their character falls flat.

Just because your protagonist is 2D on paper doesn’t mean he isn’t 3D. What I mean is that many of our characters are 3D in our minds. Unfortunately, without the proper research, tools, and preparation, they seem 2D on paper. So how do you add flesh to your character? Rest assured, I have a couple exercises to assist you with this!

BEFORE DOING ANY EXERCISES!

One of the things I suggest (and by suggest I mean strongly advise) my writing circle is to keep binders for their protagonist and supporting characters (as well as a binder for unused characters). Why is this important? Because all that information is now at your fingertips! All your research, history, back story etc. , is localized in one place. This will help you be more organized and consistent when writing about your character.

EXERCISE 1:

Who is your protagonist? Many writers will tell you “Write what you know” but unfortunately in sci-fi and fantasy, sometimes we want to be someone we aren’t -isn’t that the whole point of writing?! Unfortunately if your protagonist is a butcher, and I grew up in a family of butchers, I may not find your character believable if you have not done the proper research. So for the first exercise, I always suggest that you write down important things to your character and then assess how much do you really know about those things. For example: Amanda Tourney is a PI who hunts Chimeras. She uses a samurai sword, a revolver, and her mad ninja skills to capture them. Sounds interesting? So the first items on my research list are:

What kind of revolver? What would be the best revolver for her size/type? Is there are recoil? Is said revolver going to do enough damage against a chimera? What kind of bullets am I going to use? Does she have a name for the revolver?
Similarly, I may ask the same questions about the samurai sword. What kind of cuts, slashes, jabs does she use? Where did she learn to sword-fight? What kind of samurai sword?
What do I know about Chimeras? Do I want to stick to known fantasy-lore or am I going to mix it up with my own ideas for the chimera? Why does Amanda need to hunt Chimeras? How important are Chimeras to my world?
What type of ninja skills does Amanda have? Is she an apprentice ninja? Why would a ninja have a gun?

And so on and so forth… After some research, not only have I made my protagonist more believable and relatable for all your Chimera-hunting ninjas out there but I also have come up with some back-story I didn’t have before. Maybe I just learned a little more about my protagonist.

EXERCISE 2:

Take a few minutes and think about your protagonist. What kind of behaviors, values, and beliefs does your protagonist have? Would Amanda kill a baby chimera? What happens if Amanda found out that chimeras are just misunderstood and no more dangerous than a dog? Would she still do her job? One great way I have found to get an idea of your characters personality and values is to take a look at character types. Take a look at the traditional Astrology. Ignore the date your character was born, and instead look at common traits of each sign. Which fits your character the best? Take a look at Chinese Astrology. Ignore what year your protagonist was born in and figure out whether her/she fits more with the Year of the Rat or the Year of the Monkey. You can also look at Japanese blood types, AD&D personality types, as well as the four temperaments. Do at least three of these for your protagonist and get intimate with them. Write a page on how your protagonist is Type A; a page on what Virgo attributes she has and how it effects her life. This will help you be more consistent when it comes to how your protagonist reacts to situations as well as how intimately you know that character.

EXERCISE 3:

Does Amanda have any quirks that make her unique? I sure hope so! No one wants to read about a super god like ninja girl who has no quirks, problems, setbacks, etc. They want to read about someone they can relate to. They want to have that strong female who kills chimeras but sleeps with a penguin. Why? Because that makes her human! It makes her relatable and believable. Having some trouble finding some quirks or weaknesses? Take a look at a Gurps character sheet. Gurps is a pen and paper (table-top) role-playing system and I like how they encourage players to create quirks and disadvantages. For every quirk or disadvantage you take, the more points you get to sink into making them more powerful. Take a few minutes and plug your protagonist into this Gurps Character Sheet and see how you can flesh out some quirks for your characters.

So let’s do a quick revisit of Amanda Tourney? Amanda is an apprentice ninja who couldn’t cut it as a ninja after a chimera nearly took off her leg. She walks with a slight limp, but makes up for it with her lightening quick reflexes. Because of her accident, Amanda carries a Browning Revolver just in case. In her world, chimeras run rampant: eating small children, causing traffic jams, and destroying houses. While Chimeras are a traditional mythological beast, Amanda’s chimeras have a slight twist. If someone survives a chimera’s attack, they slowly begin to become one. This can take many years. Amanda struggles to keep her humanity and is searching for information about how to reverse the change. She is a Virgo: creative, independent, but can become too absorbed in her work that she misses the obvious.

Definitely we can go on and on but this gives you and idea of some of Amanda’s weaknesses, some of her baggage, a little more about her world, which is something we didn’t have before. Remember, you don’t want to hit your readers’ over the head with all this information! Give them just a little at a time and slowly work it into the story by showing NOT telling. Keep them wanting to know more and more about your protagonist’s and his/her world.

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Check back in with me next time where we’ll explore why choosing a genre and sticking to it is important to your character, world, and readers!

Jamie Provencher

Category: Character Exercises

Additional exercises – Turning your Protagonist from 2D to 3D

Posted at 6:00 pm by Jamie Provencher, on March 1, 2011

FLESHING OUT YOUR PROTAGONIST – WHO AM I?

Posted at 5:33 pm by Jamie Provencher, on March 1, 2011

TURNING THAT PROTAGONIST FROM 2D TO 3D!

BEFORE DOING ANY EXERCISES!

EXERCISE 1:

EXERCISE 2:

EXERCISE 3:

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