WD wants to know: Where do your best characters come from?
The man on the street, bowler hat, French cigarette and smug charm? An eccentric, reclusive billionaire you read about in a magazine? A facet of yourself known only to you?
Characters are everywhere. Where do you get yours? In each issue of Writer’s Digest, we propose a(n often mind-bendingly tricky) question for our Superlatives poll, and the fun/madness comes in forcing yourself to answer it. In the March/April issue, which is currently shipping to subscribers, we ask the following:
If you had to pick just one from among the following techniques, what breeds your best characters?
- Basing them on yourself
- Using traits from people you're personally familiar with in "real life"
- Using traits from strangers you've heard about
- Crafting characters strictly from the imagination
What do you think? Stop by the Writer’s Digest forum, vote and share your thoughts on the subject (you have to be a member of the free forum to do so). The results will appear in a future issue of the magazine, as will a response on the topic from one commenter.
Also, via GalleyCat, check out an interview about NPR’s upcoming Three-Minute Fiction contest. How’s your short game?
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WRITING PROMPT: Clash of the Characters
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, feel free to e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
Create a scene using four characters: One based on yourself, one based on someone you personally know, one based on someone you heard about in the media, and one spawning strictly from the imagination. Make the media story the hook or reason they’re all together, and base the scene around that.
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