Zero Draft Thirty 2017 September Challenge: Story Prep (Part 6) — Character Development
A series to help prepare writers for next month’s writing challenge.
A series to help prepare writers for next month’s writing challenge.
Do you have a story you want to write? A feature length movie screenplay? An original TV pilot? A web series pilot? A novel? Short story? An epic length limerick?
The Zero Draft Thirty 2017 September Challenge is for you!
September 1: You type FADE IN / “Once upon a time…”
September 30: You type FADE OUT / “…They all lived happily ever after.”
It’s free! It’s fun! It’s Fade In to Fade Out!
For everything you need to know to join, click here.
To help prepare writers for the #ZD30SCRIPT Challenge, this week and next, I’ll be running a series on Story Prep.
Today in Part 6: Character Development
In my view, the single most important key to story prep is curiosity. Specifically getting curious about your characters. They are the players in the narrative. They have lived in your story universe 24/7/365. At some fundamental level, it’s their story. So who better to learn about your story than by engaging your characters?
How to do that? Get curious! Ask questions! Reflect on each character’s personal history and backstory:
Personal History: Everything that has happened to a character which has shaped them generally.
Backstory: Only those events and incidents which have a specific bearing on your story.
The idea is to amass as much information, background, and content about each character as you can. It’s all potential narrative material. Then as you focus your story, the most relevant dynamics emerge becoming the character’s backstory, providing important grist for your plotting process.
Here are links to a bunch of character development tools:
- Blank Character Sheet (+370 Questions)
- Abridged Character Sheet (100 Questions)
- Big-Ass Character Sheet
- Character Creation Form
- Character Sheet by Jody Hedlund
- Creating a character Bio Sheet
- Character Analysis Worksheet
- 100 Character Development questions for writers
- Create a Character Profile
- Character Development Worksheet
- Original Character Bio-Sheet
- Character Chart for Fiction Writers
- A Character Chart By Charlotte Dillon
- Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
- Detailed Character Sheet
- Character Sheet Template
- Character Twenty-Question Worksheet
- In-Depth Character Sheet
- Character Worksheet
- Character Interview Sheet (First Person)
- Background Questionnaire (First Person)
- Characters Perceptions (How do other people perceive your character?)
Obviously you’re not expected to use all of these. Rather consider them resources from which you can pick and choose when working with your characters.
But notice how so many of them involve asking questions. Again the key is to get curious about your characters. Why are they the way they are? How are they the way they are?
Who. What. Where. When. Why. The journalist’s credo applies as you are digging into each character to uncover their story so that collectively the Story emerges.
Next week: More story prep tips.
Part 1: “What if…”
Part 2: Gender-Bending
Part 3: Genre-Bending
Part 4: Think International
Part 5: Franchise
Have you got your story concept waxed and ready to rock and roll in the Zero Draft Thirty 2017 September Challenge? Come back here every day in September to share the experience with a slew of other writers.
Zero Draft Thirty Challenge: Pound Perfectionism, Pump-Up Productivity.
Twitter: #ZD30SCRIPT.
Facebook: Zero Draft Thirty.
Onward!