Character Ideas - Tag - In a past life…

9 More Sources for Character Ideas

J. Timothy King — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:00:09 +0000

Ideas are a dime a dozen, which is no consolation when you just can’t seem to come up with that perfect idea that will pull you past your writer’s block and bring the story you’re trying to write into focus. And the more you wrack your brain, the harder it is to come up with ideas.

Instead of giving up, sometimes it helps if you take a step back and look at the problem from a different angle. Here are 9 creativity exercises that may help generate ideas for fictional characters.

How to Turn Character Ideas into Characters

J. Timothy King — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:00:52 +0000

They say ideas are a dime a dozen, even character ideas. Many experienced authors don’t even think about it anymore; they don’t remember when they were just starting out, facing a blank page, without any idea how to make their characters full and interesting. Because when it comes right down to it, if you want ideas for your fictional characters should be like, you can just look at the people around you. I tend to write down character ideas, as they occur to me, in an idea journal, which I can then go back to for inspiration when I’m when I’m writing a story. All authors at some level base their fictional characters on what they observe of real-life people.

But it takes more than just throwing character ideas at the page, if you want to end up with an actual story. Character ideas may give you zany and quirky, but if you want your characters to have depth, you have to make them feel like real, full-fledged people. In other words, you need characters that have a story to tell.

Discovering Character Secrets from Your Relatives!

J. Timothy King — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:21:35 +0000

Much of the time, we treat relatives as obligations: “Yeah, but what can you do? He’s family.”

This year, during the holiday break between December 25 and January 1, the kids and I and Grandma and Grampa piled into a rented minivan and trekked 7 hours to southern New Jersey… where the aunts and uncles and first and second cousins reside. And while I was there, I finally understood why Brothers and Sisters makes me laugh.

But the biggest epiphany I had…

100 Free Fictional Character Ideas

J. Timothy King — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:32:27 +0000

… a tiny sample from 1001 Character Quirks for Writing Fiction. Literally, the full list is more than 10 times as big. Of course, the list of quirks is the easy part, because they’re just character ideas, and ideas are a dime a dozen.

-TimK

Character Ideas Through Substitution

J. Timothy King — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 11:44:59 +0000

Here’s another way to generate character ideas. Substitute one reaction for another. We all tend to make our characters behave like ourselves or like people we know. So let’s say I’m a computer geek who tends to be shy and reserved, except when I’m talking about computers. Then I’m talkative and outgoing. They say, write what you know. And if I can work these feelings into my character, the character will be more realistic. If I want a character who is different than me, I can feel these same reactions, but apply them in different situations.

Better Character Ideas: Throw Two Away

J. Timothy King — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 19:53:12 +0000

Here’s a simple way to generate better character ideas, or story ideas of any sort. This isn’t so much a source of story ideas as a way to improve existing ideas. You can do the same thing with setting, plot, or whatever story idea you need. It’s exceptionally simple. Just throw the first two ideas away.

“What?!” I can almost hear you saying. “You want me to throw away my ideas?”

Where to Get Character Ideas

J. Timothy King — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 13:59:51 +0000

I’ve discovered a new source of character ideas, at least for me. Anyone can get ideas in the same way, even if not from the same source.