In her book, The Memoir Project, Marion Roach Smith cautions authors against using writing exercises as procrastination disguised as work on the craft. She’s not wrong. Some writers have a tendency to use exercises as a crutch to avoid the real work of writing our stories. (I’ve been there.) You start your writing session with an exercise or a little freewriting. Then you do one more exercise, or maybe just ten more minutes of freewriting. And before you know it, your writing session is over. You’ve filled pages and pages with a whole lot of not very much, your story is still stalled right where you left it, and you may or may not have put in much work to hone your craft.
But what if you were to start practicing with purpose? That is to say, what if your writing exercises were tailored to the story at hand. Maybe you’re free writing about the problems you’re working through in your novel or responding to writing prompts in the voice of your main character. Then, you’re moving your novel forward by working in its world, opening yourself up to new character discoveries and new ways through tricky chapters. And as a bonus, you’re coming that much closer to a long-term cure for your writers’ block.
So this week, I challenge you to approach your usual prompts and exercises as targeted efforts to make progress on your story. Start with these three writing prompts designed to drive character development.
(Starting from scratch? Not even sure who your characters are yet? Start here instead.)
Work Backward
Already have a sense of who your character is today? In order for them to grow and change in the novel, you’ll have to work through how their past shaped them into who they are today. This includes how they respond to challenges and opportunities, their values, and the limiting beliefs that make them who they are today. So, work backwards, exploring your protagonist’s past to consider how they might've gotten where they are — and whether they’re really where they want to be. For example:
Write your character’s most treasured memory.
Write your character’s worst memory.
Make Life Difficult
If you’re struggling with your protagonist’s decision making — how they make the choices that drive the plot forward — put them into extreme circumstances. Send them into an intimidating, awkward, or even dangerous scenario and take away the skills or resources they most take for granted. For a few simple examples:
If he skates through life on his good looks, give him acne, or have him break a front tooth.
If she’s used to being the smartest person in the room, set her up with a group of experts in some topic she’s never heard of.
If she’s winning the wilderness survival competition because she’s a whiz with the bow and arrow, snap the bow in half.
They say true character is revealed in difficult circumstances. So make things hard on your protagonist, and you just might find out who she really is.
Daydream
If your protagonist’s objectives are a little fuzzy, let her daydream. Write a future-set scene showing how your character imagines life will be when she achieves her stated goal. Where does she live, and with whom? What does she do? How is her life different from how it is now? Write two versions of this daydream:
One in which achieving her objective has given her exactly the life she hoped for.
One in which her new life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
These exercises will help you sharpen your protagonist’s objective — and they’ll also help you determine whether her journey will be about becoming who she needs to be in order to achieve her goals or about recognizing that she’s chasing the wrong things.
If you try any of these exercises, let me know! I’d love to hear what you learned about your protagonist, and whether they helped you unlock your writer’s block.
Want More Character Development Insights?
If you're struggling to create dynamic, compelling characters that jump off the page and into readers' hearts, you're not alone. Whether you’re developing your protagonist or the bad guy’s sidekick, whether you know a little something about your characters or nothing at all, The Indie Author's Guide to Creating Captivating Characters will help you bring them to life with guided exercises for every stage of development.