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Bringing Characters to Life
Writing exercises for deeper character development
Characters are your story. Memorable characters stay with readers long after they finish your book, driving emotional connection and engagement. Therefore, learning to craft compelling characters is one of the most important skills for writers to cultivate.
It’s also exciting and rewarding to create our own story people. You are the creator of your world and everything and everyone who inhabits it. That’s a lot of power! Maybe that’s why games like The Sims or other city and village creation video games are so popular. In my opinion, writing a novel is even better. You are bringing characters to life, complete with their history and backstory, and you get to establish the motivations that will drive their behavior in your story.
The goal of the exercises I will share today is to develop depth, personality, and relatability in your characters. Let’s get started.
Writing Exercises for Character Development
1. The Character Interview
This is a commonly suggested exercise, so it’s not unique, but I want to offer it because exercises that have been around for a while tend to stick because they are helpful.
