Character Exercises

Character, of course, is the most important aspect of fiction. In an economy of words, your mission is to create characters with whom readers identify, characters who are real and complex and unusual.

You have a few tools at your disposal for depicting your characters:

• Action, in which characters show you who they are by how they act.
• Dialogue, in which characters show you who they by what they say (or by what is said about them).
• Summary, in which you show who a character is with a description. This is usually the least interesting way.
• Other characters' reactions

These exercises will help you describe a character indirectly but clearly.

Write a sentence of stage direction for a character who is . Depict that feeling by his or her actions.

What would be a good name for a character who is always ?

Use dialogue to describe a character who is without directly saying so.

Use action to describe a character who is without directly saying so.

Use summary narration to describe a character who is without directly saying so.

Choose a person you know well (a family member, a friend, an unusual acquaintance or coworker). Imagine him or her in the following situations and describe his or her actions or words.

Done?

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