Ideas for writing characters Archives

Creating characters is the theme for JPC Allen Writes this month. As a character writer, I have to have a good grasp on my main characters before starting a story. But what about starting a story with a setting and see what characters it suggests? So that’s the prompt I have today: create characters for this setting.

This is a photo of Coney Island in New York, but imagine any amusement park next to a beach. Who would you find there? Families with young children, teens on a day trip, a young couple on a first date, an elderly couple celebrating their first date. What about the people working in such a place? Lifeguards, teens working a summer job in the park, managers overseeing the summer workers.

Once you have some ideas of who would inhabit a setting, then you can begin creating characters. Since my mind turns to crime, what if the mother of the young family sees her father, who left her as a child, working at the park? Or a couple of teen workers, who don’t like each other, going forces to investigate some mysterious accidents that have occurred on a couple of rides? Maybe it could the overworked manager who starts an amateur investigation into the accdodents and finds unexpected help with two of the teen employees he’s had the most trouble with.

From the list above, create characters for this setting and tell me how they interact with each other.

For more character prompts, click here.

After tabulating the votes, we have a tie for which one of the photos from last week will be our YA protagonist. To break the tie, I selected … the young man below. I like his thoughtful look. This week, choose an antagonist for a YA story from the other photos I provide. An antagonist doest not have to be a villain. It is just someone, or sometimes, something, that stands in the way of the protagonist from reaching his goal. That antagonist could be someone the main character loves, but for some reason, they are on opposite sides of an issue.

Here’s our protagonist.

Now here are the antagonists. Please let me know in the comments which person you think would be a great one.

For more writing prompts for YA stories, click here.

Protagonist is just an English major way of saying main character. My prompt today is for you to choose a protagonist for a YA story based on the photos below. In the comments, name the one you think would make a good protagonist. I’ll pick the one that gets the most comments, and then next week, we’ll pick an antagonist. By the end of the month, we’ll have the building block for a YA story.

For more writing prompts for YA stories, click here.

Since we’re talking about writing inspiration this month, I wondered how much of you is in your characters? I put an awful lot of me in my teen detective Rae Riley. Like me, she’s quiet, works in a library, likes to figure people out, and worries too much about what people think of her. Of course, Rae is a lot braver at nineteen than I ever was. I also sprinkle a bit of my personality into other characters, like Rae’s aunt, who is a writer.

Some of my characters are people I would like to be. Rae’s grandmother is a very laid-back person, which I am definitely not. It takes something cataclysmic to make Gram worry and I love writing about someone who isn’t like me at all.

Want more character inspiration? Click here. For more on finding inspiration for our stories, check out this article on The Write Conversation.

I’d love to hear how much of you is in your characters.

As you work on your first draft for NaNoWriMo, you might run into writer’s block or at least a snag. If that problem concerns creating a character, check out these portraits for NaNoWriMo that I’ve selected. When I’m looking for a new character, I need a face that captures my attention and makes me wonder about a personality that might fit with it. If one of these portraits inspires a character, let me know!

I like the expression on the girl’s face. She’s either watching something or daydreaming. Either way, the portrait gives you a sense of the mind behind the face.