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.
