It’s a big question. “When should I invest in conversion optimization for my website?” Even though I’ve been preaching the benefits of CRO since 2006, I don’t consider it an obvious decision. Instead of telling you what I think, I asked a competitor to tell you, just to keep me honest. We have answered the […]
Exactly fifty years ago, noted futurist Alvin Toffler wrote one of the most widely read books about the future called Future Shock. It was a legendary work, and the inspiration for the team at the Abundant Future Institute to seek out 50 top futurists to each contribute a chapter to a book celebrating Toffler’s vision and offering new thoughts for a new era. I was honored to be among those who added their insights to the curated selection.
The book is now available on Amazon and my contributed chapter is titled “The Non-Obvious Appeal of Vicarious People.” Here’s an excerpt …
I once purchased a tweet from Kim Kardashian.
Admitting I bought a forgettable endorsement from a forgettable person on a forgettable platform hardly seems like an appropriate story to share in a book co-authored by some of the world’s foremost thinkers on the future. But it points to a seeming contradiction in my interests: For someone who has spent most of his professional life trying to not-so-gently nudge companies and leaders back toward embracing their humanity, I have an unusual fascination with fake things.
I attribute this interest to my experiences working in advertising for the first decade of my career, before I shifted my focus toward trying to predict and describe the future. While I was developing creative persuasion strategies to sell everything from orange juice to cloud computing, I became a student of human behavior.
The team I used to lead would regularly talk to people and pore over reports from global analytics firms to develop consumer insights. Our goal was to create “personas” that would neatly describe large categories of people in terms of their beliefs, passions, and motivations—no matter how mundane or unexpected.
Why do people pick up the second magazine from the rack instead of the first? Why do they worry about climate change yet still buy bottled water? And why do they mistakenly place so much trust in false information, manipulated media, and fabricated celebrities?
It was this last question that fascinated me most: In a world of near-perfect information, why do certain people hold such power to influence us despite sometimes being demonstrably fake? We trust and follow people who are famous simply for being famous, or believe in the experiences of perfect strangers who post product and experience reviews online. We get duped over and over again by self-serving politicians and fame-chasing celebrities.
Thanks to the internet, we have plenty of resources that should allow us to instantly debunk any half-truth or anyone peddling half-truths. Fact-checking is at our fingertips. Despite this easy access to information, somehow people continue to be easily and deeply manipulated on a daily basis.
This invisible force is a potent fixture of our culture, but it isn’t new. Writers have been exploring and imagining its effect for much of the past century.
In Manipulation We (Often) Trust
In 1928, in his seminal book Propaganda, Edward Bernays described the “conscious and intelligent manipulation” of the masses by governments, mostly achieved through imperceptible methods of persuasion designed to keep citizens in line.
Nearly a quarter-century later, noted science fiction luminary Frederick Pohl imagined a future where advertising agencies manipulated public perceptions and capitalism ruled the world in his dystopian novel Space Merchants. Both believed outside entities like governments or organizations shaped what we believe to further their own ends.
In 1970, Alvin Toffler extended this idea to suggest individuals were influencing us, too. He used the term “vicarious people,” such as artists, television personalities, and even fictional characters, to describe the outsized effect that both people and fictional characters were having on our identities and personalities. We model our behavior after theirs and increasingly use their examples to moderate our own beliefs and shape who we are.
As politicians preach more xenophobia, online influencers chase views, and the media curates sensationalism, we the people get assaulted by the fake all around us. And sometimes we reflexively create it ourselves through what we share online.
How can we live in a future where we might overcome—or at least better manage—this parade of fake personalities to become better versions of ourselves instead of indulging our darker impulses? To start, we will need to more deeply understand the nuances behind it. I have spent considerable time trying to do exactly that, usually by doing something that most futurists are loathe to do: focusing primarily on the present.
Wondering how to run brand contests and giveaways like a pro?
Contests and giveaways can be an amazingly easy and quick way to generate positive engagement, get more traffic to your website and, most importantly, generate more leads for your business.
That said, holding an online contest is not as easy as buying an iPad, posting a contest on Facebook and then waiting for the results to come in.
You might get lots of people interested and participating – and more likes than you ever expected on a post – but, at the end of the day, if you’re not getting the right people signing up for your contest or giveaway (i.e. your target audience), you’re not going to get a return on your investment.
In this post, I’m going to show you how to run contests and giveaways like a pro – so that you’re not just doing a contest for the sake of it but actually reaching your goals for your marketing strategies.
Why run online contests and giveaways?
As I mentioned in the introduction, contests and giveaways are a great way to get marketing results quickly and help accomplish the following:
Contests and giveaways are interactive by nature, and people often love them – after all, they’re an opportunity to win something that people want or need.
What’s more, contests and giveaways require participants to leave their details with you – and, with the right type of contest and prize, that means you can generate more leads for your business.
Plus, contests are a great way to generate more interest in your business and the products and services you offer – so, by promoting your products/services this way, you can even boost your sales considerably.
That being said, not just any contest will get you these results – you need to be very clear about your objectives, build a contest that supports these objectives, offer the right prize and promote your contest/giveaway extensively.
Step 1: Determine Your Contest Objectives
Before starting any new marketing plan or campaign, it’s important to take the time to establish what your campaign’s objectives are.
When you know what your objectives are, you can build a campaign that helps support these goals and helps you reach them.
First, consider your overall marketing and business goals – what do you want to achieve in the coming quarter?
Once you’re clear on those objectives, you can plan your contest goals to help you reach the results you want.
Here are some of the goals you can set up for your contest/giveaway campaign:
Generate more leads/email subscribers
Boost your sales
Increase brand awareness of your brand or a specific product/service
Once you know what your goal is, you can build a campaign that will help you reach that goal.
Step 2: Choose a Relevant Prize
The prize you offer in your contest or giveaway is one of the most important elements that can determine the success of your campaign.
If your prize is too generic – like, let’s say an iPad, which seems to be one of the most used prizes for online contests – you might get a lot of attention, but is it the right attention?
The thing is, everyone could use an iPad: from a 14-year old teenager who’s in a video-game phase to a 35-year-old marketing executive.
In other words, you’re going to get a mishmash of people signing up for your contest, none of them potential customers for your business.
Whatever your contest goal is, whether it’s to get more leads or more engagement, the key is to get these results from the right people.
To do so, you need a prize that will only appeal to your particular target audience.
Ideally, your prize should be brand-related, as well as something that your target audience wants.
For example, one of the easiest ways to offer a good prize is to use your own business’s products or services, like this example from Qwertee, who gave away 30 free t-shirts as part of their giveaway (and yes, they sell t-shirts).
Facebook Contest Example from Qwertee
The thing is, when you give away something related to your products or services, you’re going to get the right attention: not only freebie-seekers but also people who would genuinely want or need your products/services.
When you give away something related to your products or services, you’re going to get the right attention: not only freebie-seekers. #contest #marketingtip
Here are some of the targeted, brand-related prizes you can offer:
Coupon codes and discounts to be used on your website/in-store
Your products
Access to your services
Also, you should make sure to showcase the value of the prize – it’s another great opportunity to promote your business and your products/services and show people why they’re so valuable, like you can see on this contest landing page from Lucille Roberts.
Contest Landing Page Example from Lucille Roberts
Here’s another example, from Riedel UK, offering up a beautiful set of their wine glasses as a contest gift.
Instagram Contest Example from Riedel UK
The reality is that you might get fewer participants than you’d want this way (or, at least, compared to if you were giving away a tablet or something similar that appeals to a wider audience), but the idea is to get targeted participants. You want to get real leads and real engagement from people that are likely to be converted into your customers down the line.
Step 3: Design Your Contest
Once you know what you want to achieve with your contest and have decided on a prize, you can start putting together your contest or giveaway; there are numerous types of contests/giveaways, such as:
Photos and video contests
“pick your favorite” contest
Mention and/or hashtag contest
Writing or essay contest
Instant win contests
The “refer-a-friend” contest
And, of course, giveaways, which are similar across platforms
In order to run a successful contest or giveaway, you can use a number of tools to help create your contest, publish it on the channels you want, as well as manage your participants and assign winners fairly.
Here are some useful contest tools to consider for your campaign:
Easypromos
Easypromos is one of the most popular options for creating this type of interactive content. You can use it to create giveaways, contests, games and quizzes, as well as coupons and codes for special offers. In total, there are about 30 different applications to choose from.
Easypromos Interactive Content and Contest Tool
In addition, as you might notice above, it works on a variety of online platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as your own website and even via email newsletters.
There’s an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder. Plus, you can monitor your campaigns’ results and ROI, as well as set up automated emails to nurture your leads.
Shortstack
Another popular solution is Shortstack. This robust tool allows you to create contests, giveaways and quizzes, as well as landing pages for your interactive content.
It also has various features to ensure you can run your contest from start to finish: email marketing features, drip emails and lead collection tools, among others.
Shortstack Contest Tool
Their campaigns work on a variety of platforms, including all popular social networks, as well as on your website and on landing pages.
Here are some of the most important elements that need to be on your contest post/page:
A title that gets people’s attention
Your prize
A very clear and visible call-to-action (usually, in the main title)
Entry details
Contest rules (make sure you’re following each platform’s rules too)
Other contest details, such as the time frame for your contest and how the winners will find out
Step 4: Promote Your Contest Everywhere
In order to get the most out of your contest, make sure to promote it high and wide – the more people join in, the better.
Here’s what you need to do in order to promote your contest:
First, create a landing page for your contest
Send an email blast to your list and let them know about your contest and where they need to go to sign up (that email will probably have the biggest open rates you’ve seen so far!)
Promote your contest across all social channels
Promote your contest on your website and/or blog; for example, you can create a banner to promote it, use a Hello Bar or even write a blog post about it
Create an ad campaign: if you’ve planned a really big contest and want to get the most out of it, it might be a good idea to invest in social media ads to reach a much wider audience
Conclusion
Contests and giveaways can be extremely powerful tools for your business. They offer this highly-effective, super-fast way to get results: more leads, more engagement, more traffic and so on.
Follow the steps outlined in this step-by-step guide, and you’ll be running high-performing contests and giveaways in minutes.
Exactly fifty years ago, noted futurist Alvin Toffler wrote one of the most widely read books about the future called Future Shock. It was a legendary work, and the inspiration for the team at the Abundant Future Institute to seek out 50 top futurists to each contribute a chapter to a book celebrating Toffler’s vision and offering new thoughts for a new era. I was honored to be among those who added their insights to the curated selection.
The book is now available on Amazon and my contributed chapter is titled “The Non-Obvious Appeal of Vicarious People.” Here’s an excerpt …
I once purchased a tweet from Kim Kardashian.
Admitting I bought a forgettable endorsement from a forgettable person on a forgettable platform hardly seems like an appropriate story to share in a book co-authored by some of the world’s foremost thinkers on the future. But it points to a seeming contradiction in my interests: For someone who has spent most of his professional life trying to not-so-gently nudge companies and leaders back toward embracing their humanity, I have an unusual fascination with fake things.
I attribute this interest to my experiences working in advertising for the first decade of my career, before I shifted my focus toward trying to predict and describe the future. While I was developing creative persuasion strategies to sell everything from orange juice to cloud computing, I became a student of human behavior.
The team I used to lead would regularly talk to people and pore over reports from global analytics firms to develop consumer insights. Our goal was to create “personas” that would neatly describe large categories of people in terms of their beliefs, passions, and motivations—no matter how mundane or unexpected.
Why do people pick up the second magazine from the rack instead of the first? Why do they worry about climate change yet still buy bottled water? And why do they mistakenly place so much trust in false information, manipulated media, and fabricated celebrities?
It was this last question that fascinated me most: In a world of near-perfect information, why do certain people hold such power to influence us despite sometimes being demonstrably fake? We trust and follow people who are famous simply for being famous, or believe in the experiences of perfect strangers who post product and experience reviews online. We get duped over and over again by self-serving politicians and fame-chasing celebrities.
Thanks to the internet, we have plenty of resources that should allow us to instantly debunk any half-truth or anyone peddling half-truths. Fact-checking is at our fingertips. Despite this easy access to information, somehow people continue to be easily and deeply manipulated on a daily basis.
This invisible force is a potent fixture of our culture, but it isn’t new. Writers have been exploring and imagining its effect for much of the past century.
In Manipulation We (Often) Trust
In 1928, in his seminal book Propaganda, Edward Bernays described the “conscious and intelligent manipulation” of the masses by governments, mostly achieved through imperceptible methods of persuasion designed to keep citizens in line.
Nearly a quarter-century later, noted science fiction luminary Frederick Pohl imagined a future where advertising agencies manipulated public perceptions and capitalism ruled the world in his dystopian novel Space Merchants. Both believed outside entities like governments or organizations shaped what we believe to further their own ends.
In 1970, Alvin Toffler extended this idea to suggest individuals were influencing us, too. He used the term “vicarious people,” such as artists, television personalities, and even fictional characters, to describe the outsized effect that both people and fictional characters were having on our identities and personalities. We model our behavior after theirs and increasingly use their examples to moderate our own beliefs and shape who we are.
As politicians preach more xenophobia, online influencers chase views, and the media curates sensationalism, we the people get assaulted by the fake all around us. And sometimes we reflexively create it ourselves through what we share online.
How can we live in a future where we might overcome—or at least better manage—this parade of fake personalities to become better versions of ourselves instead of indulging our darker impulses? To start, we will need to more deeply understand the nuances behind it. I have spent considerable time trying to do exactly that, usually by doing something that most futurists are loathe to do: focusing primarily on the present.
Readers love great characters. Think back to your favorite stories of all time. You might remember the story points, or you might not. You might remember the best bits of dialogue, or you might not. You might remember the setting descriptions, but let’s be honest, you probably don’t.
But the characters? You’ll remember the characters for the rest of your life.
How do you do that? How do you create great characters? The short answer is character development, but what is character development and how can you use it to create characters readers love?
That’s what we’re going to talk about in this article.
Ready to get started with this characterization lesson? Let’s do it.
What Is Character Development?
Character development is the process of creating a character and then throwing them into a story so that they evolve and display their full personality.
Note that one of the first things I mentioned above is to throw your character into the story.
Some writers spend months or years building a character, figuring out their every personality trait, filling out long surveys about their favorite foods and what kinds of clothes they love to wear.
They spend so much time on characterization, they never write their book! And if they try, they can’t figure out why their character doesn’t feel like the ones in their favorite novels.
That kind of characterization is fun, but it can easily veer into navel-gazing.
Instead, put your characters to the test.
The best form of character development is the following:
One of the best tools for character development is a character sketch, or character profile. This is where you record details about a character to better understand them.
You can mix and match elements to create your own character sketch template, but here’s what a character sketch might contain:
Character name
Photo (I just find something on Google image search to serve as a likeness)
Character type (see 8 types below)
One sentence summary
One paragraph description (including a physical description, occupation, flaws, good attributes, and mannerisms)
Goals (what do they want)
Conflicts (what keeps them from getting what they want)
Narrative (what do they do in the story)
Remember, the best way to do character development is to throw characters into a story. Don’t sketch characters for their own sake, but to find where they fit into the story.
8 Types of Characters
This is obvious, but most stories contain many types of characters, not just one. Below, I’ve listed the eight types of characters.
When you’re creating your character sketches, write what type of character they are beside their sketch.
The Protagonist. The protagonist is the character at the center of the plot whose choices drive the story and whose fate determine the story’s outcome.
Point of View Characters. Some stories have multiple central characters, e.g. Game of Thrones. The term for a central character when there are multiple ones is a Point of View character. These characters carry the narrative, and in a story told in third person limited point of view they will be the only character whose thoughts and emotions the reader can see.
The Villain. Not every story has a villain, but for the ones that do, the villain is the chief source of conflict. Also known as the antagonist.
The Mentor. The mentor is a character who steers the protagonist, helps get them out of trouble, and provides chances for reflection. A mainstay of the hero’s journeyplot structure, in many types of stories, without a good mentor, the character’s journey will end in tragedy (e.g. think about Hamlet, who had no mentor).
The Sidekick. A sidekick is a character who supports the protagonist. Besides the protagonist and villain, they have the most opportunity for characterization, and provide dialogue opportunities and an insight into the character’s mindset. Sidekicks appear in all genres, from romance (e.g. Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet) to adventure (e.g. Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings) to mystery (e.g. Inspector Beauvoir from the Inspector Gamache series) and more.
Side Characters. Side characters often have fully developed personalities, long interactions with the protagonist, and perhaps even deep backstories. However, they rarely make decisions or change throughout the story.
The Chorus. A term from playwriting, these side characters may have names and vague descriptions, but they do not have fully developed personalities and are chiefly there to serve as bystanders.
Suspects. Specific to mysteries and thrillers, suspects have fully developed personalities and they serve as objects of exploration for the investigator. They should all have motives and appear at least somewhat guilty of the crime, if only to serve as red herrings.
On my podcast, Character Test, my cohost and I have found that there are four criteria that you can use to evaluate a character, to test and see whether a character is good or not.
Here, I’m not talking about whether they are morally good, but whether they are interesting, relatable, entertaining, and worth following. In other words, this is about figuring out will readers love them.
Also, this is what makes a good character. If you want to know how to make a good character, scroll down to the Character Development Steps section.
1. Good Characters Have Goals
Good stories are about characters who want something and experience challenges to get what they want.
Desire is central to good stories, good characters, and to the human condition itself. Good characters have deeply held desires and are willing to make sacrifices to achieve those desires.
That being said, those desires don’t have to start out as anything big.
As Kurt Vonnegut said, “Make your characters want something right away even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.”
“Make your characters want something right away even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.” —Kurt Vonnegut
As nice as it would be for your character to get everything they wanted without having to do any work, it would make for a very boring story!
I like what bestselling author Kristina McMorris told me: “I only give my characters a happy ending if they’ve worked really hard for it.” Kristina’s novel Sold on a Monday was on the New York Times bestsellers list for twenty straight weeks, so she knows what she’s talking about!
3. Good Characters Make Decisions
Good characters take control of their own fate. They take action. They make choices, and they suffer the good or bad consequences of those choices.
Bad characters let life happen to them. Bad characters allow others to make choices for them. They never take action in their own lives, and it’s their lack of decision-making ability that makes them boring.
I made this word up but I think it’s going to stick!
Editorial note from Alice: Stop trying to make “empathizable” happen, Joe. It’s not going to happen.
You can empathize with good characters. Even if they are villains (especially if they’re villains), you can understand where they’re coming from, and maybe even relate.
Good characters, in other words, are human.
Bad characters are so foreign or perfect or evil that you can’t relate to where they’re coming from.
Bonus: Good Characters Change
Many will argue with this, but not all good characters change. In fact, you can tell a great story where the protagonist doesn’t change.
Take James Bond. In a few novels and films he changes (e.g. Casino Royale) but in most, James stays the same stoic, cocky person he started out as. And the novels are still great!
Or Inspector Gamache, my favorite detective from the series by Louise Penny. Inspector Gamache starts out as the perfect gentleman, thoughtful leader, and unerring investigator and ends each novel the same way. There are a few individual books where he goes through deep inner turmoil, but even then he re-emerges the same, amazing person, just a little bit stronger and surer in his ways.
There are many great stories where the character changes. It’s especially a hallmark of the hero’s journey (which is itself a form of character development). But it’s not always a requirement of a good character.
Character Development Steps
Now that we’ve talked about what makes a good character, how do you actually develop a character readers love? The answer is that you lead them through a good story.
You might think that you, the author, creates a good character. And to some extent that’s true. But the story tests the character, forces them to reveal the deepest, darkest, best, and most intimate aspects of their character.
Without a great story there would be no reason to get to know your characters.
Even more, from a writing perspective, it’s the storytelling process where we first discover who these characters we’ve made are. It’s by putting them through conflict, giving them difficult choices, and seeing how they solve those problems that we see what our characters are actually made of.
That means you can’t start this process soon enough.
Instead of spending all your time dreaming up individual traits of your characters, throw them into the story and see what happens. That is how you will get to know them.
One quick note: I’m indebted to Shawn Coyne and Story Grid for much of my thinking of each of these five steps. To learn more, visit Shawn’s guide, Storytelling’s Five Commandments.
1. Desire. Find something your character wants right away.
What are your character’s goals? What does he or she want?
There are two types of desires: felt needs and deep-seated desires.
If you’re like most people your character will want many things. At the same time, they probably want one or two things that are deeply held, maybe even subconscious.
For example, a character might say she wants an outfit so she can be cool. That would be an example of a felt need. But in reality, whether she’s willing to admit it to anyone or not, she might want a family, since her parents were killed in a car crash. That’s a deep-seated desire.
Often a scene, chapter, or even book will begin with a felt need, but then center on the deep-seated desire in the middle and climax of the story.
In my memoir,Crowdsourcing Paris, I began with a felt need to go to Paris, but the book centers on my deep-seated desire for authenticity and self-acceptance.
What does your character want?
2. Conflict. Make it hard for them to get what they want.
The established storytelling advice is appropriate here: “In the first act, put your character up a tree. In the second act, throw rocks at them; in the third act, bring them down.”
To take the analogy further, it’s their desires and goals that put the character up a tree. It’s the conflict you create, perhaps through an antagonist, that functions as the rocks.
What obstacles do you need to put in front of your character to keep them from getting what they want?
And what lengths is your character willing to go to get what they want?
These challenges build and build until finally, the character has to do something. They have to choose.
3. Dilemma. Setup a difficult choice, a dilemma, for your character.
Choice is the heart of character development. THIS is the real test of our character, and the moment where we see their true self.
Shawn Coyne says there should be a crisis, or a dilemma, in every scene. That’s a lot of choices for your character! But it’s brilliant, because their dilemma is both what drives the drama of the story as a whole and also what
The choice must be difficult. This isn’t a choice between whether your character wants pizza or hamburgers for dinner.
Instead, the dilemma is between two very good things—for example, love or money—or two very bad things—would you rather be struck blind and never get to see the love of your life again, or have the love of your life maimed before your eyes.
In Crowdsourcing Paris, I faced the difficult choice between whether to do a series of very embarrassing, uncomfortable, and, in the end, life-threatening adventures; or give back the $4,300 my audience had given me to complete the adventures and notgo to Paris. Tough choice!
The climax of every scene, act, and book as a whole is when the character who has been faced with a dilemma finally makes the choice and takes action.
Yes, that’s right. Your character has to take action.
A character who passively allows situations to carry him or her through the chaos of life doesn’t make for a good character.
No, your character must choose and take action on that choice.
This is where your character shows who he or she is, which also means this is the best example of show don’t tell.
5. Change. How is the character’s life different now?
Now that your character has made a choice, how is their life different? What has changed? Are things better? Or are things worse?
Resolve the tension you’ve built and show the change.
Those are the five steps of character development. Note that if an average novel is fifty to seventy scenes, that gives you a lot of opportunities to develop your character!
However, that’s also the point, because character isn’t revealed all at once, but slowly, challenge after challenge, choice after choice.
Character Development Tips and Tricks
The five character development steps above show you how to reveal your character through story, but over the centuries, writers have figured out a few shortcuts to help us create even better characters.
Here are a few character development tips and tricks. Check back for more as we update this list!
1. Flaws
Every good character is broken in some way. Why? Because every person is broken in some way, and it’s our flaws that make us human and relatable (maybe even empathizable!).
As the saying goes, “Success builds walls. Failure builds bridges.”
What is wrong with your character? It might be deep-seated, like inherent selfishness (e.g. Han Solo), or it might be something simple, like they can’t help but spill food on themselves (e.g. Clara from Inspector Gamache).
2. Orphans
There are ten times more orphans per capita in literature than in the real world.
I made that statistic up, but think about it:
Luke from Star Wars
Harry Potter
Frodo from Lord of the Rings
Pip from Great Expectations (or pretty much every Charles Dickens hero)
Jane Eyre
Every superhero ever (Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Supergirl, all of them)
Kvothe from The Name of the Wind
At least half of all Disney characters (Bambi, Aladdin, Frozen, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella)
Anne of Green Gables
Any Roald Dahl protagonist
Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow (and pretty much every other character in Game of Thrones eventually)
Every one of these characters is an orphan. If you expand it to losing one parent, the list goes on even further.
Why do writers love orphans? For two reasons, I think: because they’re immediately empathizable and because they are the masters of their own fate (see step four above!).
3. Highlight Strong Appearance Traits
Whether it’s a very long nose (Pinnochio) or vast physical strength (Jean Valjean from Les Miserables), we often remember characters by one specific trait that they have.
When you’re describing your characters, don’t describe every aspect of their appearance. Choose one or two physical traits that are especially striking and focus on them. Your reader will fill in the rest with their imaginations.
4. Voice
Good characters have their own unique voice, their own unique way of talking.
Perhaps they speak with a Long Island accent with lots of slang, or maybe they insert profanity every other word. Whatever it is, find a few verbal ticks that your character has. Even better, keep track of them on your character sketch so you don’t forget!
Note: this is often one of the hardest parts of character building. George R.R. Martin talks about how he has to write several chapters from each of his point of view characters’ perspective before switching to a new character because it’s so difficult to transition into a different character’s voice.
5. Your Character’s Fate Is Often Determined by Their Mentor
For your protagonist, the mentor figure is often the most important character. In fact, the presence or lack of a mentor often determines their fate. A hero with a good mentor will often succeed, whereas a hero without a mentor or with a corrupt mentor will fail.
Choose your mentor carefully!
Character Development Writing Exercise
Now that you know everything about developing characters, let’s put your new knowledge to practice! Use the creative writing exercise below to practice developing a strong character.
Choose one of the character types above and spend five minutes sketching out their character using the character sketch template above (Character Name, type, one-sentence summary, goals, conflicts).
After your five minutes are up, write about your new character as he or she goes through a scene using the five character development steps: desire, conflict, dilemma, choice, and change. Write for ten minutes.
When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section. And if you post, be sure to give feedback to at least three other writers.
Editor’s note: Are you a writer? Do you speak a second language? To make money translating other authors’ works (or your own), then, might be an unexpected income stream… Many writers focus solely on their own writing projects, honing their craft over the years and pursuing that goal of making a living from writing. Few […]
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Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
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