April 12, 2025 • 24 mins
Warm up for the StoryADay May Challenge (or any writing) with these character exercises. Create your raw materials this month; write like the wind, next month!
LINKS
All the warm up tasks: https://stada.me/april-warm-ups
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker (00:00):
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, Julie, from Story A Day
here with your podcast in April of 2025.
We are inevitably talking about warmingup for the StoryADay May challenge
coming up, whether or not you're goingto participate in the challenge,
and whatever rules you decide to setfor yourself during the challenge.
All of this warmup stuff is designedto be useful to you during, before the
(00:24):
challenge, during the challenge, and also.
Any time that you are doing a writing.
Push anytime that you wantto get some writing done.
One of the secrets of writing isnot, is that it's not really about
whether you can string grammaticallycorrect sentences together.
The thing that's going to makethe difference is whether or not
(00:46):
you're, you can allow yourself.
To do the work, and one of the bestways to allow yourself to do the work
is to allow yourself to have some fun.
Now, I'm on vacation this week, which iswhy I'm recording this from a hotel room.
If you're watching the video, you can seethat I'm not in my normal environment.
I'm having a lot of fun, and it's.
Intentional.
I've taken this week away beforeStoryADay May to go somewhere where I'm
(01:08):
surrounded by stuff that's unfamiliarto get my creative juices going to
celebrate my anniversary as well.
30 years, woohoo us.
Anyway.
Play is hugely underrated,especially in those cultures.
Certain cultures, certain countriesmaybe that have that Protestant
work ethic, maybe that have,other societal conditions on them.
(01:32):
Underrate play.
And part of the point of StoryADayMay is to allow you to play.
Now, next week I'm going to bring youexercises that have a lot to do with your
mindset, but this week, in week two of ourprep month, I sent out emails that were.
E encouraging you to do tiny tasksevery day, that would help you with the
(01:58):
technical writing part of the challenge.
So there's nothing worse than havingtime, having carved out all this
time to write and then getting tothe point where you are supposed to
write and being like, oh my goodness,I have to come up with everything.
I have to come up with an idea.
I have to come up with a character.
I have to come up with a setting.
I have to come up with a plot, and I'veonly got like today to do it, and then
I've got to do it all again tomorrow.
(02:18):
It's a lot.
The point of going at this pace is toencourage you to play and make a mess
and get comfortable with making a mess.
Also, to try things thatyou would never try.
Desperation is a wonderful motivator.
And so necessity is themother of invention.
Is that what I was trying to say?
No, desperation is a great motivator.
So in these first two weeks of April,I've been giving you exercises to do
(02:43):
that will build a. Collection of bits andpieces, building blocks if you want that
you can draw from during the challenge.
So here's what I sent you.
During the past week, if you weresigned up for the challenge, and if
you're on my mailing list, you would'vegot on the first day, weekday of last
(03:03):
week, you would've got this exerciseabout brainstorming characters.
So the point is to build.
Material that you can pull fromduring the challenge or whenever
you have time to sit down and write.
So here is the first task from last week,and it was about brainstorming characters.
Because prompts are great and I cangive you a writing prompt and you can
(03:23):
be like, yay, I'm going to write this.
But characters are really thebuilding block of the story.
Everything that, that your characterdecides is what drives the plot.
So having thought about the kinds ofcharacters that you would like to write.
Before the challenge begins can be useful.
So let's start making a list.
Let's make a list because asDonald Mass says, plot happens
(03:44):
outside, but story happens inside.
So what I was just saying aboutcharacters, every character
that choice a character makes,drives what happens in your plot.
If you have good characters, youdon't so much have to worry about
plot, which is something a lot ofpeople tell me they worry about.
And I certainly have done that myself.
So today, for a tinytask, create a list of.
Five characters who are quite like you.
(04:06):
In some way it makes it easyto write about them quickly.
So it's perfect for achallenge like story a day.
Me, you don't always want to writeabout characters who are like you
obviously, but if you only have afew minutes to sit down and write and
just look inside and say, what wouldthis character do if they were me?
So here are some ways acharacter might be like you.
They might be like cutein external features.
They might have red hairthat curls a little bit.
(04:28):
They might have freckles,they might be Scottish.
This is probably onlyapplying to a certain small.
Group of you.
I understand.
Whatever your.
Race, gender, socioeconomic status, jobtitle, your role at your work, your role
in your family, your role in your friendgroup, your height, your weight, your
(04:48):
athletic ability all of those things.
Your hair color, like I mentioned.
All of these things could be a way inwhich your character is like you, and
then you have a lifetime of experiencesof being like that to draw on to.
Color, how you have yourcharacter to react in the story.
Other ways that your character mightbe like you are internal aspects.
(05:10):
All the things I listed before areexternal internal aspects are more about
how introverted or extroverted you are.
What's your ability with math?
Maybe you're a math whiz,maybe you're afraid of it.
How do you react to stressful situations?
Not how you would like toreact, but genuinely how do you
react to stressful situations?
What's the likelihood that you'll stand upfor someone in an argument, maybe somebody
(05:34):
who isn't able to stand up for themselves?
What's your level of self-control?
What are your preferences for whatyou like to do in your free time?
What are your feelings aboutpeople who are different from you?
Do they worry you?
Do they scare you, or areyou delighted to meet them?
What's your willingnessto fit into society?
Are you, what are youwilling to do to fit in?
And what's it, what's a groupthat you would look at and go,
(05:55):
oh, I belong with them, whichis a different thing altogether.
So these are more internal drivers.
There's lots more you could think about.
Those are just some things to get yourideas your thought processes started.
What.
Five characters could you come up withwho share something in common with
you that you can draw from when youcome across a problem next month or
when you have a moment to sit down andwrite four bonus points on this one.
(06:18):
Make a list of ways that thosethings about you frustrate you.
And delight you.
So these are things that are goingto give you conflict in your story.
They're going to give you an opportunityto explore the character and make them
do things that will drive the plot.
And because they're coming from insideor from your experience of life, they're
(06:39):
going to be easy for you to draw onand think about how you might use them.
Think about how you might usethem to create internal and
external conflicts in the story.
These are tiny stories for writing,but it's worth thinking if you
make a list of this stuff ahead oftime, you don't have to use it all.
You get to look at your sheet oryour notebook or your spreadsheet
(07:00):
or your document on the day thatyou have to write a story and
go, oh my character has red hair.
She was called carrot top when she wasyounger, and it made her really defensive
about people commenting on her hair.
Therefore, in my story, when someonedoes this, she will do that, right?
There's an article at the site calledCreating Compelling Characters.
You can use the search box, orif I remember, I'll put the link
(07:22):
in the notes and that's yourfirst task, your second task.
And you can do these on different days.
You don't have to do them all.
Today is another one aboutbrainstorming a character.
And again, this is notgoing to shock you.
I'm going to get you to do thesame thing you just did, but.
Making a list of five characterswho are very unlike you in
all of those external ways.
(07:43):
Height, weight, hair, color, job, rolein the family, and the internal ways.
Extroversion, introversion,stress, reaction willingness to
help others, that kinda thing.
For this one, it can be really helpfulto think of specific people who are very
unlike you people in your life or peoplein the public life who you either admire.
(08:05):
Or not so much admire because they'revery they're different from you
in ways that violate your values,maybe, or they're different from you
in ways that you find aspirational.
I would like to be like thatperson and then do the same
thing again for those characters.
Think about how each of those, if you haveplenty, if you have time think about how
(08:26):
each of those aspects of those characterswho are unlike you might lead to.
Conflict in the story.
How could having, a differentlevel of extroversion versus
introversion help or harm a character?
That is very differentfrom your experience.
(08:47):
I noticed during COVID that thereare a lot of extroverts who did not
thrive and they were really fidgety andunhappy because they weren't getting,
especially, there were some teachersat my kids' school who I was always
in awe of how much energy they had andhow much, how many activities they did.
And I was like, how do youpossibly pull that off?
That's so admirable.
(09:08):
And then during Covid,I saw them not do well.
They were a little bit moreneedy than I'd ever seen them.
They were trying to get everyone torally around and come to group calls
and for activities and things like that.
And I thought, oh, it's notthat they're better than me
because I need the downtime.
It's that they get their energyfrom their extroversion, from their
interaction with other people and.
(09:30):
When you take that away, itcreates conflict for them.
So characters, lists of characterswho are like you, unlike you.
The specific ways that they're likeyou, the specific ways that they're
unlike you, internal, external.
And then if you have a moment how eachof those things or some of those things
are potential for conflict in yourstory, what could you do to take away
(09:51):
or heighten or otherwise play with thosefactors that would create difficulties
for your character and think internal and.
External.
Alright, ready for more?
You can pause this and come backto it, but if you're ready for more
on day three of this past week,IGA asked you to make a list of 10
accessories or physical featuresthat you can give to your characters.
(10:16):
So in a short story, it's importantto orient your reader quickly.
It's one of the reasons that we tellpeople not to give four characters
names starting with M because thereader might blip over the names on
a fast reading and get, then laterin the story, get confused about.
Which one was Mary and whichone was Margaret, because they
(10:37):
didn't pay attention to it.
So giving your characters not justa name with a different letter at
the beginning of it, which is good.
You can give them physical things thatwill, that they're always holding.
So somebody always carries an umbrella,somebody, a particular umbrella with a
duck on the handle, or a deer stalker ora, these things are used in fiction too.
(10:59):
To tell people which characterthey're looking at a glance.
So with main characters, I want, ofcourse for you to spend some time
creating their attributes and givingthem personality types, personnel,
individual personalities, individualways of talking and thinking
that make them leap off the page.
That's the ideal.
(11:20):
Yeah, but you don't always have timeto do that with every character.
So one of the things you can do is givethem a particular physical feature.
The guy with the mustache, the womanwith the really thick glasses, the
person who always carries that brightgreen umbrella with the duck head.
So that can help you to cheat ina short story in a way, and give
people characters that are memorablewithout having to go into a lot of.
(11:44):
Character development for them.
Some examples that I came up withfor this, there was the barista on
friends with the shock of white hair.
He was very distinctive.
If you can even do it with maincharacters, the doctor and doctor who
always has an extravagant, flappy longcoat in most of their interactions.
Columbo carries his raincoator wears his raincoat.
Aragorn has his sword.
(12:06):
Captain America has his shield.
And then for a sadderand vivid example of.
A secondary character who's never namedthe little girl in Chandler's list,
who's the only spark of color in thewhole black and white film, her red coat.
And then we see it at the end, of course,and it's not a happy ending there.
The children's gifts in Narnia, even ifyou were confused about which of the boys
(12:30):
or which of the girls he was referring to,the fact that they had those individual
gifts would let you quickly reorient,oh, that's Lucy, or, oh, that's Susan.
Because she's got the ball with anobject that you give to somebody.
There's also the narrative possibilitythat if the reader ever sees that
(12:50):
object without the character nearby,they're going to assume some things.
They're going to beworried about the character.
If you see the character without thething that they always carry, that
has narrative possibilities as well.
Make a list of objectsthat people could carry.
Yeah, or physical features, which youmight use to distinguish between two
Bain characters or a walk-on character.
(13:12):
Just, to give you some more color.
For your stories so that theydon't end up becoming radio plays.
Actually radio plays is a terribleexample to use 'cause they usually
have fully artists doing soundeffects and all that kinda stuff.
A two-hander play on a blankstage, you don't want all of
your stories to end up that way.
So if you struggle with setting andgrounding your story in reality,
(13:33):
giving your characters physicalobjects or features that you
can refer to is a good way to.
Give them character without having togo too deeply into character sheets.
And we don't have time for that.
We don't always have time for that,and not every character needs that.
So a list of physical objects orphysical features that your characters
(13:56):
and your secondary characterscan be identified by quickly.
Now, day four of last week, I asked youto make a list of personality traits.
Now this is different from.
The character development stuffwe did in earlier in the week a
little bit though it may overlap.
But I want you to, it's not so much aboutinternal or external features of your
(14:20):
character, but more about the actionsthat a character takes without thinking.
So the external signsmaybe of an internal value.
Of your character.
So I'm sure you have people inyour life who always react a
certain way to certain things.
Think about them, if a person thatyou know always expects the worst.
(14:43):
That's the kinda thing that I'mtalking about, personality trait.
The best thing in the worldcould happen and they're waiting
for the disaster to follow.
They can't get comfortable withsomething good happening to them.
That's a personality trait.
So I think one of the ways to do this isto think about personality traits that
drive you up the wall about people maybethat you love, maybe that you just, maybe
(15:05):
that you work with, maybe that, the reasonI don't like to dwell in the negative
too much, but one of the reasons too.
Think about personality traits thatdrive you batty in other people is
that it evokes a strong emotion andstrong emotions that are easy to
access, can make it really easy foryou to write vividly about them.
(15:28):
So person, and we tend to feelstrongly negatively towards people.
A little.
If you can think of personalitytraits that absolutely delight you
about people, please do that as well.
I'm not saying that you have to writemiserable stories or angry stories
because you've thought about characters,character traits that drive you crazy.
I'm saying that you can use themto make your characters more vivid.
(15:53):
During the challenge or in anyof your writing you can use it
not just as a character that's avillain, but you can use someone
with this kind of character trait.
They can be comic relief.
This character trait of theirs canbe something that can be reformed.
Usually it was goingto have to be done by them.
So you can give it to your maincharacters if you're, if you find
(16:14):
that your main characters lack a flaw,giving them a character trait that is
a little bit less than desirable, thatcomes up in certain situations and.
He helps them to sabotagetheir own success unthinkingly.
So if you always go, oh that's justour luck and you're always looking
for the bad luck, you fail to noticethe times when things are going wrong.
(16:39):
And they've donescientific studies on this.
They put they asked people ifthey felt lucky or unlucky.
They put a $20 bill on theground outside the test room.
And overwhelmingly, the people whosaid that they gen generally in
life felt lucky were the ones wholooked down and saw the $20 bill.
The people who gen who, whogenerally consider themselves to
be unlucky, mostly didn't see it.
(16:59):
They were.
Not as open to good experiences.
So that's the thing that your charactercould decide to reform about themselves
or the experiences of your story couldlead them to reform about themselves.
So that is something that Iwant you to make a list of.
Oh.
And for bonus points, you could listthree ways for each of those traits to
(17:21):
be subverted, changed, used for comicrelief or otherwise turned around.
So whether it's going to be somethingthey do for themselves, whether it's
something that someone does for them,whether it's the circumstances of your
story, think about ways that a particularcharacter trait could be turned around.
On the final day of this week, I giveyou a tiny task about character speech.
This is one of the things that willnot come as a surprise to you because
(17:44):
it comes up in a lot of discussionsabout how to get ideas and how to
spark your writing, and it's it'sto, to listen to other people.
The twist on this one is thatI would like you to list five
expressions that people in your life.
Overuse.
There's I shared a GIF from themovie office space where some,
the woman in the office says,somebody's got a case of the Mondays.
(18:07):
Now, these will probably change duringyour life because some certain car,
certain phrases gain currency in popularcar culture until they get overused,
and then they become ridiculous.
But there could be.
Anything, somebody in your life overuses aphrase and it gets to the point where you
almost twitch when you hear them say it.
Or it may be that you're like, oh,my granny always said that and I'm
(18:28):
really happy to hear, hear it again.
So there's different ways that youcan do this, but there's all these
spaces, all these phrases where peopleuse them as a verbal tick, and I want
you to write down five of them so thatyou have them ready to go when you.
Start writing your stories.
It's another way todifferentiate your characters.
(18:49):
Maybe one character carries an umbrellaall everywhere they go, whether
it's rainy or not, or sunny or not.
And one person always says, bless yourheart, it could be anything like that.
All of these things help us to deepenand flesh out even quick stories.
And again, just having this list of.
(19:11):
Resources at your fingertips beforestory of day may starts is going to
be something you will not regret.
Next week, I'm going to besending out tiny tasks that will
build the right mindset for you.
Part of what Story of Day Mayis about building the practice.
It's about teaching yourself tokeep going when the day is good
(19:35):
and when the day is less good.
And next week we're going to focus on.
The things that will undermine yourefforts to get through the challenge
or any writing challenge, whetherit's a getting to the end of a short
story, whether it's getting to theend of a novel, whether it's writing a
series, whether it's getting published.
There are.
Features of our brains that willundermine our efforts to keep going.
(19:56):
And we're going to look at them next week.
We're going to stare directly at themand we are going to defang them by
doing some exercises, tiny exercisesthat make you aware of the reasons
why you are not succeeding at anygiven point the way you would like to.
It will make you feel better aboutthe fact that you're not just a loser.
(20:18):
This is actually how human brains work.
And that you're really normal and it willgive you some techniques for overcoming
them or learning to live with them andlearning to coexist with some of them
and learning to just dismiss some ofthem in ways that are healthy, that are
not about bottling up your emotions.
We will talk about ways to.
(20:38):
Cement and make sure that youare turning up for your writing.
We'll talk about ways that we canmake it more fun, that every day
you're going to wake up wantingto show up for your writing.
It's not going to feel like a grind whenyou go through some of these techniques.
Next that I'm giving you, nextweek, I'm going to give you some
ways to deal with the fact and.
(21:02):
Empower yourself because of thefact that some days are going to be
less good than others, and there aretechniques you can use and put in place
in advance that mean that if you have abad day, it's not the end of the world.
And once we've done all that, we'regoing to start thinking about what your
rules for StoryADay May are going to be.
(21:22):
And if you're not participating instory a day, you can still use this
to create some rules for yourself, forwhatever you're writing is going to be
over the next few months, over the nextfew years, and probably shorter term
is better as you're building this newpractice that fits in with your life.
As it is today, not someday.
So come over to the blog andcheck out all of these exercises.
(21:46):
Make sure that you're signed upfor the challenge because signing
up for the challenge gets you allof these emails every day, every
weekday in your inbox, and do them.
Don't just read them, actually do them.
I heard somebody the other day, I waslistening, overhearing a conversation
and somebody was talking about thefact that they weren't ready to jump
in and try the thing that we werebeing taught how to do because they
(22:08):
were just gathering information.
I'm like, that's not how you do stuff.
That's not how, that's nothow we learn to do things.
We learn by doing.
You can learn all the theory in the world,but if you only ever learn the theory of
swimming and you never get in the waterthe first time you get in the water, you
are not going to be an Olympic swimmer.
You need to feel it.
You need to feel it in your body whenyou're trying to learn a new skill.
(22:31):
And that is true of writingas much as anything.
And you have to try out these techniques.
You can't just sit there and go, ohyes, I'll think about characters, write
them down, go through the process of.
Letting your brain slow down a littlebit as you type, or you write and make
connections and train your brain tofocus on this one task, so that next
(22:54):
month your brain will have practice infocusing and it'll be able to, you'll
be able to focus for as long as ittakes you to write a scene or a story.
So practice.
Do the exercises.
Tell your friends, get them to sign upand do the exercises because aren't you
sick of listening to 'em talking about howthey wish they could write, they wish they
had time to write, they'll write one day.
(23:14):
Oh, they, get them to sign up forthe challenge and get some practice.
If you know somebody who is always sayingthey want to write, get 'em on board.
Get 'em to sign up.
Story aday.org and.
You work through your exercises,get ready, have fun, and I will
see you back here next week.
Keep writing.
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, Julie, from Story A Day
here with your podcast in April of 2025.
We are inevitably talking about warmingup for the StoryADay May challenge
coming up, whether or not you're goingto participate in the challenge,
and whatever rules you decide to setfor yourself during the challenge.
All of this warmup stuff is designedto be useful to you during, before the
(00:24):
challenge, during the challenge, and also.
Any time that you are doing a writing.
Push anytime that you wantto get some writing done.
One of the secrets of writing isnot, is that it's not really about
whether you can string grammaticallycorrect sentences together.
The thing that's going to makethe difference is whether or not
(00:46):
you're, you can allow yourself.
To do the work, and one of the bestways to allow yourself to do the work
is to allow yourself to have some fun.
Now, I'm on vacation this week, which iswhy I'm recording this from a hotel room.
If you're watching the video, you can seethat I'm not in my normal environment.
I'm having a lot of fun, and it's.
Intentional.
I've taken this week away beforeStoryADay May to go somewhere where I'm
(01:08):
surrounded by stuff that's unfamiliarto get my creative juices going to
celebrate my anniversary as well.
30 years, woohoo us.
Anyway.
Play is hugely underrated,especially in those cultures.
Certain cultures, certain countriesmaybe that have that Protestant
work ethic, maybe that have,other societal conditions on them.
(01:32):
Underrate play.
And part of the point of StoryADayMay is to allow you to play.
Now, next week I'm going to bring youexercises that have a lot to do with your
mindset, but this week, in week two of ourprep month, I sent out emails that were.
E encouraging you to do tiny tasksevery day, that would help you with the
(01:58):
technical writing part of the challenge.
So there's nothing worse than havingtime, having carved out all this
time to write and then getting tothe point where you are supposed to
write and being like, oh my goodness,I have to come up with everything.
I have to come up with an idea.
I have to come up with a character.
I have to come up with a setting.
I have to come up with a plot, and I'veonly got like today to do it, and then
I've got to do it all again tomorrow.
(02:18):
It's a lot.
The point of going at this pace is toencourage you to play and make a mess
and get comfortable with making a mess.
Also, to try things thatyou would never try.
Desperation is a wonderful motivator.
And so necessity is themother of invention.
Is that what I was trying to say?
No, desperation is a great motivator.
So in these first two weeks of April,I've been giving you exercises to do
(02:43):
that will build a. Collection of bits andpieces, building blocks if you want that
you can draw from during the challenge.
So here's what I sent you.
During the past week, if you weresigned up for the challenge, and if
you're on my mailing list, you would'vegot on the first day, weekday of last
(03:03):
week, you would've got this exerciseabout brainstorming characters.
So the point is to build.
Material that you can pull fromduring the challenge or whenever
you have time to sit down and write.
So here is the first task from last week,and it was about brainstorming characters.
Because prompts are great and I cangive you a writing prompt and you can
(03:23):
be like, yay, I'm going to write this.
But characters are really thebuilding block of the story.
Everything that, that your characterdecides is what drives the plot.
So having thought about the kinds ofcharacters that you would like to write.
Before the challenge begins can be useful.
So let's start making a list.
Let's make a list because asDonald Mass says, plot happens
(03:44):
outside, but story happens inside.
So what I was just saying aboutcharacters, every character
that choice a character makes,drives what happens in your plot.
If you have good characters, youdon't so much have to worry about
plot, which is something a lot ofpeople tell me they worry about.
And I certainly have done that myself.
So today, for a tinytask, create a list of.
Five characters who are quite like you.
(04:06):
In some way it makes it easyto write about them quickly.
So it's perfect for achallenge like story a day.
Me, you don't always want to writeabout characters who are like you
obviously, but if you only have afew minutes to sit down and write and
just look inside and say, what wouldthis character do if they were me?
So here are some ways acharacter might be like you.
They might be like cutein external features.
They might have red hairthat curls a little bit.
(04:28):
They might have freckles,they might be Scottish.
This is probably onlyapplying to a certain small.
Group of you.
I understand.
Whatever your.
Race, gender, socioeconomic status, jobtitle, your role at your work, your role
in your family, your role in your friendgroup, your height, your weight, your
(04:48):
athletic ability all of those things.
Your hair color, like I mentioned.
All of these things could be a way inwhich your character is like you, and
then you have a lifetime of experiencesof being like that to draw on to.
Color, how you have yourcharacter to react in the story.
Other ways that your character mightbe like you are internal aspects.
(05:10):
All the things I listed before areexternal internal aspects are more about
how introverted or extroverted you are.
What's your ability with math?
Maybe you're a math whiz,maybe you're afraid of it.
How do you react to stressful situations?
Not how you would like toreact, but genuinely how do you
react to stressful situations?
What's the likelihood that you'll stand upfor someone in an argument, maybe somebody
(05:34):
who isn't able to stand up for themselves?
What's your level of self-control?
What are your preferences for whatyou like to do in your free time?
What are your feelings aboutpeople who are different from you?
Do they worry you?
Do they scare you, or areyou delighted to meet them?
What's your willingnessto fit into society?
Are you, what are youwilling to do to fit in?
And what's it, what's a groupthat you would look at and go,
(05:55):
oh, I belong with them, whichis a different thing altogether.
So these are more internal drivers.
There's lots more you could think about.
Those are just some things to get yourideas your thought processes started.
What.
Five characters could you come up withwho share something in common with
you that you can draw from when youcome across a problem next month or
when you have a moment to sit down andwrite four bonus points on this one.
(06:18):
Make a list of ways that thosethings about you frustrate you.
And delight you.
So these are things that are goingto give you conflict in your story.
They're going to give you an opportunityto explore the character and make them
do things that will drive the plot.
And because they're coming from insideor from your experience of life, they're
(06:39):
going to be easy for you to draw onand think about how you might use them.
Think about how you might usethem to create internal and
external conflicts in the story.
These are tiny stories for writing,but it's worth thinking if you
make a list of this stuff ahead oftime, you don't have to use it all.
You get to look at your sheet oryour notebook or your spreadsheet
(07:00):
or your document on the day thatyou have to write a story and
go, oh my character has red hair.
She was called carrot top when she wasyounger, and it made her really defensive
about people commenting on her hair.
Therefore, in my story, when someonedoes this, she will do that, right?
There's an article at the site calledCreating Compelling Characters.
You can use the search box, orif I remember, I'll put the link
(07:22):
in the notes and that's yourfirst task, your second task.
And you can do these on different days.
You don't have to do them all.
Today is another one aboutbrainstorming a character.
And again, this is notgoing to shock you.
I'm going to get you to do thesame thing you just did, but.
Making a list of five characterswho are very unlike you in
all of those external ways.
(07:43):
Height, weight, hair, color, job, rolein the family, and the internal ways.
Extroversion, introversion,stress, reaction willingness to
help others, that kinda thing.
For this one, it can be really helpfulto think of specific people who are very
unlike you people in your life or peoplein the public life who you either admire.
(08:05):
Or not so much admire because they'revery they're different from you
in ways that violate your values,maybe, or they're different from you
in ways that you find aspirational.
I would like to be like thatperson and then do the same
thing again for those characters.
Think about how each of those, if you haveplenty, if you have time think about how
(08:26):
each of those aspects of those characterswho are unlike you might lead to.
Conflict in the story.
How could having, a differentlevel of extroversion versus
introversion help or harm a character?
That is very differentfrom your experience.
(08:47):
I noticed during COVID that thereare a lot of extroverts who did not
thrive and they were really fidgety andunhappy because they weren't getting,
especially, there were some teachersat my kids' school who I was always
in awe of how much energy they had andhow much, how many activities they did.
And I was like, how do youpossibly pull that off?
That's so admirable.
(09:08):
And then during Covid,I saw them not do well.
They were a little bit moreneedy than I'd ever seen them.
They were trying to get everyone torally around and come to group calls
and for activities and things like that.
And I thought, oh, it's notthat they're better than me
because I need the downtime.
It's that they get their energyfrom their extroversion, from their
interaction with other people and.
(09:30):
When you take that away, itcreates conflict for them.
So characters, lists of characterswho are like you, unlike you.
The specific ways that they're likeyou, the specific ways that they're
unlike you, internal, external.
And then if you have a moment how eachof those things or some of those things
are potential for conflict in yourstory, what could you do to take away
(09:51):
or heighten or otherwise play with thosefactors that would create difficulties
for your character and think internal and.
External.
Alright, ready for more?
You can pause this and come backto it, but if you're ready for more
on day three of this past week,IGA asked you to make a list of 10
accessories or physical featuresthat you can give to your characters.
(10:16):
So in a short story, it's importantto orient your reader quickly.
It's one of the reasons that we tellpeople not to give four characters
names starting with M because thereader might blip over the names on
a fast reading and get, then laterin the story, get confused about.
Which one was Mary and whichone was Margaret, because they
(10:37):
didn't pay attention to it.
So giving your characters not justa name with a different letter at
the beginning of it, which is good.
You can give them physical things thatwill, that they're always holding.
So somebody always carries an umbrella,somebody, a particular umbrella with a
duck on the handle, or a deer stalker ora, these things are used in fiction too.
(10:59):
To tell people which characterthey're looking at a glance.
So with main characters, I want, ofcourse for you to spend some time
creating their attributes and givingthem personality types, personnel,
individual personalities, individualways of talking and thinking
that make them leap off the page.
That's the ideal.
(11:20):
Yeah, but you don't always have timeto do that with every character.
So one of the things you can do is givethem a particular physical feature.
The guy with the mustache, the womanwith the really thick glasses, the
person who always carries that brightgreen umbrella with the duck head.
So that can help you to cheat ina short story in a way, and give
people characters that are memorablewithout having to go into a lot of.
(11:44):
Character development for them.
Some examples that I came up withfor this, there was the barista on
friends with the shock of white hair.
He was very distinctive.
If you can even do it with maincharacters, the doctor and doctor who
always has an extravagant, flappy longcoat in most of their interactions.
Columbo carries his raincoator wears his raincoat.
Aragorn has his sword.
(12:06):
Captain America has his shield.
And then for a sadderand vivid example of.
A secondary character who's never namedthe little girl in Chandler's list,
who's the only spark of color in thewhole black and white film, her red coat.
And then we see it at the end, of course,and it's not a happy ending there.
The children's gifts in Narnia, even ifyou were confused about which of the boys
(12:30):
or which of the girls he was referring to,the fact that they had those individual
gifts would let you quickly reorient,oh, that's Lucy, or, oh, that's Susan.
Because she's got the ball with anobject that you give to somebody.
There's also the narrative possibilitythat if the reader ever sees that
(12:50):
object without the character nearby,they're going to assume some things.
They're going to beworried about the character.
If you see the character without thething that they always carry, that
has narrative possibilities as well.
Make a list of objectsthat people could carry.
Yeah, or physical features, which youmight use to distinguish between two
Bain characters or a walk-on character.
(13:12):
Just, to give you some more color.
For your stories so that theydon't end up becoming radio plays.
Actually radio plays is a terribleexample to use 'cause they usually
have fully artists doing soundeffects and all that kinda stuff.
A two-hander play on a blankstage, you don't want all of
your stories to end up that way.
So if you struggle with setting andgrounding your story in reality,
(13:33):
giving your characters physicalobjects or features that you
can refer to is a good way to.
Give them character without having togo too deeply into character sheets.
And we don't have time for that.
We don't always have time for that,and not every character needs that.
So a list of physical objects orphysical features that your characters
(13:56):
and your secondary characterscan be identified by quickly.
Now, day four of last week, I asked youto make a list of personality traits.
Now this is different from.
The character development stuffwe did in earlier in the week a
little bit though it may overlap.
But I want you to, it's not so much aboutinternal or external features of your
(14:20):
character, but more about the actionsthat a character takes without thinking.
So the external signsmaybe of an internal value.
Of your character.
So I'm sure you have people inyour life who always react a
certain way to certain things.
Think about them, if a person thatyou know always expects the worst.
(14:43):
That's the kinda thing that I'mtalking about, personality trait.
The best thing in the worldcould happen and they're waiting
for the disaster to follow.
They can't get comfortable withsomething good happening to them.
That's a personality trait.
So I think one of the ways to do this isto think about personality traits that
drive you up the wall about people maybethat you love, maybe that you just, maybe
(15:05):
that you work with, maybe that, the reasonI don't like to dwell in the negative
too much, but one of the reasons too.
Think about personality traits thatdrive you batty in other people is
that it evokes a strong emotion andstrong emotions that are easy to
access, can make it really easy foryou to write vividly about them.
(15:28):
So person, and we tend to feelstrongly negatively towards people.
A little.
If you can think of personalitytraits that absolutely delight you
about people, please do that as well.
I'm not saying that you have to writemiserable stories or angry stories
because you've thought about characters,character traits that drive you crazy.
I'm saying that you can use themto make your characters more vivid.
(15:53):
During the challenge or in anyof your writing you can use it
not just as a character that's avillain, but you can use someone
with this kind of character trait.
They can be comic relief.
This character trait of theirs canbe something that can be reformed.
Usually it was goingto have to be done by them.
So you can give it to your maincharacters if you're, if you find
(16:14):
that your main characters lack a flaw,giving them a character trait that is
a little bit less than desirable, thatcomes up in certain situations and.
He helps them to sabotagetheir own success unthinkingly.
So if you always go, oh that's justour luck and you're always looking
for the bad luck, you fail to noticethe times when things are going wrong.
(16:39):
And they've donescientific studies on this.
They put they asked people ifthey felt lucky or unlucky.
They put a $20 bill on theground outside the test room.
And overwhelmingly, the people whosaid that they gen generally in
life felt lucky were the ones wholooked down and saw the $20 bill.
The people who gen who, whogenerally consider themselves to
be unlucky, mostly didn't see it.
(16:59):
They were.
Not as open to good experiences.
So that's the thing that your charactercould decide to reform about themselves
or the experiences of your story couldlead them to reform about themselves.
So that is something that Iwant you to make a list of.
Oh.
And for bonus points, you could listthree ways for each of those traits to
(17:21):
be subverted, changed, used for comicrelief or otherwise turned around.
So whether it's going to be somethingthey do for themselves, whether it's
something that someone does for them,whether it's the circumstances of your
story, think about ways that a particularcharacter trait could be turned around.
On the final day of this week, I giveyou a tiny task about character speech.
This is one of the things that willnot come as a surprise to you because
(17:44):
it comes up in a lot of discussionsabout how to get ideas and how to
spark your writing, and it's it'sto, to listen to other people.
The twist on this one is thatI would like you to list five
expressions that people in your life.
Overuse.
There's I shared a GIF from themovie office space where some,
the woman in the office says,somebody's got a case of the Mondays.
(18:07):
Now, these will probably change duringyour life because some certain car,
certain phrases gain currency in popularcar culture until they get overused,
and then they become ridiculous.
But there could be.
Anything, somebody in your life overuses aphrase and it gets to the point where you
almost twitch when you hear them say it.
Or it may be that you're like, oh,my granny always said that and I'm
(18:28):
really happy to hear, hear it again.
So there's different ways that youcan do this, but there's all these
spaces, all these phrases where peopleuse them as a verbal tick, and I want
you to write down five of them so thatyou have them ready to go when you.
Start writing your stories.
It's another way todifferentiate your characters.
(18:49):
Maybe one character carries an umbrellaall everywhere they go, whether
it's rainy or not, or sunny or not.
And one person always says, bless yourheart, it could be anything like that.
All of these things help us to deepenand flesh out even quick stories.
And again, just having this list of.
(19:11):
Resources at your fingertips beforestory of day may starts is going to
be something you will not regret.
Next week, I'm going to besending out tiny tasks that will
build the right mindset for you.
Part of what Story of Day Mayis about building the practice.
It's about teaching yourself tokeep going when the day is good
(19:35):
and when the day is less good.
And next week we're going to focus on.
The things that will undermine yourefforts to get through the challenge
or any writing challenge, whetherit's a getting to the end of a short
story, whether it's getting to theend of a novel, whether it's writing a
series, whether it's getting published.
There are.
Features of our brains that willundermine our efforts to keep going.
(19:56):
And we're going to look at them next week.
We're going to stare directly at themand we are going to defang them by
doing some exercises, tiny exercisesthat make you aware of the reasons
why you are not succeeding at anygiven point the way you would like to.
It will make you feel better aboutthe fact that you're not just a loser.
(20:18):
This is actually how human brains work.
And that you're really normal and it willgive you some techniques for overcoming
them or learning to live with them andlearning to coexist with some of them
and learning to just dismiss some ofthem in ways that are healthy, that are
not about bottling up your emotions.
We will talk about ways to.
(20:38):
Cement and make sure that youare turning up for your writing.
We'll talk about ways that we canmake it more fun, that every day
you're going to wake up wantingto show up for your writing.
It's not going to feel like a grind whenyou go through some of these techniques.
Next that I'm giving you, nextweek, I'm going to give you some
ways to deal with the fact and.
(21:02):
Empower yourself because of thefact that some days are going to be
less good than others, and there aretechniques you can use and put in place
in advance that mean that if you have abad day, it's not the end of the world.
And once we've done all that, we'regoing to start thinking about what your
rules for StoryADay May are going to be.
(21:22):
And if you're not participating instory a day, you can still use this
to create some rules for yourself, forwhatever you're writing is going to be
over the next few months, over the nextfew years, and probably shorter term
is better as you're building this newpractice that fits in with your life.
As it is today, not someday.
So come over to the blog andcheck out all of these exercises.
(21:46):
Make sure that you're signed upfor the challenge because signing
up for the challenge gets you allof these emails every day, every
weekday in your inbox, and do them.
Don't just read them, actually do them.
I heard somebody the other day, I waslistening, overhearing a conversation
and somebody was talking about thefact that they weren't ready to jump
in and try the thing that we werebeing taught how to do because they
(22:08):
were just gathering information.
I'm like, that's not how you do stuff.
That's not how, that's nothow we learn to do things.
We learn by doing.
You can learn all the theory in the world,but if you only ever learn the theory of
swimming and you never get in the waterthe first time you get in the water, you
are not going to be an Olympic swimmer.
You need to feel it.
You need to feel it in your body whenyou're trying to learn a new skill.
(22:31):
And that is true of writingas much as anything.
And you have to try out these techniques.
You can't just sit there and go, ohyes, I'll think about characters, write
them down, go through the process of.
Letting your brain slow down a littlebit as you type, or you write and make
connections and train your brain tofocus on this one task, so that next
(22:54):
month your brain will have practice infocusing and it'll be able to, you'll
be able to focus for as long as ittakes you to write a scene or a story.
So practice.
Do the exercises.
Tell your friends, get them to sign upand do the exercises because aren't you
sick of listening to 'em talking about howthey wish they could write, they wish they
had time to write, they'll write one day.
(23:14):
Oh, they, get them to sign up forthe challenge and get some practice.
If you know somebody who is always sayingthey want to write, get 'em on board.
Get 'em to sign up.
Story aday.org and.
You work through your exercises,get ready, have fun, and I will
see you back here next week.
Keep writing.
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