The Writing Reader
Currently viewing the tag: "character sketch"
Send to Kindle
The things that really make people fuming mad tend to be things that we can rarely speak up about without blowing the problem out of proportion. This is why people are so glad to vent their anger when anyone brings up petty offenses. They’re finally in a situation when they can express the full frustration they feel. Everyone has had experience with these kind of minor irritations, so outrage over relatively minor stuff becomes huge. That outrage, of course, doesn’t solve the problem. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Add to your character sketch. What is your character really angry about? What are the minor annoyances that he or she talks about instead?
Journaling Prompt: What are you angry about that you can’t talk about?
Art Prompt: Outrage over Petty Offenses
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: How do you blow off the steam that builds up because you can’t effectively deal with your deepest issues? Give your audiences some strategies they can use.
Photo Credit: joshjanssen on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
Stephen Holmboe wore checked trousers with a matching loose-fitting jacket designed in the high-buttoned style. His cravat was wide and flowing, matching the solid off-white of his shirt. In short, he was quite the swell—but a swell who would have been out of style even a decade before. Mr. Holmboe’s manner of dressing his brilliant golden blond hair continued this motif. It was longer than was currently fashionable, as were his bushy side-whiskers and mustache. Curtseying to Mr. Holmboe’s bow, Jenny felt rather as if she were being introduced to an enormous ambulatory dandelion. –The Buried Pyramid, Jane Linskold
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a descriptive paragraph for one of your characters.
Journaling Prompt: How do people describe you?
Art Prompt: Swell
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about a person with a emphasis on physical description.
Photo Credit: BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
…parents from different social classes teach their children different lessons about interacting with institutions. …parents help to perpetuate inequalities not only through what they do for their children, such as equipping them with different resources or opportunities, but also through what they teach children to do for themselves. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Add to your character sketch. How did your protagonist’s parents teach social interaction and how does that affect your protagonist in your story? (Click through and read the entire article to learn how social class affects what parents teach children.)
Journaling Prompt: What is the most valuable lesson your parents taught you?
Art Prompt: Parent teaching Child
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the essential lessons that parents must teach their children.
Photo Credit: Nationaal Archief on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
The human mind can achieve fantastic things. One of them is ‘…our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance…’ – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Source: David Ropeik, Big Think)
Fiction Writing Prompt: What is your character ignoring about his or her ignorance? Add to your character sketch.
Journaling Prompt: What areas of ignorance do you prefer to ignore in your life?
Art Prompt: Denial of Ignorance
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the psychological phenomenon of denial.
Photo Credit: jungmoon on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
Cause-and-effect thinking is critical to human survival, Legare said. So it’s natural for people to find logic in supernatural rituals that emphasize repetition and procedural steps. If doing something once has some effect, then repeating it must have a greater effect. For example, if a mechanic says he inspected something five times, the frequency of his actions leads the customer to overestimate the effectiveness of his work. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Create a ritual for your character to use and then write a scene about it. Focus on the internal monologue.
Journaling Prompt: What rituals do you use?
Art Prompt: Supernatural Ritual
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the psychology of ritual. Include stories about the rituals used by famous people.
Photo Credit: rodolfoaraiza.com on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
Alphonse Liebermann proved to be short, wiry, and somewhere into his fifth decade. Bald as an egg, he sported the most magnificent eyebrows Neville had ever seen—bushy, even sweeping grey specimens that leapt to punctuate their owner’s every exclamation. They completely intimidated the German’s perfectly unexceptional mustache and, indeed, made it hard for one to remember that he had any other features at all. –Jane Linskold, The Buried Pyramid
Fiction Writing Prompt: Describe your character in detail.
Journaling Prompt: What physical feature of yourself do you like the most?
Art Prompt: Bushy Eyebrows
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Create a detailed description of a person in your next article.
Photo Credit: MMcQuade on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
Out of habit, out of respect, she cleared the stones, raked out the fire pit, and shifted such wood as was still usable into a new stack, splitting kindling. You had to leave things as you would hope to find them. -Kate Elliott, Shadowgate
Fiction Writing Prompt: Add to your character sketch. How does your character demonstrate respect in habitual ways?
Journaling Prompt: Write about a habit you developed to show respect.
Art Prompt: Habit and respect
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about a habit they can develop to pay it forward.
Photo Credit: swambo on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
Consumers frequently have to choose between options that satisfy very different and often competing goals. For example, you’re at a restaurant and that piece of chocolate cake displayed under the counter is talking to you. But your “fit self” thinks you should grab an apple instead. Or you’re out shopping and have to choose between two pairs of shoes. One pair is more stylish but the other is much more comfortable. Such situations are common and consumers who find themselves torn between two goals are the most susceptible to influence.
Goals initially ignored by consumers do not fade away, but will instead linger in the backs of our minds. During the time we ignore a particular goal, it will get stronger and eventually come to the surface. We can no longer ignore the goal and we then flip-flop between various options…
“Our study provides a glimpse into why consumers feel so much angst when they encounter choices with conflicting goals. Namely, the goal that appears to have been initially ignored finds new energy on the back burner and reasserts itself at the next earliest opportunity. In short, important goals are hard to ignore because ignoring them just makes them stronger,” the authors conclude. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: What goals does your protagonist have on the back burner that may be interfering with his or her focus on the primary goal for the storyline? Write a scene that shows the interference.
Journaling Prompt: What goals do you flip flop on? How do you deal with it?
Art Prompt: Consumer flip flop
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your readers about how goals that they ignore become stronger and how they can use this psychological quirk to attain their desires.
Photo Credit: faith goble on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
John Maynard Keynes said: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” -Leading at a Higher Level by Ken Blanchard
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story about a character that is trying to escape from an old idea that is strangling him or society.
Journaling Prompt: Write about an idea that it’s time for you to let go of.
Art Prompt: Escaping Ideas
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Persuade your audience that it is time to let go of an old set of beliefs in order to achieve a new way of living.
Photo Credit: Metaphox on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to Kindle
…cognitive scientists have discovered that the human brain has roughly two different ways of forming judgments: intuition and reflection. (They’re also called “System 1” and “System 2.”) Our intuition uses shortcuts and emotional cues, while reflection is what allows us to plan ahead and to reason abstractly about things like math, logic, and hypotheticals.
And it’s a common misconception that being unbiased means only using reflection. But in fact, your intuition is invaluable! Without its shortcuts, we’d go crazy trying to reflect carefully on every single little decision. And without its emotional cues, we’d be rudderless – we wouldn’t know what we cared about.
So it’s more accurate to think of “biases” as cases of imperfectly coordinating your intuition and reflection. – Julia Galef
Fiction Writing Prompt: Add to your character sketch. How open to intuition is your character? How does it affect his or her decisions?
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when you followed or failed to follow your intuition. What happened? What did you learn?
Art Prompt: Intuition
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the use of intuition vs. planning in business or in relationships.
Photo Credit: PraveenbenK on Flickr
Send to KindleWelcome to the Writing Reader
I believe that the most important thing about writing is to HAVE FUN! You can worry about things like commas, point of view, tenses, etc., later. Right now, just start writing!
If you respond to one of the prompts on your blog, be sure to come back here and put the link in the comment section for that prompt. Share your brilliance!
The Writing Reader Facebook Group
The Writing Reader on PinterestLink to the Writing Reader
