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46 Best Character Development Writing Exercises

Showing 46 writing exercises curated by Reedsy.

Page 5

Put Yourself In Someone Else's Shoes

Character Development

Choose a character and think of ways they'd react to things that happened during your (the writer's) day. Use your experiences, think how you reacted, and then how your character would have reacted. Possible events: cut off in traffic, caught in the rain, missed an important meeting, lost a valuable item.

Blind Date

Character Development

Your protagonist meets your villain for the first time - on a blind date. What happens?

The Best Day Ever

Character Development

Take your main character and describe the best day he/she has ever had. This is a prompt that will generate questions like, "Why did the character think that was their best day?"

It's All About Your Point of View

Character Development

Write a pivotal scene in your novel from a different character's POV. For instance: at a funeral, you may have written the grieving widow's thoughts and feelings. Write about that funeral from the deceased husband's POV, the eldest son's, or the step-sister's.

The Next Great Author

Character Development

Develop a character that's an author. Write a short story from the point of view of that author.

Somewhere Familiar

Character Development

Are you finding it difficult to get to know your fictional characters and/or differentiate them from yourself? Try this: Choose a character from your project and let her/him take a walk into a place you know well. Then describe this place from this character's perspective and ask yourself:

  1. What does (or doesn't) s/he notice?
  2. How does s/he feel about what she notices?What thoughts do the things s/he notices trigger in her/him? This can be memories, social critique, enjoyment or disgust etc.
  3. How do your character's impressions of, and responses to, the place differ from yours?

RBE | Golden Cat for You | 2025-02

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