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Characters are the most important part of narratives. Without characters, you don’t have a story and without good characters, no one wants to read your story. When students are writing fictional narratives they need to participate in character-building activities in order to create compelling characters that make their readers want to know more about these characters and sympathize with them. Students who don’t have a lot of experience with creating characters however may find the process to be overwhelming. This is why you need to break the process down with character-building activities.

 

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One of the most important aspects of building a character is figuring out what the core emotion of this character is. What do they feel the most strongly about? What is the one emotion that they would feel above all else? It’s this one emotion that will drive every decision they make. What’s more, it will also drive the way that your readers feel about the character. If you can figure out the emotion that’s at the core of your character, you have a much easier time determining everything else about them. The best way to create robust emotions for your character is to write a series of letters to yourself. In these letters, your character talks about all of their feelings and emotions. This is a great way to get inside your character’s head, get a clear understanding of what they’re feeling, and communicate those feelings to others.

 

It is also helpful for students to look at an emotion wheel that has more robust emotions on it instead of just happy, sad, angry, etc. It will allow students to break down exactly what their characters are feeling because emotions are very complex and there can be several parts to them.

Another great way to better understand your character is to write a story about them. This doesn’t have to be a long story, it can just be a few paragraphs of backstory that explains who your character is and what their life has been like up until this point. Writing a brief story about your character allows you to get inside their head and better understand their motivations, their values, and what they want out of life. A short story about your character is also a great tool if you ever get stuck during your narrative writing. Sometimes when students are writing a narrative, they’ll get to a point where they simply don’t know what their characters are going to do. This can be a frustrating situation. When you’ve written a short story about your character, you’re already very familiar with who they are and what they want. This means that you can easily write choices that line up with your character’s personality and goals.

 

If students are not ready to write a whole story from the perspective of their characters they can also do some storying boarding to help brainstorm and think about their characters more. A great place to do this online is storyboardthat.com. Students can also just may a low-tech one by drawing it down on paper.

 

The show not tell method is something that is brought up in writing all the time. It is the idea that you should show your readers what is happening and not just tell them what is happening. I love this video that really breaks it down. However, the main gist of it is that students should be using sensory language to develop their characters. I like to have students ask three questions when they are developing a character and this goes back to the idea of emotions and their characters. So I have them think of the emotions that their characters are feeling and have them ask: What does someone with this emotion do, say, and look like? This will help them really think of sensory language in their writing.

 

Finally, you can get inspiration for building your character from your own life. Think about your past and try to remember an event from your childhood or something that has happened to you recently. Now, try to put yourself in the shoes of the person who was involved in that event. What do they feel? What do they want? What are their hopes and dreams? When you put yourself in the shoes of someone else, you’re able to understand them better and create a more complex and interesting character. Doing this will also help you avoid stereotypes and help you create a more realistic character. Creating a character that your readers will fall in love with is no easy feat. It takes time, effort, and practice. In order to create characters that readers will connect with, you need to break down the process and use character-building activities to understand your character better.

 

If you want your kids to participate in some of their character-building activities as they learn how to be better writers. I have a great class for you. In the first week of my mastering essay writing class, we talk about narrative stories and do some of these character-building activities to sign up for this class click here.

 

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