November 2nd
What characters are going to be in your story?
Don’t stress if you don’t know yet. You just start with your plot.
When you think of your story, whose thought and actions will you be writing about? Those are your characters. Who needs to be the one that you follow? A hero? A villain? A poor bystander caught up in a mess?
Still can’t picture it? We have another fun tool – an AI Character Generator. Just try it out and see what kind of character pops up. Will they fit as the Protagonist? Antagonist? Side Character?
Ah. If you aren’t familiar with Protagonist and Antagonist, it’s okay. Those are just the technical terms for the main character (Protagonist) and the conflict creator (Antagonist). The Antagonist doesn’t even have to be a character! A natural disaster would create enough conflict to be the antagonist in any novel. Read more about basic types of characters.
The AI Character Generator will give you a lot of information about their made-up idea. For your story, you can just stick to the basics. Who is your character, what do they look like, and what is their personality?
If you want, use a Character Building Sheet to help get down your characters.
Non-Fiction
Wait! What if you are doing a non-fiction book. Do you still need characters? Yes!
When you are writing non-fiction you stick to the facts. There aren’t characters you created unless you have a fun “tutorial character” that follows the reader through and points out different facts. What you do have is your voice.
The voice of non-fiction can be like a professor dispensing knowledge. Most textbooks are written this way. But some will narrate the information in a different way. Like how Alton Brown took cooking and turned it into a funny science experiment through storytelling. He explained facts all the time, but in a fun way that made people look differently a cooking and learn a lot more about the science involved.
What voice will your non-fiction story have?
Finish!
Do you know who you’re going to write and follow in your fictional story? Do you have a voice picked out for your non-fiction book? You’re done!
Go on to Day 3 (It will be plot outline, but don’t be intimidated. The basics we’ll need is a beginning, a problem, solving it, and an ending. Keep that in mind and be ready.)
Want an Example?
That story generator has a lot of information. Screenshot it to refer to later!
We got this out of all the information the Character Generator gave us: “Clara Thompson. A dark-haired approachable woman in her late-twenties. She loves high-waisted jeans and silver hoop earrings, but doesn’t like any other jewelry. You’ll find her wavey hair trailing behind her as she bounces around in her sneakers or ankle boots. She’s upbeat and creative, loves thinking outside the box. She’ll always be trying out new recipes, and doesn’t mind the many failures.”
(Go back to Day 1?)
The Badge Archive 