Wednesday, 15 May 2013

All of Your Characters Are Emotional Wrecks (JuNoWriMo #5)

It's May 15th which means we are officially in the countdown to JuNoWriMo. 15 days to set, cast and direct a novel before you can start writing. How are you guys doing?

Hopefully you know who your main characters are (if you don't yet, don't panic) and that will make today's assignment a lot easier. Last week I gave you this GIANT worksheet for your main characters. Kudos if you were able to fill it all out but we're going to go back to it in a way.

If you want to look at any of my past JuNoWriMo posts just look here

One of the sections in the worksheet asked how your character reacted to specific emotions. This is important to know because emotions are sort of the bedrock of all decision making that your character is going to make.
 

Shocking I know.

As we're 15 days away from a really long writing marathon now is the time to start getting into the habit of writing everyday (if you don't already). So your writing challenge for today is to get up close and personal with your characters. If you don't know your characters then you can use yourself as a model - it'll be a learning experience.

Your job is to look at the following list of emotions and describe physically how your character feels. None of this "Jane was sad" crap. How was she sad? Is she the stoic, single tear, fist clenched type or is she three seconds from collapsing into a puddle of goo, mouth open, wailing until the neighbours call the cops? It's good to know these things. And like I said, if you aren't sure who your characters are, then you can use yourself or make up a random character and who knows what you'll learn.

Ready?
  • Happy
  • Sad
  • Angry
  • Excited
  • Embarrassed
  • Jealous
  • Frustrated
  • Scared
How are your characters coming along? How excited are you for JuNoWriMo?

2 comments:

  1. Oh, this is really good! I like the idea of desribing each character's physical reactions to their emotions ahead of time. That should make writing them smoother. Or at least I hope it will.

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  2. Great post! I'm still working through all the questions in the last one. I think my characters are coming along pretty well. The plot... that's a different story.

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