Yoga for the Mind Part 2: Building Characters
By: Anna Hallett, Director, The Writing Party
In this episode of Yoga for the Mind, we will focus on building characters. Inspiration for a story, book, or poem often stems from a real person you know or see out in the world. You have probably played that game in which you guess a stranger’s life story. Even if a full story does not come from such an observation, it is a useful exercise for your imagination and a helpful way to create a stock of characters ready for future writing.
Each of the Yoga for the Mind Exercises below will help you to flex your creative muscle and practice forging well-rounded characters.
Yoga for the Mind Exercises
- Write a story about a person you see in a print advertisement. Describe the person and why he/she uses the product in the ad.
- Write a fictional text message exchange between two strangers you see out in the world.
- Write a playlist for a character. Think about why each song is meaningful to your character.
- Imagine a character who is an artist. Draw, paint, compose, or choreograph the art your character would create.
- Choose a name randomly from a baby book or use a random name generator online and write a character sketch for that name. Give him or her a childhood, education, family, friends, job, likes and dislikes, ambitions, and problems.
- Write about a person who is the opposite of you except you share one important trait.
- Write a newspaper article about a character you read in a book recently.
- Create a character with one trait taken to the extreme. For example, she is not just hardworking, she pushes herself to overwork.
- Write a love letter to a character from a book.
- Take an historical figure and create a character with the same traits. Then put that character in the world today. For example, Abraham was tall, bearded, and self-educated and he hosted today’s most popular podcast….
In the comments, share your idea for a Yoga for the Mind writing exercise.
For more Yoga for the Mind inspiration, read Yoga for the Mind Part 1: Exercising Your Creativity.
For more writing ideas, order The Writing Party Inspirations or contact us to schedule a Writing Party event in your area, for your private group, or as a corporate team building event.
To see other writing inspiration ideas like Yoga for the Mind, check out The Writing Party Articles Page.