Advanced English: 1&2 Medio. Creative Writing 4: Characters

Knowing and developing your characters, especially the main characters, is the most important part of your story. Your plot can be amazing but if readers don't feel attached or connected to your characters, they will lose interest in your story.

The Writing Process

The writing process are the stages you, as the author, go through when writing your story. They are the idea phase, the brain dump phase, the organization, the outline (all of the previous stages are a part of the planning/prewriting phase), first draft, edit, second draft, final edit, final draft.

• Idea phase and brain dump: This is where you throw down every idea that pops into your head onto paper. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense. You're just getting all the possibilities down to sort through them later. Here, your ideas don't have to be just words. They can be diagrams, graphs, pictures, drawings, charts, lists, dialogues, anything you need to help bring visualization to your ideas. 

• Organization: Now, you go through your ideas. Which ones are good enough to kee and which should you get rid of? Now, you need to put them in the order you want them to happen in your story. A timeline would be useful here. 

• Outline: Now, you take each of the major points from your timeline and you work out all the details from the beginning to the end. The outline is one of the most important parts of the writing process. The outline is the guide to your story and will help you from getting stuck or not knowing what to do next with your story. 

• First draft: This is the first complete writing of your story, beginning to end.

• Edit: This is where you go through your story start to finish and make all of the corrections needed such as grammar, spelling, and wording mistakes. The result of this edit is the second draft of your story. You then need to edit again, which is the second edit. 

• Final draft: This is your finished story that comes after you have made sure the story is as perfect as can be!

Here are some vocabulary when it comes to characters and character development!

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• Protagonist: The main character of a story. 
• Antagonist: A person who actively opposes or is hostile towards the protagonist. 
• Static Character: A character that doesn't change or grow throughout a story. 
• Dynamic Character: A character that changes/grows throughout a story. 

*It is important you write dynamic characters. We, as people, are affected by everything that happens in our lives. Hard times change who we are as a person. Not just in our thoughts but also in our habits and actions as well. Make sure your characters learn or grow from the things happening to them in the story. Static characters are boring and predictable. Make sure you write dynamic characters.*

It is important you know your characters backwards and forwards. Knowing your characters prevents you from getting writers black, which is when you get stuck writing and don't know how to continue your story. Knowing your characters very well and knowing how they will act in any situation will help you progress the plot.

Assignment: TWO PARTS

PART I: 
Fill out this character development sheet about your main character. If you have more than one main character then fill out this sheet for each character.

1. Character's Name:
2. Age:
3. Birthday: 
4. Physical Appearance:
5. Likes: 
6. Dislikes:
7. Family situation:
8. Favorite pastime hobby:
9. Strengths:
10. Weaknesses:
11. What is their biggest guilt or biggest secret:
12. What motivates your character:
13. What are their goals:
14. Habits:
15. Most important moment in their life:
16. Biggest fear:
17. Attitude/Personality:

PART II:
Now you must draw a picture of your character(s) next to their profile sheet! BOTH PARTS OF THIS ASSIGNMENT MUST BE TURNED IN AT THE SAME TIME or you will only receive half credit!

This assignment is due June 26th Friday. Our zoom meetings are at 12:30 PM. The ID is: 108-637-564. The password is english