Recently I visited the schools of two of my grandchildren. One of them was a middle school here in Michigan. Several of the kids in the school had seen me at other presentations talking about writing and books, so I wanted to do something different. And since I like to leave the kids with a writing starter, I devised a sheet about exploring a fictional character through some probing questions. Not your typical kinds of questions. These were questions about the hidden aspects of a life. These are the aspects that interest me the most.
Hopefully, this would make the young writers really think about character in a deeper way. After all, it is often what we have hidden that tells the most about us.
Some of the questions I like to think about in relation to creating a character are:
What does your character have hidden on a shelf in a closet?
Why is it hidden?
What does your character do when no one is looking?
What does your character really wish he or she could do over?
When does your character tell lies?
What would your character like to scream at the top of his/her lungs, but is too afraid to?
Just some things to think about . . .
Ciao!
Shutta
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Shutta Crum writes books for children and poetry for adults. She is also a storyteller, a lecturer and a librarian. In addition to her current eleven books she has three forthcoming books. Several of her articles about teaching and writing have appeared in professional journals. In 2005, she was honored by being one of eight authors invited to the White House for the Easter Egg Roll. In 2010 she was invited to tour American military base schools across Japan.
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