Character Development 5: C is for Change

[Prof. Sky Alton]

As we discussed in the previous exercise, change is crucial to prod your character into doing interesting things. However, it’s also useful as it prompts change in a character themselves. People often respond better to a character who undergoes some sort of maturation or mind-broadening process (or if you want to go the other way, someone who slowly unravels or becomes hardened).

How might one of the characters you’ve been working on change? It could be an element of their personality growing stronger, a lesson they learn or a shift in their priorities. It doesn’t need to be huge and it doesn’t need to be for the better. What do you think, as a writer, you’d have to do to cause this change in them? What events or emotional disruption might trigger it? What consequences might it cause for them going forward?

Once again, your thoughts should be 200 words or more. If you’re struggling to make one character stretch that far, feel free to do it for several or even imagine multiple directions a single character could go in. Just because you think a character needs to change in one direction doesn’t mean it’s the only possibility that exists.

You’ll earn 20 beans for completing this prompt as well as it counting towards the chance to snag our shiny Quill and Ink award.

There is no deadline as such for these prompts but if you’d like it to count towards your chance of earning the award for a specific year, we’ll need it by the end of that school year. If you’re comfortable sharing, then post below. If not, email your story to us via hol.bookclub @ gmail.com (without the spaces). Oh and remember it’s a good idea to check through your piece carefully for spelling and grammatical errors as they make it harder for people to properly enjoy your work.