Day 4

Day 4
Today’s draw of the free write was clouds. I listed words and phrases about clouds. Clouds have a real impact on peoples emotions but my list didn’t make it that far before the five minutes was up. Making the list for me was a stop-and-go process. Thinking back it probably would have been better to write how I reacted to different clouds.

Day # 4 on my fifteen day plan was to write about an ‘event’ in my character’s life for twenty minutes. A story starts to form here without the problem of it being a good story. I started with “the event that was the most life changing for Jake Riley was..” without having any idea how the sentence would end. Out popped “his parents left him and never came back..”. After twenty minutes of writing, I knew a lot of Jacob’s back story and something about the way he acts and thinks things through. Getting to know Jake is just like getting to know a co-worker, a little at a time by his speech, actions, and stories.

Try writing about an event in your character's life. It doesn't matter what event. Just let it happen and you'll learn a lot about your character.