Michael Patrick
Exercise to create character inspira-
tion
Two pages.
On one page, pick a word which pleases you or
a word you like or a word which gives you pos-
itive connotations. On the other page pick a
word which annoys you or a word you dislike
one a word which gives you negative connota-
tions.
With 3 minutes per page, play a stream of con-
sciousness logical connections game: what is
the first word that comes into your head on
reading the previous word? E.g.: Dog, cat, tiger,
balm, weather, storm, thunder, strike, baseball
etc. Keep going, go as fast as you can, do not
think about it!
Spend 3 min on the first page and three min on
the second page.
Look at each sheet and see if any of the words
inspire you to create a character. It could be a
single word you use for inspiration or it could
be a lot. E.g.: From the list above, we might
have a baseball player who is scared of thunder
and keeps a tiger as a pet. Try and create two
separate characters; one from each list. Try and
think of what their relationship could be to each
other – do they know each other? What might
bring them together in the space of a play? What
are their wants and needs? Can they have con-
flicting wants and needs?
Character Description Questions
Creating characters – here is a list of questions
you can use to cement the idea of a character in
your head. This can be done very slowly and
methodically, really taking your time over it. A
more fun way is to do it as fast as possible and
try not to think too much. Just get answers down
as fast as you can – this will force you to make
decisions about your character. Afterwards, you
can go through all your answers again slower
and edit anything which doesn’t make sense or
which contradicts other things. But often when
writing very fast, we can make more surprising
discoveries.
Physical characteristics
1. What is their name?
2. What is their gender?
3. What is their ethnicity?
4. What is their age?
5. What is their date of birth?
6. What is their height?
7. What is their weight?
8. What colour are their eyes?
9. What colour is their hair?
10. What colour is their skin?
11. How is their posture?
12. How is their personal care?
13. What is their vocal quality?
14. How attractive are they?
External world
1. Is their mother still alive? What was her oc-
cupation? Are there any special characterist-
ics about their mother? What was the nature
of their relationship with their mother as they
were growing up, and what is their relation-
ship now?
2. Same as above for father.
3. Do they have any siblings? How many? Do
they share the same parents? Where are they
in the order of things?
4. Are there any other important relations in this
person’s life, either now or in the past? Who
was that relation and what was the nature of
their relationship?
5. What was the character’s lifestyle while
growing up? Where did they grow up and
what was it like?
6. Did they have any hobbies or interests?
7. Does your character carry any emotional
scars from past family life experiences?
8. What is the character’s marital status? If they
are married, for how long? If they’re di-
vorced, for how long and how did the split
affect them?
9. Do they have any children? What are their
names, ages, genders? What is the nature of
their relationship with their children?
10. Do they have any close or long-term friends?
Who are they? Describe the nature of their
relationship and briefly describe those
people? How important a role do these
friends play in their life?
Place in the community
1. Occupation: what do they do and how long
have they been doing it for? How does the
character feel about their job?
2. What is the character’s relationship like with
their boss or co-workers?
3. Where was your character educated? How
much education did they get?
4. What is their economic class? What is their
annual income?
5. Does your character have any political affili-
ations?
6. Does your character have any religious affili-
ation? If so, how active?
7. Are they a member of any other organisa-
tion?
8. Can you pinpoint exactly how they spend
their spare time? (This is important as it’s the
one area where the person has freedom to
choose). Do they like being on their own or
in the company of others?
9. What is their dream holiday and who would
it be with?
Internal world
1. How intelligent are they? This includes emo-
tional intelligence as well.
2. What is your character’s basic attitude to-
wards life?
3. How would you describe your character’s
personality? What would happen if areas of
their personality were pushed to the extreme?
4. How would you describe your character’s
general sense of self? Are they comfortable
with who they are?
5. What is their level of self-esteem and self-
confidence? Do they feel superior or inferior
to others, or somewhere in between?
6. What do they think when they look in the
mirror?
7. What is this character proud of, what are they
ashamed of?
8. What is the influence of their sexuality on
them?
9. What is the influence of their spiritual life on
them?
10. How strong is their sense of morality?
11. Does your character have any major secrets?
12. What are your character’s personal goals?
Are they realistic or unattainable? Are they
positive and life-affirming, or are they negat-
ive and self-destructive? Are they selfish?
How strongly does your character feel about
these goals?
13. Have they had any major disappointments in
life and if so, what are they?
14. What special quality or talent has your char-
acter got?
Blind date dialogue exercise
Get your character to answer the following
questions as if they were on a blind date.
1. How are you?
2. Tell me about yourself?
Another character exercise is to write down (as
fast as possible) 50 things your character re-
members and 20 things your character wants.
The key here again is to go as fast as possible,
and once you are finished, delete any bad ones
or ones that don’t make sense.
You should end up with maybe 10 things they
remember which are good, and 5 things they
want which are good.