Our First Challenge!!
Let's build a character
What’s up everyone, welcome to the creative club! It’s good to have you here. Hope everything is well with you and hope you’re having a great day. If not, I hope this can be a little break and give you something to have fun with.
This week’s challenge is character based.
In this challenge, I want you to develop a character. The character can be anything you can think of. Your character can be human, a cyborg, an alien, a rock, an animal, anything. Your character can be a bad ass, they can be sheltered, they can be nuanced, they can be whatever you want. Let your imagination run wild.
Why build a character?
I think it’s a fun exercise to get out of your own mind. It will be able to take you away from your current head space and shift your mind into a completely new environment. Allow yourself to explore something new in a different perspective.
Here’s some questions that can help you with your exploration:
What does your character do for fun? What does your character look like? What do they like to eat? What are their objectives? Can they do something superhuman? Do they have any special traits? What are their friends like? How about their family? Do they have any? What type of music do they like? And so on and so forth.
There’s so many other questions you can ask. Just get to know your character. Have fun with it. Be silly. Be serious. Just have fun with it. Who cares?! All we are doing is developing this character, what you do with this character past this exercise is up to you. We aren’t here to write a story. We aren’t here to build a world. We are just here to exercise our brain a bit through character development.
If you need some help getting started here’s a trait generator:
Character 1: Chris
My character lives in a future world where climate change has been figured out. The human race doesn’t need to worry about the end of the Earth. Life is pretty interesting in this world. Issues that worried our generation is not even a thought in this new generation. Life has been figured out.
My character is a 26 year old man who’s bored. He doesn’t have any problems and things have been figured out for him for generations. His path is pre-destined. He struggles with understanding what life is all about. There are no issues with where he is at.
“Why see the world, when you got the beach?” -Frank Ocean
One heirloom that has been passed down throughout his family has been a very rare ink dip pen. Pens over the generations have become more and more unnecessary. People just don’t physically write anymore. Pen companies across the world has been losing revenue each year to a point where they just saw it as a net loss and decided to just move into different industries.
The family doesn’t really think much of the pen. They just think it’s a cool little antique that could be extremely valuable as time passes.
His family works in the elevator industry. They are a local business that builds and fixes elevators.
Chris likes to doodle. He enjoys the time it takes to draw and see the drawings he makes physically in front of him as he puts pen to paper. As he goes about life, he keeps wondering if he wants to keep going up and down with the family business or if he should push the emergency stop button and draw himself a new future.
Character 2: Maurice
Maurice is a 30 year old cyborg who comes from a family of wealth. Maurice has been one that loves all of the greatest upgrades. His arms are made from titanium and are able to lift the heaviest of vehicles. No one really knows why Maurice brags about such a weird selling point, but that’s Maurice for you. Vehicles are scared of him. Women love him.
Women don’t really love him, they just use him for his family’s wealth. Don’t tell Maurice that or there’ll be some vehicle casualties.
Maurice went a little crazy with the upgrades. Genetically, he’s supposed to be around 5 foot 2 inches. But, he loves to get the 6 foot model upgrades. Something about not letting genetics get in the way of his full potential?
His arms reach down to his knees. It apparently is another sort of flex he loves to brag about. He kind of looks like when Spongebob wanted to show off his muscles at the Goo Lagoon.
The technology on his arms are pretty cool. They come with cup holders on his elbows. A multitool pops out of the forearm. He also has a built in fan that pops out of his shoulder to help cool him off during hot days. And that’s only naming a few. He bought the arms because of all of the utility listed, but didn’t really take into account how any of these features actually work. But hey, he feels like the man when he’s able to carry two large drinks and two large popcorns comfortably when he takes a date out to the movies.
Maurice is a quirky young man that no one truly understands, but he loves the things that he does fully. We hope one day that he finds his match who will appreciate Maurice and his love for carrying multiple drinks and picking up vehicles.
I don’t know what I just wrote about, but I had fun with it. I just became friends with Maurice and Chris. I had no clue who they were until now. Maurice is a strange one, but seems like a fun person to be around as long as I’m not driving. Chris on the other hand has a lot to figure out and hope him the best on his journey.
Through this exercise just let your mind flow. Let yourself play with characters. Let yourself come up with weird premises. There’s no dumb ideas. Titanium arms with cup holders in the elbows is a pretty dumb idea, but Maurice enjoys them.
Have fun with this challenge! Be creative! Allow yourself to go back to your school days where you’d let your imagination travel and explore every thought. Just start and let your imagination do the rest.
Hope you enjoy this week’s challenge! Have a great week! We’ll catch you on the next one :)
-Troy