The Writers' Workout: Characterization and POV Exercise

The Writers' Block recently added a new channel--#writers-workout. This channel provides weekly writing exercises to help our members improve their craft. The first exercise focused on characterization and point of view.

_{Image courtesy of PeteLinforth, CC0}

Write a description of a character from different perspectives: from your own as the author knowing everything about the character and from the perspective of other characters in your story.

Please include at least two perspectives in your submission to the queue. Three would be even better--author and two other characters. But that's up to you.

The Purpose

Purpose of this exercise is twofold. Many writers struggle to get sufficient depth in their characters. Doing some form of characterization exercise, be it filling out a character sheet or writing a background story, helps build this depth and gives us a better grasp of our characters.

The second purpose is to help differentiate between what the author knows and what each character knows. Our characters don't know as much as we do, so their interactions are influenced by the knowledge they actually have and colored by their own perceptions. Fleshing out how they see someone else additionally adds information to their own characterization.

The Side Benefits

As an extra bonus, this exercise also helps add depth to the side characters whose POV are used to describe the initial character. You need to "get into their heads" to write their POV, so more facets of personality and background might come out, especially if working with a character who does not usually take the helm in your work.

Because many of us worked with scenes or writings that aren't expected to go into the finished work, it was easier to experiment in them and just let things flow.

We did the exercise in a peer review format--so everyone's attempts went into a queue where we could comment on each other. This feedback helped point out weaknesses in characterization and world building and also pointed out where each of us did especially well in making things interesting.

Many of us used a form of character sheet in our authorial section. So we also got to see what points others used that we might have forgotten ourselves. For example, @tinypaleokitchen included a point that would be a great characterization exercise in its own right: the character's self-image.

Examples

@therosepatch did this exercise around Sina, a young woman of noble birth who is forced to flee her home. She showed us how Sina looks through the eyes of Arin, her bodyguard.

He glanced up and down the road, then knelt down beside her. “Are you injured, Your Highness?”

“No. Just exhausted.” Her breathing slowed and she looked at him. “And you don’t need to call me that anymore. I’m not a princess.” Her gaze faltered. Tears welled in her eyes, glistening in the dim light of the moons. “I guess I never was.”

Arin cupped her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his. “You’re still my princess, Your Highness. Nothing can change that.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Arin.”

@anikekirsten used her dystopian piece for the exercise. We see Letitia through the eyes of John, the father of her son.

I know she can take care of herself, I trust her. I just don’t want to lose them again. “I’ll meet you at home then.” As if she needs my protection at all. I’m the one who needs hers. She gives a quick nod then sweeps past toward the door. I follow her lead. She wraps her jacket around Junior and zips it up. With her back to the wall, she slips out and races to the staircase.

She looks back, sending a smile that comforts my fears. And I know that Junior is safer with her.

Comments from Participants

Since the point of this article isn't just to share the exercise, but to talk about how it helps, we'll let our participants speak for themselves on what they got out of the exercise.

@anikekirsten: I wasn’t too sure what to expect, or what to put in. I realised I did not have much of a connection with my character Letitia, not a good enough one, that is. I focused on her too much and not on the influences to her by other characters. Writing their perspectives of her helped build a bond between them, and let me see Letitia from their views. Through them, I came to understand what drives Letitia, why she’s stubborn, and who she is more than what sort of character I made her to be. I was able to establish deeper secondary characters as well, giving them more personality so that they can interact with Letitia. This exercise also forced me to use action (and no dialogue tags) to better convey how Letitia’s personality appears to the other characters. An extra bonus.

@bex-dk: I hadn't worked with these characters in a while, so this exercise was great for reconnecting with them. I'm feeling excited about getting back to the next segment in the series. I got a lot of background added to Brent, which was really important. I'd been writing in his POV but was not fully clear on why he did the things he did. And Eudora's view of him added a point in the world building I'd been missing. I had already done a lot of background on her, but I hadn't been in her head so much, so this was great practice to get a feeling on who she was. Since I wasn't trying to write the story itself, it also flowed more easily--I managed to turn off my overly critical editor for a while.

@nobyeni: Working on the same piece for a couple of years, can be difficult for many reasons. This exercise freed up my thoughts, not having to think about overall arcs, points I wanted to get across, or about style or which words to use. Getting inside the head of a character is something I often do. It is also why I like writing plays, as you can use a 1st person point of view for every character. But this exercise somehow made me feel I was allowed to experiment again, let the person fully be themselves before wondering what I'd have them say. A great experience I'll look to be implementing more when I'm writing, and I am already looking forward to the next writing exercise!

@surfknasen: So far I’ve posted three parts of a story I’m writing. When writing them, I didn’t know my characters well. I didn’t know what world they were living in or what important events had happened. While this workout was mostly to get to know your characters better, it also got me thinking more about the past and the future of my story. I know so much about the world that I’m trying to build now compared to before. I did go a bit off-course but had it not been for this exercise I would have continued on my story and still don’t know much more than the reader. I believe that my future chapters will be much better now that I know the world better.

@therosepatch: I originally began this story for NaNoWriMo back in 2006, and over the last decade it has evolved. So much so, that I would frequently get frustrated when I couldn’t see where the story was going, and then I’d stop and not write anything for years. This exercise has helped me reacquaint myself with those characters, and their backstory. It has also helped reveal plot holes that I need to fill to give the story and characters more depth. I’m excited to continue and look forward to further exercises that will give me the chance to play with these characters again.

@thinknzombie: About 13,000 words in, I realized this wasn’t going to be a short story. Generally short stories go to 7,000 words but I was still hopeful. I’m writing this with no plan, no outline and direct to Steemit—a daunting task. If it was being written a different way I’d have an entirely different story. I’m convinced of it. But this is the way it is, enshrined on the blockchain. Warts and all. This exercise has been very helpful in dislodging some of the backstory of my antagonist. Without that, it’s hard for a protagonist to rail and strive against anything. I’m going to do another of these as well for a character I don’t like much and see if that helps flesh things out.

@tinypaleokitchen: This novel I’m working on has been in my head far longer than it has been on paper, and there is so much info that it sometimes paralyses me. Events play in my head like a movie, and I keep trying to figure out where they go in the timeline of the story. I know a lot about my characters, but except for Bri herself, I’d never actually gotten in their head. It gave me a lot of insight on how they interact, and I think I’ll be adding more of Ada’s POV to my novel. I like her cheekiness. She reminds me of me in a lot of ways.

The Next Exercise

Considering the feedback from our participants, it's clear we can declare the first #writers-workout exercise a rounding success.

If you want to join us in our exercises, come on over to @thewritersblock Discord server (see the footer at the bottom). We do all our exercises in the channel.

Our upcoming exercise continues working on point of view (POV), focusing on Deep POV--that ultimate form of third person limited. If you want to know what it is, you'll have to join our server and come into the channel. Or watch for our next follow up article, which will be in two weeks since the next exercise is a bit more demanding.

---

Because we're not creating a final top notch product with all the aspects of good fiction, we don't recommend posting these to Steem. Basically they're your writing homework. Back when you were in school and you did your English homework or your math homework, you'd share it with your teacher and classmates, but you didn't plaster it out for the world to see. Since Steem is a fully public and searchable social media, we don't advise posting the result of exercises.

That being said, what you write is your own. You can always take these pieces and expand them into a complete piece of fiction. If you think of your Steem page as a blog of your writing journey, at least include information about why you did the exercise, what you learned from it, and some info for other writers on why they might benefit from a similar exercise.

---