2023 Character-Building Challenge: Day 10
Make the most of March by participating in the first ever Character-Building Challenge. Writer’s Digest provides free daily tasks for the first 10 days of March to help writers unlock compelling new characters. For Day 10, put together a character profile.
Today is the final day of the character-building challenge, and I've really been enjoying it.
For the tenth and final day of this challenge, we're going to put together a character profile for one of our characters. Tomorrow, I'll share next steps on how to send it to me, and I'll select a few to highlight on the website in a future post. So what goes into your character profile? Here's what I want you to include:
- Name (including any nicknames)
- Who they are (whether that's occupation, nationality, etc.)
- What they want most in life
- What hurdles are in their way
- What is at stake if they don't get what they want
- Include anything else that you think is super important about your character
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When your submission materials – a query letter, synopsis, manuscript, or book proposal – arrive in an agent's inbox, they land among hundreds of others. At that point, one of two things will happen. Either the agent (or the agent’s assistant) will like the submission and request more materials, or they will reply with a rejection.
Authors who get rejected tend to fall in one of two categories when submitting materials: they try too hard, or not enough. This Writer’s Digest Boot Camp is designed to help you streamline your submission materials to stand out in a good way.
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Here's my attempt at a character profile:
Jennifer Jace Alexander, or JJ, is a high school student who wants to work in the fashion field someday, but right now, her biggest desire is to convince her friend Abraham to harness his artistic talent—and take her out on a date. The only problem is that he doesn't take anything seriously, including her. Luckily, she has a plan to show him how much she cares about his art—and him; she just hopes taking a chance on romance won't ruin their friendship in the process.
(Note: I was actually surprised that I ended up writing a character profile for JJ over Abraham, but I realized she was a much more interesting character than anyone else I wrote this month. Moral? Don't be afraid to switch characters at the last moment.)
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
