2023 Character-Building Challenge: Day 5
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 5, create a friend, ally, or sidekick for one of your characters.
For the fifth day of this challenge, create a friend, ally, or sidekick for one of your characters. So this could be a traditional friend, sure, but also a parent or guardian...perhaps a teacher or other mentor. If your character is "bad," maybe the sidekick is actually a toady or enforcer of some sort.
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Here's my attempt at a friend, ally, or sidekick character:
Jennifer Jace Alexander (or JJ)
JJ is a long-time friend of Abraham. She runs cross country and track like he does and thinks he's an amazing artist. She frequently gives Abraham a ride to school in the morning and after running practice. They've never been romantically involved, but she wouldn't mind if he showed some initiative in that department. In fact, she often gives him a hard time about his lack of initiative in general, because she sees all his unused potential and lets him know that he should apply himself more. Of course, this sometimes creates tension between them, but there's nobody Abraham would confide in other than JJ when push comes to shove. Her dream is to visit Paris and work in the fashion world.
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.
