Every good story is built around a solid character arc. Without characters to follow, to care about, to hope for, or to wish damnation upon, stories are just a bunch of meaningless stuff that happens. Without characters, stories have no soul.

In a well-structured character arc, we follow people from a position of less through a transformation into more. At times this is a rebirth into a better person, other times it’s a change for the worse.

Some of these prompts offer entirely new characters, people in interesting positions with curious quirks. Some of them are new characters in various situations. For characters you’re already working with, you will find prompts to bring new ideas to life. At the heart of every well-developed character we find the character’s wound, that ghost that influences everything they are, everything they do, the past the character arc seeks to free them from. In this book, you’ll also find prompts for constructing this wound and creating a deep backstory for your characters.

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Prompts For New Characters

• A librarian who plays by the rules to a dramatic degree.

• A child who fears pictures come to life if she looks into their eyes.

• An atheist viking.

• Trans-man/woman who dreams of opening a boutique nursery.

• A repentant witch who’s terrified of illness.

• A nun plagued with guilt.

• An award-winning gin distiller who doesn’t drink alcohol.

• An elderly person who insists they can only sleep outdoors and have done so for decades.

• A woman born with a greenish tinge to her skin no medicine can explain.

• A child who can remember being born.

• A physiotherapist who is convinced to believe in astrology by a patient.

• A priest wrongly accused of a crime.

• A mother who does not want any more children despite what her husband wants.

• A husband whose wife refuses to have any children.

• A school teacher who is a world-leading expert in something she doesn’t teach, and no one at the school knows.

• A world-class chef with an eating disorder.

• An alien permitted to live on Earth on the condition he does not form a relationship with any human.

• An introverted former sports person takes a job as a bouncer.

• A school teacher who writes erotica novels as a secret side hustle.

• A psychic psychologist.

• A carpenter who adopts a disabled child.

• A child entertainer pursues a career as a funeral director.

• A glassblower losing their sight.

• A retired doctor with a passion for exotic tea.

• A homeless person who once met Queen Elizabeth II.

• A supernatural bounty hunter who fears the dark.

Writing Prompts For Character Defining Moments

• An unknown podcaster with a single show that goes epic, throwing them into immediate worldwide spotlight.

• An amateur taxidermist is asked to work on a critically endangered animal that was illegally hunted.

• A child single-handedly attempts to break the world record for the largest display of origami fish.

• A once renowned musician falls on hard times, and the only job they can find is as a city dog walker.

• In a single piece of information, a man learns that not only is he adopted, but his birth parents are A-list celebrities.

• An extraordinarily intelligent, homeschooled child is forced to attend public school.

• A poor nobody is mistaken for a famous person in disguise and runs with the lie.

• A child witnesses a crime. The criminal finds, after a lifetime of crime, this child is the only thing that has ever got to their conscience.

• A woman in love with a married man unknowingly befriends the man’s wife.

• An assassin has their target in view but, at the last second, discovers the person is their father.

• A scientist accidentally injects a laboratory animal with a disease that mutates both the injected animal and the pathogen.

• A person raised in a military family buys a house and decides never to move again, no matter the cost.

• A child of obsessively overprotective parents is left alone in a forest.

• A person who raised their younger siblings moves out of home and refuses to ever help another person.

• A football star loses their career after a single drunken fight.

• A lone, eccentric sci-fi enthusiast makes alien contact but does not themselves even believe it to be true.

• A divorcee makes every decision based on what the tarot tells her is right.

• A relaxation spa employee finds a large sum of money in a client’s pocket and keeps it.

• An animal lover’s child is attacked by a dog. The attack forces the owners to put the dog down.

• A highly successful self-help author discovers that the core they built their entire career on is a lie.

• A woman has an affair with a man to later learn he is a shapeshifter…. And she is pregnant.

• Following a divorce, a woman develops psychic powers and her mother tells her it has been expected for a long time.

• A man thinks he is getting sick with an ordinary cold, but is actually undergoing a bizarre metamorphosis.

• After finding a once in a lifetime artifact, an archaeologist has a spiritual experience that forces them to question their entire existence.

• After years of freedom, an escaped criminal puts themselves back in prison.

What Would Your Character Do If…?

• … they were taken to McDonald’s on a date?

• … they drove into a parked car and no one saw?

• … they discovered they were adopted?

• … they discovered they weren’t adopted (as they had grown up believing they were)?

• … they were told they had three months to live?

• … they learned a way to freeze time for just two hours a day?

• … they fell pregnant?

• … their partner left them without warning?

• … they realized one of their favorite things in life is harming someone close to them?

• … they had to go back to high school?

• … broke both arms and both legs in an accident that was their fault?

• … they are trying to work in a public library and keep getting distracted by a loud patron?

• … they were denied the promotion at work they were promised, at the last minute?

• … they won the lottery in a syndicate with people they secretly hate?

• … someone in their immediate family joined a religious cult?

• … they were given a gift certificate for a psychic reading?

• … someone suggested that if they talk to trees, the trees will talk back?

• … they were falsely accused of abusing someone?

• … they wet the bed?

• … they discovered a secret society based in a neighborhood elementary school?

• … the person in front of them in the coffee shop randomly paid for their order without a comment.

• … their father won a prestigious award they know he did not deserve?

• … nude photos of them were released on social media?

• … their mother started dating a man younger than her youngest child?

• … randomly developed tinnitus?

Painful, Character Defining Moments (Character Wounds)

• They won the lottery.

• They witnessed their mother kill a man when they were very young.

• They declare bankruptcy after their first business failure.

• They were caught cheating on a school exam.

• They discovered their spiritual role model and mentor was a fraud.

• They learn their first true love only showed interest in them as a favor to his/her friend.

• They were scammed by a drug dealer.

• They found a dead body as a child.

• Their parents constantly berated them as less than their siblings.

• A high school friend who dies after being pressured into using drugs for the first time.

• They were publicly humiliated as a child at the community swimming pool.

• They had a deeply passionate, amazing one-night stand with a stranger.

• They find their wife is using Tinder.

• They have been told their entire life they are special.

• They once set fire to the Christmas tree and ruined the family’s day.

• As a student, they were sexually propositioned by their teacher.

• Their mother died because of a doctor’s negligence.

• An amusement park ride malfunctioned to disastrous consequences.

• They witnessed a stranger fall off a bridge.

• A child who’s parent never had time for them because of their important and highly valuable career.

• They were promised a great opportunity for many years to later learn it was all a lie.

• As a child, they were accused of stealing something relatively harmless, but their protests of innocence are vehemently ignored.

• They discovered their partner cheating after said partner accidentally texts the wrong number.

• Their mother tells them she wishes she had different children.

• As a poor child, not getting any Christmas presents even though their parents had enough money for alcohol.