Time to decorate your pets and children! And yourselves!
How about some Halloween-related character building activities?
- Dress as your character.If you do this while writing, it may help you to keep aware of their physical selves. Think about their senses – and not only from the head. How do they walk? How do their clothes feel on their skin? What shoes are they wearing?
- Go into the world as your character. Spend a day on a field trip – being your character. See what he/she would see. How would he/she respond to environmental triggers? Does he feed seagulls or chase them down the beach?
- Choose a Halloween costume for your character. How does he/she want to dress up? I’ve heard that Cynthia Leitich Smith takes writing workshop participants to a costume shop and has them actually try on and pick out costumes for characters. Apologies to Cyn if I have this wrong. But it’s a pretty awesome idea, I think!
Related to this idea is my post on party planning for characters.
Be safe out there! Enjoy the fun – unless you are a mother of a teenage girl. In that case, please accept my empathy and condolences. I’m sure this past weekend was the worst. It’s almost done with… until next year.
Sarah Wones Tomp
WRITING ON THE SIDEWALK
Fun tips. Like the Halloween theme. No teenagers, so we’re enjoying it so far.
Glad you stopped by, Stacy!
But I’m telling you, teen girl costumes are the scariest!