We got wind of an interesting event happening in Prosper, where we hold our meetings: Creative writing workshop: breathing life into your characters by Artemis Writers. This excited Ely Writers of course – who doesn’t want to take the opportunity to improve their writing in a lovely setting and for free?

I’m delighted to say we had a decent turn-out of our group, with four current members and a few people who’ve attended our meetings before (we’re secretly hopeful they’ll come back!). Thank you to everyone from the group who went.
The workshop
I was hoping to improve one of my characters, Simon, who is a nice guy. Nice guys can be boring, so I wanted him to show me the flaws in his character.
First, we looked at some worksheets. One was about the details of our chosen character’s life with respect to important events and people throughout their lives. The other had similar aspects, plus more about the character’s physical and psychological states. These sorts of things I find more accessible through scribble chats, but these worksheets provide some interview topics that I perhaps hadn’t thought of asking about.
After that, we were given an object or a magazine to act as inspiration to write about how our character would interact with it – similar to the bag of goodies we sometimes use in our meetings. I used a picture from a magazine about roller-skating showing a row of ladies from the waist down wearing colourful leggings and stilettos.
While I was writing this, Simon’s thoughts came out about his students, and they weren’t all positive; he was almost scared of the gaggle of girls he could hear outside his office door. It was good to find out that he isn’t a complete goody two shoes after all.
In small groups, we each read out what we’d written, and discussed what we liked about each piece and where we needed some clarity. There isn’t usually much point to critiquing stuff you’ve just written off the top of your head, but because these were characters we’d already given some thought to, it perhaps it made sense.

Photo used with permission
Next, we looked at our characters goals. To this end, we had to write a dialogue between our character and a friend or family member about their surface and deeper needs. I really struggled with this for Simon: I could only define his goals in terms of other people. One person in my little group suggested that from what I’d read out that he just wants a quiet life. I think that’s true, but it doesn’t seem enough; perhaps that’s his surface need.
It occurs to me now that he might have career ambitions as a deeper need: he’s a lecturer in his late twenties, but perhaps he wants to become a professor. In that case, he needs to knuckle down, become a senior lecturer and publish a lot of papers, maybe with a couple of books thrown in for good measure. What he doesn’t need is distractions like his sister Sarah.
Simon is becoming more real all the time!
We ended the workshop by considering where our character is going next. I already know Simon’s fate, which, until now, has been the most interesting thing about him.
All in all, I got everything I wanted from this workshop and more. I’m beginning to find out Simon’s character flaws, and have just now worked out what his long-term goal is.
Cheeky plug for Ely Writers
I’d asked one of the Artemis Writers who has been to a few of our meetings to give Ely Writers a plug at the end, which she did. A couple of attendees had been in touch with Ely Writers and put two and two together; we might have a couple more newbies next month!
I’m very grateful to Artemis Writers for this chance to look at characters in a way that I hadn’t before, and I look forward to their next workshop later in the year. They’ll be looking at plot, so if you’re struggling with yours, keep an eye out for updates by Artemis Writers or on this very website, where we’ll post when we know more.