15*15 CREATIVITY EXERCISE SERIES — 7
Think of 15 movie characters that would be fun to create
This is your opportunity to go on adventures of screenwriting and play
In this series (15*15), I design and present you 15 adventures and challenges in 15 days. I am developing these challenges in real-time — I hope you do enjoy and benefit from these exercises. The goal of these challenges is to help you expand your imagination and exercise your muscles of creativity. This is the 7th day and 7th installment of that series.
Our seventh-day challenge is to create 15 colorful and exciting movie characters. These can be TV series or drama characters.
How can you create interesting characters?
If you want to get further inspiration and suggestions on how to write interesting characters, check out the following guides:
To get inspired, check out top 100 greatest (most compelling) movie characters:
Your Challenge: Think of 15 movie characters that would be fun to create
For this challenge, you will need to create 15 interesting movie characters.
Try to imagine and create a diversity of characters — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Imagine their backstories, wishes, and fears. What motivates them? What scares them? What makes them tick?
What would be the key experiences or stories that would shape these characters? Perhaps these characters encountered particular challenges and solved them through hard work and perseverance. Did they fall in love and experience heartbreak? Did they move to a new country to establish a new life? Are they sarcastic because they feel betrayed? What is unique and memorable about them?
Your starting point can be the most interesting and colorful people you have encountered in your life (including yourself:)
Try to imagine elements of their storylines. What is the context? How do they dress up? How do they eat? How do they act? How do they talk? What are some of their signature quotes?
For the purposes of this exercise, please do not delve into too much detail though. Aim for 2–3 minutes of writing for each character. You do not need to put all their conversations or event sequences. Try to write down the minimum viable elements for a rich and complex character. If you want to delve in and go deeper, leave it for later. On the other hand, if you do not have the time or the will to complete all 15, you can choose several for now, and leave the rest for later.
Try to come up with 15 different characters and try to aim for a diverse range of experiences, backgrounds, gender, professions, and stories.
Remember: You are doing this just to have fun. This is meant to be for fun. Just play and mess around. Improvise. Try to surprise yourself and your brain.
Here are some video guides and inspiration:
Now, it is your turn: Please complete the exercise and create your film characters.
You will benefit a lot from exercising your creative muscles and getting out of your comfort zone. If you do the exercise above, you will strengthen your creative muscles 15 times.
We need to give our brain creative challenges every day. If we make this a habit, the process will help us rewire our brains to be more open to creativity.
It is important to start small and treat these exercises as play. They are small experiments in imagination. They work much better if you stop judging your ideas and obsessing over feasibility, quality, or depth. Every creative or entrepreneurial act starts with taking a leap of faith into the unknown. Each time you jump into the unknown, this makes you more adventurous, open, and creative.
See you in the 8th episode of this journey tomorrow.
I hope we can all be writers who can create value through imagination.
Fahri
Fahri Karakas is the author of the Self-making Studio. You can explore more here.
