✍🏼 Your Challenge, Should You Choose to Accept it ...
Every family has a culture and feel of its own. One way to get to know a character is to choose a family "legend," from their shared experience, and write it out. For instance, Naomi's family has a collection of legends about driving cross-country in a VW Van. There was the time the van caught on fire, the time the alarm went on the fritz and wouldn't stop even as we were driving down the road, and the many times when we had to blast the heat in 100+ degree heat while driving uphill to keep the engine from overheating.
Your family likely has a variety of "legends" too.
Since we're working on dialogue this month, consider one of these approaches to your writing challenge:
- Write the story as told by two different characters to compare and contrast. How would Mom tell the story? How about Grandpa? What light does each telling shine on your main character, and the family as a whole?
- Write the story as it might be retold around the dinner table at a family event. Let your characters engage with one another as they normally might. Maybe they're very polite and speak one at a time. Maybe they interrupt and speak over one another. Maybe mayhem breaks out now and then. Have fun with the conversation and see if you discover anything new about your character and about their relationships with their family, too.