Character Writing Prompts

Do you ever have days where you really want to write a story, but you don't have any story ideas to use? Speaking from personal experience, writing prompts are very helpful, but certainly not for everyone. Writing prompts come in many different forms. Today, I'll talk about character prompts.

What is a character prompt?

This type of prompt is an image of a person or multiple people (including fantasy creatures like elves, mermaids, etc.).

Here is a simple example of a character prompt: a girl, sitting alone on the roof of a house, at night, gazing out over a town.

Take what you see in the image, and ask yourself questions about it.

Why is the girl sitting alone on a rooftop? Is she unhappy with her home life? Maybe she's an orphan or foster child, and the rooftop is considered her 'quiet place' to escape her life. Is she dreaming of running away? To turn this depressing, maybe she just lost a family member and is just sad. Or, on a lighter note, maybe she just really enjoys watching the night sky from the rooftop.

When I find a beautiful image like this, inspiration awakens in me and I realize that I really want to tell this character's story.

Example

A few years ago, I found someone's digital art drawing of a girl sitting in a cafe. Come to find out, the artwork was actually called, "Cafe Blues". Christmas lights are blurred in the background. The girl has a melancholy expression. She's alone. Immediately, I began to ask myself questions about the picture, wanting to write about this sad-looking girl. Why is she alone? How can she look so depressed when there were Christmas lights all around her?

Now I'm going to throw a few more character prompt images at you, just for more examples of what they look like. I'll also include some questions that popped into my head as soon as I saw these images.

It almost looks like these two are taken off guard. Are they strangers that just bumped into each other? Or do they know each other and are surprised to see one another?

Something's kind of serious about this one. Is the young woman's horse injured? Or is the young woman merely looking down and touching her horse because she is shy of the young man beside her? Why are they out seemingly so far away from anywhere? It looks like wild land behind them.

This one has so much depth, I can barely get my thoughts straight. The woman is holding a glass container with a plant inside. The world around her might be desolate. She's looking back, despair in her eyes. And a ship is about to take off behind her, waiting for the last passengers to climb on.

I love this one, just because of the peaceful setting. Or is it? There's a young girl alone with her dog, sitting beside a campfire. It's nighttime. Is she escaping someone or something, on the run with only her faithful dog? Or is she simply on a camping trip and everyone happens to be away from the campsite at that time? Maybe she found the dog, and it started to follow her around, like a protector. Or she took him with her when she left the place she came from.

Thanks for reading! I hope this post is helpful :)