A dead man's robe

A dead man's robe

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Pagantastic

It was hard to pick one! So I picked three and you can pick one. Or go to Creative Costumes of Still-Practiced Pagan Rituals to suffer the same dilemma.

Are they beasts? Are they humans? If human, what's the purpose? Are they wearing the uniform of a tribal role such as shaman or hunter? Is it for a yearly festival or ritual? Or something else? Is their world as primitive as their outfits? (Isn't it great being a writer? :-))

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French photographer Charles Fréger spent 2 years traveling across Europe documenting pagan rituals that are still being carried on which he's gathered for Wilder Mann: The Image of the Savage.

Take a spin

Mike Luckovich

For each of the headlines you came up with last week for your favorite movies, come up with a succinct political spin the Leader's Press Secretary puts on each. The purpose might be to distance the Leader from any connection with the event, to turn a negative into a positive, or other alternate take on the events.

The church bizarre

The church bizarre

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Ducky dock

#11 17 More images you won't believe aren't Photoshopped

Take a header

For each of the big events in your favorite movie (book, video game ...), write a newspaper headline. Or two. Or a dozen. The stories can be disaster stories. Or human interest. Or what's-behind-this event? ...

Loose cannon commands flagship

Secret peace keeping weapon hijacked

17,000 KILLED IN SAN FRANCISCO ATTACK

Head of Star Fleet a terrorist?

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The best way to get a feel for great headlines is reading lots of headlines, good and bad. That said, I did stumble across a couple of pages from the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Writing Good Heds, What Does a Good Headline Do?, Headline (or "Hed") Jargon

Quli

Quli

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Lighter than water

#16 17 More images you won't believe aren't Photosphopped

Characters with potential

Mimi and Eunice

So you know better who your character is and why from Wrangling your character into story worthiness. You've identified some weaknesses and delved into backstory and future obstacles that could prickle those weaknesses with Strong flaws and flawed strengths. Now the question you want answered is Who will he become?

My character has the potential to be _____.

If he has lots of potential, make a list!

If you can't think of how he could possibly be cooler, greater, better than he is, you may have created him too close to his full potential. Begin with who he was before he cleared out all the baggage that weighed him down.

Test his greatness. Push him beyond his limits. If he's happy and content, what can you take from him, put beyond his current reach, that would bust his balloons? If he's confident, what could rattle that confidence? If he's found his niche in life what would make him realize he's wrong?

Take him in the opposite direction. If he's a moral person, what could push him to become immoral? What threat to what he loves would he betray his values for, break his moral code for? What could cause him to do evil for morally-justified-to-him reasons? What would he kill for to get, to keep, to protect?

Once you have some ideas of who he could be, push who he is at the beginning -- his profession, his personality, his belief or value system, his personality, his station in life -- further away from that.

Who is as much different than who he could be at the end? Make him work hard to get to his potential!

Next: Preventing him from reaching his goal and potential. (Next Friday hopefully.)

Dragon tales

Spin a bedtime scary story ... as told by a dragon to his nest of hatchlings. What do dragons most fear? What do kid dragons most fear? What are the monsters-under-the-bed for dragons?

That idea could extend to other dads: werewolf, sea monster, vampire, ghost, orc, monsters under the bed ... What are monsters-under-the-bed for monsters-under-the-bed? You could write a whole series of short monster stories.

Polyester man

Polyester man

What's a warm up?

Deadly reading

#15 16 More images you won't believe aren't Photoshopped

After losing a couple hours of my life to becoming better informed of the world's weirdnesses through Cracked -- which when I was a kid was a lesser version of Mad Magazine -- I decided to repurpose that time to turn several of their "Images you won't believe aren't Photoshopped" into Sunday extras. Since these are taking next to no time at all, I won't pass them off as writing prompts I've put time into ;-) but they're nonetheless intriguing.

Toxic quality

"Once you realize you're not going to die or get covered in toxic sludge, it's pretty relaxing." *

Take it from there.

Try the 5+1Ws and 1H of journalism. (The extra W, the What if?, is non-standard for journalism but can help you did deeper.)

Who
Who is the speaker?
Who is the listener?
Who else might be listening?
Who else is doing this activity?
Who is interested in doing this?
Who is worried about the activity?
Who else might be connected to the place or activity?
Who is involved in this activity
Who else is asking questions about the activity?
Who is affected by the activity, by the questions and by the answers?
Who will benefit?
Who will be harmed?

What
What activity is relaxing?
What is this potentially covering toxic sludge?
What makes the activity deadly?
What created the sludge?
What created the area?
What makes the activity safe or prevents it from being deadly?

Where
Where is this toxic sludge that won't cover you?
Where is the place the toxic sludge was created?
Where is this place that looks deadly?
Where is the speaker?
Where is the listener?

When
When was this person speaking?
When did the speaker last do this activity?
When did the toxic sludge happen?
When did people start doing this activity?
When did some people start to believe it wouldn't affect them?

Why
Why is it assumed toxic sludge and death are connected to this activity?
Why is there toxic sludge?
Why would someone want to do this activity?
Why is this activity done here rather than in a place that doesn't look deadly?
Why is the activity okay here?
Why is the speaker telling a person or people about the activity?
Why do some people believe it's deadly?
Why does the speaker believe it's okay?
Or is the speaker lying? Why?

How
How did the toxic sludge and deadly quality happen?
How did the speaker come to try this activity?
How did the speaker and the listener(s) meet?
How do people do this activity?
How do they get to this place?

What if?
What if the toxic sludge hadn't happened?
What if the speaker hadn't tried the activity?
What if the activity didn't exist?
What if the listener hadn't asked?

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* Quote from a news article. (I didn't include the article title since it might limit the free range of your thoughts.)

(Oops, sorry, this should have been the Wednesday post and the writer craft one on Friday.)

Strong flaws and flawed strengths

Create a character from a character trait (or two).

Choose a character trait or two from the Cattell's 16 Personality Factors post.

For each trait make two lists. One, a list of ways that trait could be an advantage in certain situations. Two, a list of ways that trait could be a disadvantage. How has the trait helped her? How has it hinder her?

Whether the trait is positive or negative, there will be both advantages and disadvantages. For advantages of negative traits and negatives of positive traits you may have to dig into her childhood. How did the trait make her vulnerable? How did the trait protect her?

If the trait hindered her or left her vulnerable in her past, did she suppress it or hide it behind a persona? For instance, did she learn to lie because the truth was often punished? Did she learn to detach because those she trusted betrayed her? Did she learn early that kindness was a weakness and so became unkind herself?

A negative trait that gave her an advantage when younger, may be a hinderance now. But she'll cling to it because it worked in the past and it's become part of her identity. It's who she is.

Your job, as your character's tormenter writer is to force her into disadvantageous situations in order to get the great desire you've dangled before her. Force her to reexamine her approach to life. Force her to change.

To dig a bit deeper there are three story possibilities for the character traits.

It's a trait your character was born with and currently is.
She will have arranged her life to avoid facing her weaknesses. She'll limit her wants to what her strengths can get her. She may have convinced herself that any want that involves her weaknesses she doesn't really want. Mine the disadvantages list for obstacles to throw at her. While this trait will always be a part of who she is -- an introvert won't stop being an introvert -- she can learn how to work with who she is, learn strategies to overcome the disadvantages.

It's a trait your character was born with but has hidden it behind a persona that's opposite.
Forcing her to face her weaknesses will be more than just uncomfortable. She will have buried her trait beneath layers of shame or feelings of weakness. The trait may embarrass her, or dredge up unpleasant memories. It may feel alien if the trait was unacceptable in her family or community.

It's the personality trait your character is pretending to be in order to hide her true (and opposite) nature.
You'll want to make her hidden nature necessary to get what she wants, but she won't want it to come out for the same reasons as above. The advantage list is why she'll cling to her persona. Her life will be built around the advantages. It's your job to take them away. It's your job to put her through the wringer of her disadvantages to get that most wanted thing.

Though this post works perfectly fine as a standalone exercise, the previous post on character development is Wrangling your character into story worthiness. The next is Characters with potential (will be posted on Friday).

Cattell's 16 Personality Factors for writers

If you've checked into schemes that categorize personalities, most sort them into good and bad extremes. It takes some imagination to add depth and nuances.

Raymond Cattell sorted personality words into more or less of a factor. Which, even if personality researchers ultimately reject it, is much easier to work with for writers!

Play around with the 16 factors until you find something you like. Look for connections, contrasts and conflicts. A cold empath? Enthusiastically absorbed by ideas? Uninhibited, self absorbed and careless of social rules?

Edit: I made a few changes in the order and added a few words. Now if you read across the top 4 in each category, it's a spectrum with 2 negative extremes on either end and 2 positive though opposite traits in the middle.

Randomize the 16 Personality Factors

WARMTH	EMOTIONAL STABILITY	DOMINANCE	LIVELINESS
RULE CONSCIOUSNESS	SOCIAL BOLDNESS	SENSITIVITY	VIGILANCE
ABSTRACTEDNESS	PRIVATENESS	APPREHENSION	OPENNESS TO CHANGE
SELF-RELIANCE	PERFECTIONISM	TENSION	REASONING

The 16 Personality Factors

(Based on Cattell's 16 Personality Factors)

Way too little	Less	More	Way too much
WARMTH
anti-social	connected to self	connected to others	intrusive
unkind	reserved	warm	smothering
cold	impersonal	outgoing	nosy
uninvolved	distant	attentive to others
	cool	kindly
	detached	easy going
	formal	participating
	aloof	likes people
	self-centered	sociable
	ungenerous	friendly
	socially inhibited	compassionate
		helpful
		nurturing
EMOTIONAL STABILITY
obsessive	excitable	calm	unresponsive
frenzied	emotionally reactive	emotionally stable	emotionally shut down
hysterical	affected by feelings	mature
fickle	emotionally less stable	faces reality
histrionic (dramatic)	changeable moods	adaptive
	easily upset	unsentimental
	high strung	impartial
DOMINANCE
passive	cooperative	assertive	domineering
drone	deferential	forceful	dictatorial
	avoids conflict	dominant	antagonistic
	submissive	aggressive	vindictive
	humble	competitive	vengeful
	obedient	stubborn	unforgiving
	easily led	bossy	hostile
	docile	willful
	accommodating
	subdued
	compliant
	agreeableness
LIVELINESS
apathetic	prudent	sparkly	extravagant
humorless	restrained	lively	undependable
	serious	animated	whirlwind
	taciturn	spontaneous
	introspective	enthusiastic
	silent	happy go lucky
	dour	cheerful
		expressive
		energetic
		passionate
		indulgent
RULE CONSCIOUSNESS
lawless	impulsive	dependable	rule bound
nihilist	nonconforming	rule-conscious	moralistic
anarchist	disregards rules	conscientious	judgmental
dishonest	self indulgent	conforming	critical
manipulative	disobedient	staid
	unrestrained	self-controlled
	expedient	dutiful
		responsible
SOCIAL BOLDNESS
inhibited	modest	uninhibited	attention seeker
reclusive	threat-sensitive	socially bold	blind to social cues
agoraphobic	timid	venturesome	self-aggrandizement
	hesitant	thick skinned
	easily intimidated	can take stress
	shy
SENSITIVITY
insensitive	objective	sensitive	hypersensitive
	utilitarian	aesthetic	manic
	unsentimental	sentimental
	tough minded	tender minded (tender hearted)
	self-reliant	intuitive
	no-nonsense	refined
	rough	empathetic
	resolute	receptive
	determined	histrionic
	open-minded
VIGILANCE
gullible	trusting	skeptical	prejudiced
naive	unsuspecting	vigilant	cynical
	accepting	suspicious	biased
	unconditional	distrustful
	easy	oppositional
		uncooperative
ABSTRACTEDNESS
unimaginative	practical	imaginative	out of touch with reality
	grounded	abstracted
	prosaic	absent minded
	solution oriented	impractical
	steady	absorbed in ideas
	straightforward	idealistic
PRIVATENESS
gossip	forthright	discreet	secretive
blabbermouth	indiscreet	private
	artless	non-disclosing
	open	shrewd
	guileless	polished
	unpretentious	worldly
	involved	astute
	genuine	diplomatic
APPREHENSION
arrogant	confident	concerned	fear-bound
	unworried	apprehensive
	complacent	self doubting
	secure	worrying
	free of guilt	guilt prone
	self-assured	insecure
	self satisfied	self blaming
	self confident	nervous
OPENNESS TO CHANGE
close minded	traditional	free thinking	novelty seeker
fear of the unknown	attached to familiar	experimenting	sensation seeker
dogmatic	conservative	liberal
	respecting traditional ideas	analytical
	consistent	critical (evaluating not censorious)
	cautious	open to change
	conventional	flexible
	pessimistic	optimistic
	predictable	inventive
	seeker of answers	asker of questions
		unpredictable
		surprising
		curious
		self-transcendent (seeing self as an integral part of the universe)
		adventurous
SELF-RELIANCE
leech	group-oriented	self-reliant	tightfisted
self-sacrificing	affiliative	solitary	loner
people pleasing	a joiner and follower	resourceful	selfish
narcissistic	dependent	individualistic	greedy
	extrovert (gets recharged being with others)	self sufficient	rude
	accommodating	introvert (needs alone time to recharge)
	selfless	independent
	generous	self-interested
	self-monitoring	self-focused
	other-focused
	altruistic
	humble (modest)
	considerate
	tolerant
PERFECTIONISM
oblivious	flexible	perfectionist	obsessive
chaotic	big picture oriented	organized	hoarder
	tolerates disorder	compulsive	workaholic
	undisciplined	self-disciplined	hyper-focused on flaws
	lax	socially precise
	self-conflict	exacting will power
	careless of social rules	controlled
	uncontrolled	self-sentimental
	seeker of 'good enough'	careful
	focused on what's working	deliberation
	unexacting	persistence
		simplicity
		thorough
		seeker of 'the best'
		goal oriented
		success oriented
		efficient
		focused on what's not working
TENSION
apathetic	relaxed	tense	overwrought
indolent	Type B	Type A
listless	placid	high energy
torpid	tranquil	impatient
	patient	driven
	composed	frustrated
	low drive	high drive
	easy going	time driven
	low anxiety	high anxiety
	relaxed	tense
	imperturbable	perturbable
	well-adjusted
REASONING
	concrete thinking	abstract-thinking
	lower mental capacity	more intelligent
	less intelligent	bright
	slow learner	higher mental capacity
		fast learner

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I made some changes to Cattell's list. I suspect some words have shifted meanings since Cattell listed them, such as, critical meant evaluating but is now commonly used to mean condemning. So, I added a few words, removed a couple, and moved one. I listed his "5 Global Factors" under the categories where they seemed to best fit with the 16. (They're global because Cattell felt they fit several categories.)

The "way too" words in the columns to left and right I added. These aren't traits people are born with. Environment or life events warped the person in these directions. These are also where characters have the potential for the most (story) growth.

HISTORY: Back in the 1930s Gordon Allport collected 17,953 personality words -- by scanning through the dictionary! He whittled them down to 4505. Cattell whittled them further to 171 then categorized them.

Personal Jesus

Personal Jesus

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