Creating Unforgettable Characters

This writing course, Creating Unforgettable Characters with Deborah Pike, takes place at Writing NSW in Sydney.

Do your characters feel like real people in your head, but fall flat on the page? Or maybe you have an amazing story but can’t quite figure out who your characters are. This workshop, with author Deborah Pike, is for writers of fiction who wish to devise new characters, or deepen and develop their existing characters further. We will focus on bringing to life a character through description, dialogue and action and making them distinctive and convincing. We will also explore character psychology, internal conflict, motivation, physicality and the importance of a character arc in developing your narrative and enriching the world of your story.

Participants will take part in a series of exercises designed to come up with a new character, make that character unique and to set that character in motion. You’ll leave this workshop feeling like your characters are so real, they could just about write your story for you!

Expected learning outcomes

In this workshop, participants will:

1. Understand the key elements of characterisation: description, dialogue, motivation, conflict, action, and arc.

2. Develop a character profile from scratch.

3. Draft a scene in which a character is set in motion.

Participant requirements

Pen and paper, and/or a fully charged device.