Bad habits writers think about what goes on in the mind of a character.
Writing bad habits into our fictional characters’ daily habits is a good and natural way to create conflict and resolution between our fictional characters.
Characters need to be seen as not perfect, but as primitive and mortal. Unless of course they are immortal 😉 but even then adding some sort of weakness to them helps our reader mesh with them.
Don’t overthink bad habits. Just work on giving your fictional character a few that make sense.
Combining three or four makes sense, but don’t overdo it with 10 or more unless they are supposed to be a real slob.
Also, figure out good consequences for the habits you give.
Do some bad habits affect others? What are the consequences of certain combined bad habits?
Do they smoke and drinks habitually?
Maybe they have chronic bad breath and are habitually dehydrated from drinking?
Smoking and drinking can both have negative effects on heart health causing high blood pressure, high resting heart rate, and causing heart disease in some.
Do other characters eventually find their smoking unattractive?
Do they not like their chronic bad breath?
So feel free to think through what bad habits you want them to have and how the bad habits can affect each other and have a compound effect on your fictional character. I hope these 10 breakup worthy bad relationship habits help you on your writing journey.
Happy writing 🙂
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We are currently working on a bad habits series for fictional characters. I hope this helps!
Use bad habits as a writing tool for fictional characters. Write bad habits into their character traits and they will be more familiar to your reader. Use this bad habit list to help as writing prompts for your fictional characters in your stories.
Will they get injured because of their bad choices?
Will they lose friends?
Will they lose money?
Will they grow in debt?
Write some of your fictional characters with these personal bad habits in order to make them appear to be bad with certain habits.
Why you would want to be thinking about bad habits for your fictional characters that you are writing?
Bad habits help your audience resonate with your characters.
They make our characters more believable and more human.
Adding a few bad habits to our characters including personal bad habits will make them more enjoyable to our readers. After all, no human is perfect and that should include not all but most of our fictional characters.
10 Bad Habits of Physical Fitness for Fictional Characters
10 Bad Habits of Physical Fitness for Fictional Characters
Use bad habits as a writing tool for fictional characters. Write bad habits into their character traits and they will be more familiar to your reader. Use this bad habit list to help as writing prompts for your fictional characters in your stories.
Adding a few bad habits to our characters including bad physical habits will make them more enjoyable to our readers. After all, no human is perfect and that should include not all but most of our fictional characters.
Hope this helps!
10 Bad Habits of Physical Fitness for Fictional Characters
How to Give Secondary Characters in Our Stories More Purpose
Does Every Character Have a Purpose for Being in the Story?
Readers will notice when you introduce a secondary character.
If that character has no purpose in the story by the end, that can leave our reader confused, underwhelmed or worse, disinterested and disengaged. Make sure every character has a purpose to the story, even if the impact may be minimal to the overarching outcome of the story.
Ways to incorporate every character:
Your secondary character shares a different perspective that causes your main character to make a decision
Your secondary character encourages your main character when no one else will
Your secondary character has the influence and power to do a favor for the main character
Your secondary character is an unexpected help
Introduce an unexpected love interest
How to Give Secondary Characters in Our Stories More Purpose
Your secondary character shares a different perspective.
Your main character needs some help. They just don’t know it yet.
This could be because they are stubborn and narcissistic, or they just don’t realize it.
Having a secondary character that brings a needed perspective to your main character carries the story where it needs to go and makes the secondary character valuable to your reader.
Your secondary character encourages your main character.
Your main character is downtrodden and can’t go any further on their journey.
Your secondary character says something no one else is willing to say.
That is when your main character realizes they can’t give up, not yet.
Make your secondary character the encouragement your main character needs in order to keep moving forward.
Your secondary characters have influence your main character needs.
Your main character needs to get across the world in 2 days but they don’t have the money or resources.
Introduce the rich character that has the private jet and any car you might need.
This character doesn’t have to be deep as much as a means to an end and a willing supporter.
Introduce secondary characters when your reader least expects it.
Throw in a character that your main character needs but don’t let your reader know about them until the last second.
Put your main character into a bind that they can’t get out of on their own and then have the secondary character swoop in and save them at the last second.
Introduce love that no one saw coming.
Your main character doesn’t know it but the most interesting love interest of their life is about to walk through the door.
Your reader should be as surprised as your main character.
Introduce this secondary character as unexpected love and your reader won’t question their existence at all.
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10 Great Fantasy Writing Prompts To Help Inspire your Writing Today
Write about a family that is magical but after 400 generations of magic, they birth one unmagical child.
Write a character who is a kleptomaniac (compulsive thief). One day they wake up to realize every object they’ve ever stolen has come to life.
Write about a child who has always blamed their mistakes on an imaginary person. On the child’s 30th birthday, they awake to find this imaginary person they blamed everything on has come to life.
Write about a character who picks up a book written in a language they’ve never heard of before. Strangely, they can read and understand every word.
Write about a country that hasn’t been discovered yet.
Write about a species of bugs that only come above ground once every 1,200 years. Their arrival is completely unexpected, and their intentions are truly sinister.
Your character’s sister mysteriously vanishes. The quest to find her is one that reveals many secrets about the family’s dark past.
The country is in a panic. The reason? Magic, an art lost over 600 years ago, has been discovered in the slums.
While walking in an unknown part of the forest, your character discovers a cave with a strange egg inside. When they visit the egg again, they instead find a baby beast they never knew existed. Now it’s up to them to raise it.
Write about a character that makes a wish on a star. The next day they realize their wish has come true. The bad part? They worded their wish wrong… very, very wrong.
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Great fantasy writing prompts can help you flex your creative skills and improve your writing style. By stepping out of your comfort zone, you may discover that you have found your new passion! You can expand your wheelhouse of imagination by starting with a simple idea and expanding on it. You are the captain AND the navigator and can steer your story in any way you please 🙂
Fantasy writing gives you the freedom to make the story as wild as you want. There are no rules and no limitations. You can create the perfect world, or take the opposite approach and build a world no human could ever survive.
Finding daily writing prompts like these can help overcome writer’s block and get the creative juices flowing!
As long as you can follow your imagination and let your words flow then there is no telling where you and your characters might end up. Half the fun is going on the journey with your characters and no one will help them get there without you. So grab your pencil or laptop and take that first step out their front door that ends with a world of possibilities.
Whether it’s non-fiction or fiction writing prompts, either can work to help a writer break out of the same toolbox they may be working in. Sometimes it can be helpful to find a good writing prompts generator but google and Pinterest work just as well, and Reddit writing prompts too.
Take your time, look up some fun writing prompts, and take the leap. Start writing your own fantasy story today. You can start with one of these prompts, or combine a few. Who knows? You just might be surprised with where you land.
Check out these FREE trial resources from Amazon for when you work from home (or are stuck at home 🙂 ) As an Amazon associate, if you do sign up or buy anything using Amazon links from our site we make a commission at no extra cost to you.
Enjoying 10 Great Fantasy Writing Prompts? Take a moment and consider sharing this social-friendly image to say thanks and feel free to comment with your thoughts below! 🙂
Check out these FREE trial resources from Amazon for when you work from home (or are stuck at home 🙂 ) As an Amazon associate, if you do sign up or buy anything using Amazon links from our site we make a commission at no extra cost to you.
Use bad habits as a writing tool for fictional characters. Write bad habits into their character and they will be more familiar to your reader. Use this bad habit list to help as writing prompts for your fictional characters.
Bad habits in hygiene can lead to certain consequences.
Will they get a certain bacterial infection?
Will they get a fungal infection?
Will they be the smelly kid?
Will a bully make fun of them for their bad hygiene?
Write some of your fictional characters with these bad habits in order to make them appear to be bad with certain hygiene habits.
Why you would want to be thinking about bad habits for your fictional characters that you are writing?
Bad habits help your audience resonate with your characters.
They make our characters more believable and more human.
Adding a few bad habits to our characters will make them more enjoyable to our readers. After all, no human is perfect and that should include not all but most of our fictional characters.
5 Questions to Ask Yourself as You Make the Outline of Your Story: Does every character have a purpose for being in the story?
# 2.Does Every Character Have a Purpose for Being in the Story?
Readers will notice when you introduce a secondary character.
If that character has no purpose in the story by the end, that can leave our readers confused, underwhelmed or worse, disinterested and disengaged. Make sure every character has a purpose to the story, even if the impact may be minimal to the overarching outcome of the story.
Ways to incorporate every character:
Your secondary character shares a different perspective that causes your main character to make a decision
Your secondary character encourages your main character when no one else will
Your secondary character has the influence and power to do a favor for the main character
Your secondary character has influence and power that your main character lacks
Your secondary character is an unexpected help
Your secondary character has the very resources your main character needs
5 Questions to Ask Yourself as You Make the Outline of Your Story: How does your character try to solve the problem, and what are the consequences of that solution?
# 4.How Does Your Character Try to Solve the Problem, and What Are the Consequences of That Solution?
Just like in real life, your main character shouldn’t succeed at everything the first time.
When your character makes bad judgment calls or things don’t go exactly to plan, that makes your reader relate to the story on an empathetic level. Your character will be more believable, and the tension will increase, making your reader more invested in the story.
Also just like in real life, there are consequences for actions (whether good or bad). Even when the action causes the main problem to be solved, there are always loose ends that need tying or repercussions involving others.
5 Questions to Ask Yourself as You Make the Outline of Your Story: How has your character changed from the beginning to the end?
# 5.How Has Your Character Changed From the Beginning to the End?
Change is a powerful tool to get your reader invested in your characters.
The more they see the need for the character to change or the more change they feel they are able to see the character go through.
As the reader sees this change happen over time, they can feel like they went on the journey of change with that character and might even feel as though they changed along the way with the character.
Changes your character can have:
They can age physically
They can be injured (scars, ailments, loss of limbs)
They can mature emotionally
They can go from making bad choices to good choices
They have a new perspective or outlook on life
They now put others first
I hope this helps you write your story outline better!
10 Sort of Gross Bad Habits for Fictional Characters
Write some of your fictional characters with these bad habits in order to make them appear to be a bit gross.
Why you would want to be thinking about bad habits for your fictional characters that you are writing?
Bad habits help your audience resonate with your characters.
They make our characters more believable and more human.
Adding a few bad habits to our characters will make them more enjoyable to our readers. After all, no human is perfect and that should include not all but most of our fictional characters.
Write some of your fictional characters with these bad habits in order to make them appear to be toxic for themselves and others.
Why you would want to be thinking about bad habits for your fictional characters that you are writing?
Bad habits help your audience resonate with your characters.
They make our characters more believable and more human.
Adding a few bad habits to our characters will make them more enjoyable to our readers. After all, no human is perfect and that should include not all but most of our fictional characters.