In this generative writing workshop, writers are invited to work with a character they are already writing or to build a new character from the ground up. These characters may be fictional or nonfictional. Through automatic writing, using the constraint of timed prompts, writers will experience their characters in a variety of different settings, behaviors, memories, and relationships in order to begin a new project or add depth and complexity to an existing one. We will work through two sets of twelve prompts, the first set designed to explore the personality and inner world of the character, and the second designed to bring the character into scenes with others and the external world. We’ll examine some approaches to characterization from Zadie Smith, Leslie Marmon Silko, Jamaica Kincaid, Fanny Howe, and others, as inspiration for strategies to implement in our own writing.

Alex Toy is a fiction writer from Maine. She holds an MFA from Brown University and a PhD in English and Literary Arts from the University of Denver. Her work is featured in Annulet, Astrolabe, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere.