Do you know what your book’s about?

For this prompt, you need to know the main character’s overall story goal. You also need to know who the goal’s main opponent is, the one character who embodies the opposite philosophical position.

Yeah, I said opposite philosophical position: We’re going to pretend these two characters are captains of their respective debate teams and put them head-to-head on opposite sides of the debate.

This exercise may fit very nicely into your story’s climactic scene or, if you’re very much a shower and not a teller (and good for you if you are), it might not. It might instead give you fodder to slip into your story here and there. Or it might give you insight into the story’s thematic premise. Or it might help you turn your mustache-twirling two-dimensional bad guy into someone who makes some decent points and thus comes off as a little more real. Or it might help you find holes in your planning. All good things.

So, pick who’s going first, craft their opening statement about why they do or don’t want the goal to happen, and be on your debating way.

If you want to procrastinate get a better feel for how debates work, I googled it for you.

Also, for extra credit, I give you two options:

1. Take your opponents away from their debating tables and put them in a setting that represents the goal/issue. Have them move around in the setting and use what’s available to make their points.
2. Figure out where your other characters fit on the issue continuum and how their positions each differ from each other. Have them weigh in as well.

Book that inspired this prompt:

The book cover link above is an Affiliate Link, which means I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through this link, at no cost to you.  In other words, if you’re thinking of buying a copy of this book for your home craft library anyway, buying said copy through this link is a no-brainer way to help support this site. And I appreciate it. Thank you!

Well, that’s it for me!

If you found this post helpful, please . . .

1. Like it and share it! There are share buttons below . . .

2. Subscribe to the Blog to receive the Tools in your inbox as soon as they post:

3. Subscribe to the Newsletter. It’s a monthly-to-quarterly-ish (that’s still vastly overstating it) newsletter to share news and free worksheets and whatnot. Your welcome email will include the 19-page Character Development Workbook. You can subscribe here.

4. And if you found it particularly helpful . . .

Also, people have been hiring me to review their loglines with the kind of analysis seen here and here, and I’m enjoying it. So, if you think your logline (or something else!) might benefit from a looksie and want to hire me to review it, email me at writeswithtools @ gmail dot com.

Thanks!