Pages

Friday, December 23, 2016

BOOTCAMP LESSON 15: Impersonation


Seasons Greetings!,

           Welcome to this special holiday edition of the BOOTCAMP writing prompt! It’s been awhile since I made one of these writing exercises, so I hope you are ready to try this one out, cause it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Image result for public domain santa


Lesson 15: Impersonation

Impersonation is the act of pretending to be another person, either for the purpose of entertainment or fraud. Most of us are familiar with the concept from childhood games, where we pretended to be adults going to work, or some kind of hero saving the day.

However, impersonation plays an important part when creating characters. Being able to get inside the character's head is a vital component of the process, as it helps the author to better understand and expand their characters.

In today’s exercise, we are going to place ourselves in the minds of some popular, public domain characters. We are going to imagine ourselves as one of these characters and get inside their heads, see how they would go about doing a simple task. This works for any situation, from doing groceries, going to the movies or even cooking supper.

So for today's game, we are going for a more festive activity; writing a letter to Santa! The goal is to imagine what one of the following characters would ask for Christmas in a letter to Santa Claus. This will really allow you to dig deep into the characters motivation and desires.

So, here are today's guidelines!

Rules

  1. Below is a list of five ‘’candidates’’, which are public domain characters. Select ONE of the five characters to work with.
  2. In the form of standard correspondence, write a letter to Santa Claus from the point of view of the character you have chosen to work with.
  3. In the letter, the character must clearly state what they want for Christmas, in a way that suits their personally and needs. The goal is to stay in character!
  4. There is no word or length limit to this exercise.


List of candidates
The Scarecrow
Image result for public domain Scarecrow oz

Tarzan
Image result for public domain Tarzan

Big Bad Wolf
Image result for public domain werewolf commons

Dr. Jekyll
Image result for public domain commons Dr. Jekyll

Ebenezer Scrooge
Image result for public domain commons Scrooge

For those who aren’t afraid to share their entries, feel free to submit your letters as a reply to this post. Remember, this is a game, so no posting bad comments about other people's entries.

Hope you have fun giving this exercise a try. Until next time!

Cheers,

Patrick Osborne

No comments:

Post a Comment