The Character Creation Game

The Character Creation Game is one of my favorite games to play with students because it works for ALL AGES!  I originally learned this game in a Stanford Continuing Studies writing class I took with Cheri and Teddy Steinkellner.  The Steinkellners are an awesome family of writers (Cheri used to write for Cheers and her son, Teddy, currently writes for No Good Nick on Netflix).  They had the BEST writing classes that combined improv games with writing activities.  Needless to say, this has inspired much of the work I do with writing project students.  They called this game the Betty Plumb game (I can't remember why), but I call it the Character Creation Game.  

The Character Creation Game Lesson Plan
Objective: Students will work collaboratively to craft unique characters by playing a character creation game and will write scenes based upon the characters they create.

Purpose: This activity is fun for students of all ages (including adults!). We use this activity often because it is high-interest, encourages collaboration (students who laugh together are often more willing to work together), and gets creative juices flowing.
Playing The Game
This is a game that will help us to create unique characters.  The rules of the game are simple. Players take turns making up “facts” about a character.  Whatever anyone says about the character must be taken as truth and cannot be contradicted/changed.  Players should try to build upon their group mates’ facts to craft a character into existence. Be as creative and wild as possible. Below is a model as to how this game is played.
Play will start with coming up with initials for the character’s name, then the group will go around clockwise making up facts about the character.  Remember that the only rule is that players should never contradict one another’s facts (in the example below Xander cannot suddenly become a 13 year old girl because he is a 3000 year old fallen angel…unless of course someone curses him so that he has to inhabit the body of a 13 year old girl for a year).
Step 1: Player 1 asks for the other players to give 2 letters of the alphabet to serve as the character’s initials.   Example players might shout out: XE
Player 1: give the character a first name
     Ex: The character’s first name will be Xander.
Player 2: give the character a last name
     Ex: Xander’s last name is Easy.
Player 3: state a fact about the character
     Ex: Xander Easy is a 3000 year old fallen angel.
Player 1: state a fact about the character
     Ex: Xander Easy fell from heaven for stealing apples from the Garden of Eden.
Player 2: state a fact about the character
     Ex: When Zeus caught Xander stealing apples he chased him around the garden
     shooting lightening bolts at him.
Player 3: state a fact about the character
     Ex: One of the lightening bolts struck Xander in the back and now he has the
     marking of a black lightening bolt where his wings used to be.
Player 1: state a fact about the character
     Ex: Xander can never take off his shirt because if a human lays eyes on the
     lightening bolt marking he or she will immediately go blind.
Player 2: state a fact about the character
     Ex: Xander learned this during an unfortunate encounter with a ship captain 100
     years ago.

Warm-up Writing Activity: Terrible Things Happen to Great Characters
Now it is time to freewrite about the character for 10 minutes.  The only rule for the freewrite is that players need to try to write about terrible things happening to the great character they just created.  Here are some tips for writing:
If players need inspiration they should think about the worst possible thing that could happen to their character and then make that happen (in the example above Xander being stuck in the body of a 13 year old girl might just be the worst thing that could happen to him…at least until other even more horrible things start to happen). Putting the character in these bad situations is not just fun, it is also a great technique for building tension in a story.