Trick or Treat

     

The way we chose the costume would make a fun exercise to dig into the psyche of a current character you’re working with in a story. For example, one of my colleagues wore ordinary clothes and a baseball cap with a patch on the front that read, “This is my costume”, and another came as a leprechaun, and he was 6’3”!

The Halloween Costume Exercise:

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Decide where your character is (home, office, etc.) and what makes them decide to buy a costume, or not.
3. Imagine your character (s) going into a Halloween pop up shop where any costume is available. Imagine the character walking past costumes for witches, vampires, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, devils, law enforcement, etc.  Now, make a snap decision, as if you were your character, about which one, if any, they would select.
4. Briefly describe them getting dressed.
5. Have them enter wherever they’re going, a party, club,” trick or treating,” and write about what happens.
6. Have them say why they selected the costume.
7. Repeat for Villain or Obstacle, and Buddy or Love Interest.

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Interview with Ethan Freckleton.

I was recently interviewed by Ethan: https://www.ethanfreckleton.com/the-fearless-storyteller/
for his new podcast show and you can hear my interview on screenwriting starting November 4 from 7:00 AM EST.

Ethan’s a writer and coach as well as a radio personality, and I recommend  that you subscribe to his podcast as he is full of great information and a very fun guy!

It was really fun getting to talk about The Four Magic Questions of Screenwriting, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Save this link:
https://www.ethanfreckleton.com/simple-isnt-always-easy-with-professor-marilyn-horowitz/

Have fun, you’ll learn a lot about your characters and yourselves!

Here’s to your successful writing,

Professor Marilyn Horowitz