Challenge Rules

  1. All stories must be fiction. I’m after characters based on real people, not stories of the real people themselves.
  2. Stories must be between 1500 and 3000 words.
  3. Stories must be about subjects that are acceptable for a general audience. For guidelines, the National Library Association has guidelines for topics acceptable in the bookselling world to the general audience.

      4. Deadline—March 1, 2025

Using Character Models

There are several ways of using character models in your stories to help you with character development in your stories.

  1. You can use a character's job and behavior towards work to build a similar character in a story. These models tend, as I discovered, to produce longer stories.
  2. You can use a behavior of several characters as a starting point for the situation of a single character, e.g., the character that always has a comment at a party, who suddenly gets him or herself in trouble because of said comment.
  3. You can use the physical attributes of a character to form the physical attributes of your fictional character and then place that fictional character in a situation where those attributes matter. For example, you might know a really tall man. You can watch that tall man move and imagine what his transition might look like if he played for the NBA.

    4. These are a few ideas. I've included sample stories as starting points for you.

Stories

Here are two model stories that you can use to inspire you about how this writing method works.

In the first story, “Ship Fitter”, I’ve used one denizen of the PSRG as a major model. I suspect you will recognize who it is. I’ve raised the stakes so that if this character does his job correctly, his client’s life will be vastly improved. If he were to do it incorrectly, his client’s life might actually end. So the stakes for the client are much higher than they would be for any situation I can think of in current life.

In the second story, I have used the behavior of the people who check into the net and never do anything except just check in. They stay around. They listen. But they seemingly have nothing to say. The second story explores why a character might do that and what it might take to draw such a character out.

In both stories, I have used other characters as minor characters, some of whom are based on PSRG people and some of whom are not.