Use Your Personality for Story Ideas

Have you ever taken time to inventory your personal characteristics?  Writing to probe your personality can assist with ideas to use for stories and poems. It also may lead to a deeper understanding of yourself.

Write to these questions:

How would you describe yourself?  Include physical, intellectual and emotional strengths.

How would a friend or family member describe you?

How would a person who has had a disagreement with you describe you?

How have you built your personality over the years?  Did you pick and choose role models to emulate?

Describe characteristics you wanted to add to your personality. How did you do it?

Reveal how a parent, sibling or close friend provided assistance with your intellectual and emotional development.

What are your greatest strengths?  How have they evolved over the years?

Describe three peak experiences that have stretched you.

Have you set attainable goals?  Did you reach others you did not anticipate?

Describe a trait that burdens you.

Which areas of your personality need the most work?

How has negative thinking or a bad attitude limited you in the past?   How did you discipline your thinking?

In a situation where you felt lost or ill-prepared, how did you manage your emotions?

When you need encouragement, what do you do?  

How do you select the people who surround you?

Have you had to let go of a relationship because it did not feel reciprocal?  Did you return to it?

How do you encourage others?

How do you hold yourself accountable?

After you have completed your responses, create a persona and respond with traits not similar to yours. When you're done, write a dialogue between you and the persona to see where it takes you.

Set the scene with a misunderstanding. Show how the personalities respond.

Let a story or poem evolve.