I spent a large portion of my time during the first three days of Senior Project conducting character development exercises. Before writing either the letters or the journal (both from the perspective of my character) I wanted to make sure I really knew who my character was. I spent a few minutes searching for different exercises and compiled them into a document. The first one I did asked me to come up with the biographical information for my character—name, age, hair colour, eye colour, etc. I chose to keep my character’s physical traits more or less similar to my own in case I do incorporate photography in my piece so that I can represent my character. The second exercise I completed asked a series of questions about the character’s personality. I noticed that many of the questions were something like “happy or sad?” or “optimistic or pessimistic?”—a sort of either-or extreme. I thought back to some of the things I learned in some of my English classes at school where we highlighted the fact that a good character is not black-and-white; a good character has depth. I approached these questions with this in mind and avoided answering them simply. This way I will have a more well-rounded character who can’t be defined by a few bold adjectives. The other exercises I completed were focused on the smaller details that may be important to the character’s story. The questions asked about the characters’ favourite things, family history and relationships, friends, likes and dislikes, etc. I now have several pages of information on my character which has created a good picture in my head. Some of it I likely won’t use, but a lot of it will find its way into the story.