We all need passwords to log onto websites that we can hope to remember, right? So we are likely to choose configurations that mean something to us but not to others.
Here is a fun exercise you can use to think about your characters. Pretend your character needs a password, whether for a shopping site today or a safe stored under the floor in the year 1877. What word or number combination would she use? Why? The passwords your character creates say a lot about her. She’ll choose words and numbers she can identify with. Maybe:
Nana1999
50Mom
LoveytoHubs2010
70sBombshell
Fitness177
Knitter000661202
$$$$$$$Money$$$$$$$
If you try this exercise, you may gain new insights into your character.
Have fun!
I Is for Indemnification
A fun game that you point me toward,
so I shall take the bait…
just what kind of password
would my protagonist create?
He is a product of his time,
of that there is no doubt;
how that might define the choice? I’m
trying to figure out
how this truly gentle soul
who finds himself adrift
in a world past his control
could give himself a lift
with password as a hat-tip joke
to his fave movie, ‘upinsmoke’.
What an interesting way to look at a character! Thanks for sharing that idea, Tamela. My main character’s passwords would be Psalms 71, Navywife1986, Momof3, and the like.
I’m reading a novella collection where the related characters are friends in a chat group and they each have screen names. It’s fun to see how the authors show the characters’ personality through their handles. Could be another spin on the password exercise.
I have a MC whose password is L0veMyGirl$ his daughter knows it and thinks it refers to her and their golden retriever. She does not know her father has another daughter she has never met.
Bonnie, that sounds interesting, complex, and heartbreaking!
Ooooh, that’s sounds amazing~
This is an intriguing thing to do. One character’s password would likely be neverag@in. Another would have c0nnectedfr0mbirth. Mind you, the third would be A!waysrememberLoos.
Of course, a character could have a defining website, like…
resistanceisfutilewearetheb.org
But last I checked, it was taken.
Good exercise!! I think the main character in my WIP would have something like lost&lonely101, f0sterchild4life, or 2damaged2date as a password. This task made me think outside of the box – I love it!
Interesting thought. My character would probably have Mountainbaby01 or 1bornwild.