I am preparing workshops for the Kids Writing Camps that I’m teaching this summer. You can find out more about the Kids Writing Camps here.
One of the books I love to use with kids is Spilling Ink by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter. The book is full of fun exercises which helps kids, and adults writing for kids, build a story.
The following exercise is only one of many you can find in Spilling Ink.
Bake Your Character–Character Recipe--Think of six qualities for a character and write a recipe for him or her.
Here is my Character Recipe for Jasmine in tween novel, STAINED GLASS SUMMER
Baking Jasmine (Stained Glass Summer)
5 Cups of creativity
2 Cups of risk-taking
2 Cups of sandals, a bike, and an eighth grade boy named Cole.
1 tsp of jet black hair
1/2 tsp of organization and list making
1/4 tsp of a blue ribbon
Combine all ingredients. Bake in oven for ten year, and serve up as an ebook from Musa Publishing and available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Ibooks. Enjoy!
Can you create a character recipe? Feel free to post below in the comments!
Mindy Hardwick's Blog 
Mindy–clever exercise yet useful in writing character for any genre!
It’s a fun exercise!
[…] In both groups, we’re going to start off writing recipes about ourselves as a way of introductions. Next, I’m asking writers to exchange their recipes with someone else and have that person introduce them to us by reading the “About Me Recipe”. Recipes can also be used for characters in an activity called, “Bake Your Character” and I wrote a blog post about it here. […]