50 Ways to Aggravate Your Characters

                             

 

 

Hello hello! 

Today I have prepared for you a list of 50 (realistic) ways to aggravated your characters without serious consequences.
Your characters are probably experiencing a some of these things already, and you may not have thought to write it because they're so minor, but these things are great ways to get at your characters and keep them agitated and experiencing burdens without serious injury or plot tools becoming involved. 

(One thing to remember about this: Stay consistent. Don't give your character symptoms of dehydration one day and forget about it the next, as that would be an on-going thing. That applies to many things on the below list.)



1. Body Aches and cramps

2. Dehydration

3. Hunger

4. Getting dirty (great for characters on a lengthy adventure with no way of cleaning themselves)

5. Minor injuries (splinter, sprained wrist, torn nail, paper cut, etc)

6. Burning their tongue on a hot drink/food

7. Losing something

8. Dropping something

9. Loneliness

10. Insomnia

11. Campfire ash and smoke flying at them

12. Stepping on something sharp

13. Being annoyingly cold or hot

14. Petty arguments and misunderstandings 

15. Waking up early/staying up late

16. Staining their favorite clothing article

17. Tearing an article of clothing

18. Bugs buzzing around them

19. Craving things available to them

20. Swords/daggers/holsters getting in the way when they try to sit and getting caught on stuff

21. Hiccups

22. Needing to relieve themselves but being unable to for whatever reason

23. Being interrupted with needless stuff (stumbling, another character, a dog barking, whatever)

24. Language barriers

25. Allergies

26. Pebble in their shoe

27. The lack of a incredibly simple skill

28. Have a limb 'fall asleep'

29. Pet peeves

30. Trigger weird and senseless fears

31. Losing all motivation

32. Boredom

33. Being unable to articulate themselves

34. Caffeine withdrawal

35. Knives/swords going dull and constantly needing to resharpen them

36. Seemingly senseless headaches

37. Ears needing to pop

38. Biting their tongue on accident

39. Slipping on random things

40. Being teased by other characters

41. Shoe laces constantly coming undone

42. Trying to break a habit but messing up their efforts after a while

43. Having a tickle in their throat that won't go away  

44. Catching a cold

45. Bug bites

46. Getting a song stuck in their head

47. Bumping into things

48. Having a word or thought on the tip of their tongue

49. Being one cent short of the amount of money they need for something

50. Having to sneeze but being unable to

There you have it! I hope this list serves you well, and I pity your characters should you use any of these things. Remember to use them with consideration, as constant annoyances can agitated your readers in a less than desirable way.
Best of luck with your writing! 

                   ~ 𝓔𝓭𝓷𝓪 𝓟𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓷 

P.S. If you find a way to use any of these, I'd love to hear about it below. Messing with characters can be great fun.