"Outshined" by Soundgarden and Nobility

Today's writing exercise: Write a brief character sketch of someone who has something that puts him a step above other people. Nothing reason to make him pretentious or really better than anyone else. He can have average or less-than-average qualities aside from this one thing. It's almost better if everything about him is average or even mundane, because the exercise is specifically to think about nobility as present in a person. If everything else about a person is detestable, perhaps he is a great leader, he can instill the spirit of action in people. Maybe he's completely dull, but he can kick anyone's ass at video games. He could be as obnoxious as Ed, but he has something poetic in his air that makes him a great actor. Or write the type of person you'd never pick out of the crowd but make him hiding something incredible.

Nobility, in a literary sense, derives from some unshakable feature of the character. If all else is broken about them, then that one thing is still admirable. So today, think about that. Next we'll think about tragic flaws.