Tag: character-building

Categories
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

Do You Love Your Series Sleuth?

mystery suspense thriller

Oh, the work you put into developing your sleuth, your investigator, your detective! Whether old or young, tall, or short, male or female, attractive or plain, rich, or poor—much thought goes into crafting this character.

At first blush, you can imagine yourself having a long happy partnership with this unique individual who will ultimately be the smartest person in the room when it comes to solving a crime. Your goal is always getting the readers to love this entity as much as you do, to join you for the long haul of seeing your star succeed.

But then, one day. You don’t like your person anymore! You didn’t think about that when you started your series and now, you’re in a pickle. That’s what happened to Conan Doyle. Most of us would die to create a character as noteworthy as Sherlock Holmes, but Doyle was bored, and he killed him off in the aptly titled “The Final Problem”. The public wasn’t tired of him, but the author was.

A mindset problem

This phenomenon can happen to any writer—when we play the brain game. The mind starts to throw out the thoughts such as “this is boring” and “it’s not good.” It comes from being behind the scenes and understanding how the sausage is made. The reader, however, isn’t having that same experience. Rather, they are not caught in the same web that has engulfed the writer’s mindset. It’s a snare that captures any writer, especially the perfectionist. The writer begins to devalue the very things that brought their work to light and are still appreciated.

Meanwhile, the reader continues to enjoy the story and feels uplifted, escapes day-to-day life, and is entertained—something they are not willing to give up because an author is yawning. You are no longer alone own in the universe you’ve created.

So, let’s get back to you as you are creating a series sleuth or detective.

Since we are in the era of ongoing series, here are some helpful questions as you begin to prevent pulling a Conan “oops.” Think ahead to stay in sync with your protagonist.

Tips for keeping your sleuth interesting

▪ Pick a character with potential. This should include personal and professional foibles. Readers want to love the person. Know their fears, interests, needs, and desires intimately so you have places to go.

▪ Your character must want to solve crimes above all. Have you put them in a position to be able to continually pursue crime? Are they a detective, police officer, or an amateur with crime solving resources? Do they have access to resources that allow them to stay in the game and possibly travel to new locations if you want to change things up?

▪ Visualize the age of your character. Can moving through stages of life help bring something new to every story? Don’t paint yourself in a corner with time.

▪ Give them some traits the reader can count on while continuing to reveal nuggets of their personality that are intriguing in every new novel.

The moral of the story? At some point, your readers become your partners in the stories you invent. Make sure you make room for loving your characters for years to come, because that’s how long you may be in business together!

Michelle Olsen

Michele Olson writes stories set on Mackinac Island in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan filled with suspense, romance, friendship, faith, and quirky characters. A top seller in Mackinac Island Fiction to the million people who make a trip to the island every year to experience life with no cars, amazing scenery, and the glorious Grand Hotel, she enjoys opening up this incredible island to even more visitors. Incorporating her work as an artist and a voice professional into her writing whenever she can, she enjoys creative endeavors of all genres and Fueling Faith with Fiction™.

Michele lives in the shadow of Lambeau Field in Green Bay, WI with her husband and thoroughly enjoys being a wife, mom, and “Gee Gee” to two adorable grandsons.

Visit her:

  • Website: www.LakeGirlPublishing.com
  • Facebook: facebook.com/lakegirlpublishing.com
  • Twitter: @modawnwriter
  • Instagram: Instagram.com/lakegirlpublishing
  • Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/lakegirlpublishing
Categories
Writing for YA

Writing a First Novel: Creating Characters

In past blog posts, I’ve written about choosing a genre, story premise, and GMC.

A key element of any story is character development. Character development is the process of creating fictional characters, but can also refer to a character’s arc. In this article, I’ll talk about the process of creating characters and leave the arc for another day.

Key Characters

Every story has a hero, or main character, also called the protagonist.

Some have a villain, the antagonist. In some stories, the main character (MC) fills both roles of antagonist and protagonist.

Most have secondary characters. These assist the MC, oppose the MC, or otherwise help the reader understand the MC’s journey.

Fully developing the protagonist and antagonist is essential to a good story.

In order to be three dimensional, characters should have occupations, hobbies, friends, favorite foods, talents, etc. but they also require fleshing out in other ways. Some writers spend a lot of time describing the physical attributes of their story people. While this is important, the emotional make up—dreams, ambitions, struggles, and so on—of your character is what resonates with readers.

Flat and Round

Have you been told your characters are flat, or that they need more rounding? What does this mean?

Flat characters are one-dimensional. Some minor characters can be flat and serve the story just fine. However, main characters need to have depth and personality.

Ever met someone who appeared to be perfect? Did it feel like you were waiting for the authentic person to reveal themselves?

Don’t make your characters too good to be true.

But it’s fiction!

Even so, your reader wants to feel as if the story is real. To capture the reader, a main character should have both attributes and flaws. 

But I want my hero to be good!

No one is all good or all bad. Perfect characters are hard, if not impossible, to relate to. They can come off as unrealistic, preachy, or just plain boring. If readers don’t feel an affinity with the protagonist, they won’t be invested enough to keep turning pages.

A superhero who is afraid of spiders. The psychiatrist who has a dysfunctional family. The miracle worker who cannot heal his own child. These are more interesting than a flat hero.

What about the “bad guy” in a story?

While reading a novel, do you ever find it hard to believe a “bad” character is all bad? A villain becomes a cartoon image, and the book gets tossed aside. Both heroes and villains need to have core values. I’ve heard it said that all villains believe they are the good guy.

Often, a character’s greatest strength will have negative aspects, just like in real life. A character who is responsible may take responsibility too seriously, or take on responsibility that isn’t theirs. This could cause all sorts of story problems!

A character who is consistent, a good trait, can be inflexible, which is bad in certain situations.

The character who values family above all else, can cross lines and cause tension because they put such high regard on family relationships.

Round characters come with built in opportunities for conflict.

A good tool to figure out the natural balance of your characters’ dominant traits is by determining their personality type using something like 16Personalities.com.

Creating Compelling Characters

To further develop rounded and interesting characters, go beyond a list of the basics. Try character interviews, asking deeper questions. A google search should turn up plenty of fiction writing character interviews, or you can make up one.

Or try this. Put your character in different situations, awkward, stressful, relaxed, and write their interior dialogue. Do this exercise in first person, even if your novel is in third.

Does a writer have to do all of this before they start writing? Not necessarily. Often, my characters flesh themselves out during the process of writing. But not knowing enough to have a solid GMC is usually a guarantee my story will stall.

Having a well-developed character in mind will help the story unfold easier. As long as the writer doesn’t get bogged down in endless character questionnaires and interviews, such exercises are a useful addition to the writer’s toolbox.

Recommended Reading

Write Great Fiction Series: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

Related Blog Posts

WRITING A FIRST NOVEL: CHOOSING A GENRE

WRITING A FIRST (OR SECOND) NOVEL: STORY PREMISE & GMC

Donna Jo Stone writes YA contemporary novels about tough issues but always ends the stories with a note of hope. She blogs at donnajostone.com.

Categories
Courting the Muse

How to Level Up Your Descriptions Through the Ancient Art of Ekphrasis

Some writers are blessed with a vivid visual imagination. Just by willing it, they can render scenes in their mind’s eye with the pixel-perfect fidelity of CGI. They see their characters with photographic precision, from the slope of their shoulders to the snarled ends of their hair. Their settings have the texture and specificity of real asphalt and dirt.

I’ve always envied this ability, but I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed it myself. In fact, I’ve been cursed with an incredibly impoverished visual imagination. Even as a reader, I never instinctually convert the sentences I encounter into pictures in my head. Learning that a character is “blonde”, or a farmhouse “weathered” just gives me an abstract bit of info to file away— no different than being told that she’s a Sagittarius or that it was built in 1897.

Despite my inability to conjure up mental images, however, I’ve never been told that my writing comes across as excessively abstract. In fact, I’ve been praised for the precision and evocativeness of my descriptions. I’m determined not to let my lack of visual imagination prevent pictorially gifted readers from connecting with my work. That’s why I’ve learned to work around my inability to see pictures inside my head.

What’s my secret for faking it until I make it? I think of it as a spin on the ancient technique of ekphrasis, from the Greek for “calling an inanimate object by name”. The etymology makes it sound incredibly poetic, and it’s true that ekphrasis has been used to greatest effect in verse. But at its core, this rhetorical device just means to describe a work of visual art in detail. As an example, you might look at John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” possibly the most famous instance of ekphrastic poetry in the Anglophone tradition. But I prefer John Ashberry’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” based on a 16th-century painting by Parmigianino. It opens with the following lines:

As Parmigianino did it, the right hand

Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer

And swerving easily away, as though to protect

What it advertises. A few leaden panes, old beams,

Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together

In a movement supporting the face, which swims

Toward and away like the hand

Except that it is in repose….

I’ve never written ekphrastic poetry myself. But to work around my lack of visual imagination, I use a trick that feels analogous to ekphrasis: I write using reference images, much the way an artist might consult them when they sketch. You see, my problem lies in mentally conjuring up images from the blank canvas inside my head — not in translating extant images into language. That means that, if I want to describe something accurately, I need to be looking at it, the way an artist might consult a photo to get a pose just right.

Sometimes I do write about a work of visual art, in the traditional ekphrastic mode: I might model a bit of scenery off a landscape painting, or give a character the face of a marble bust. Most of the time, though, I just use a photo from the internet to get a detail like the right texture of driftwood, the exact shape of a snarl.

Even if you’re not cursed with my particular brand of imaginative inability, give this spin on ekphrasis a try: it’ll make your visual descriptions that much sharper. And if you find yourself wading deeper into the art historical archive in search of references, you just might find yourself inspired to write a whole story — or a poem — based on a painting.

Lucia Tang is a writer for Reedsy, a marketplace that connects self-publishing authors with the book industry’s best editors, designers, and marketers. To work on the site’s free historical character name generators, she draws on her knowledge of Chinese, Latin, and Old Irish —  learned as a PhD candidate in history at UC Berkeley. You can read more of her work on the Reedsy Discovery blog, or follow her on Twitter at @lqtang.

Categories
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

Identity Crisis

mystery suspense thriller

Let’s talk villains. One of my favorite topics!

The creeper. The serial killer. The diabolical mastermind. The psychotic killer. And villains with a skewed sense of justice.

Does your bad guy (or girl) really know who he or she is?

Thanks to a friend’s advice, I have a list of ways that my antagonist can attempt to kill my hero or heroine. I simply go down the list and pick my favorites for that story. Yes, I am that devious. LOL! However, I’ve learned that I can’t pick at random. I must make thoughtful choices.

Whether you love them or hate them, villains must be true to who you’ve created them to be. Do you know who they are and what they want?

Not long ago, I received feedback from an editor. She liked the overall plot of the story and my writing, but my villain had issues. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I had more to fix then just my bad guy. However, the villain, he’s the one who had an identity crisis. I soon discovered what I had done. I’d chosen a villain, even mapped out what he wanted, but I hadn’t put myself in his head.

When writing your antagonist, think like the character you’ve created. If he’s a serial killer that strangles his victims, is he suddenly going to shoot someone? If he is trying to kill a witness, is he going to ransack the victim’s home when he or she isn’t there?

Stay true to the personality and motivation of your antagonist.

Crawl into your villain’s head. Yes, it can be a creepy place. But ask yourself, how would I eliminate my prey? Put yourself in his shoes.

I’m an arsonist. I’m going to burn down buildings, not run someone off the road and shoot at them.

I’m a serial killer who’s a sniper. I’m going to shoot my victims from a distance, not sneak into their home and attempt to strangle them.

I poison people. I might track my victim’s movements so I can sneak poison into their water bottle at the gym, or coffee at work, etc. But I’m not going to hit my hero or heroine over the head with a lead pipe.

Don’t let your antagonist have an identity crisis. Always make the crime match your villain.

What type of villain is your favorite? And how do you keep him or her from having an identity crisis?

Sami Abrams grew up hating to read. It wasn’t until her 30’s that she found authors that captured her attention. Now, most evenings you can find her engrossed in a Romantic Suspense. In her opinion, a crime and a little romance is the recipe for a great story.

Sami has finaled 15 times in writing contests, including receiving first place in American Christian Fiction Writer’s Genesis Contest in 2019 and Faith Hope and Love’s Touched By Love Awards in 2018. She lives in Northern California, but she will always be a Kansas girl at heart. She has a love of sports, family, and travel. However, a cabin at Lake Tahoe writing her next story is definitely at the top of her list.

Visit Sami at:

Website:  Samiaabrams.com

Facebook Author page:  samiaabrams

Twitter: @samiaabrams

Instagram: samiaabrams 

Categories
Writers Chat

WRITERS Chat Recap for February, Part 1

Writers Chat, hosted by Jean Wise, Johnnie Alexander, and Bethany Jett, is the show where we talk about all things writing, by writers and for writers!

“Because talking about writing is more fun than actually doing it.”

Enneagram and the Writer, with Jean Wise

Personality types are intriguing for most of us. It helps us to understand why we, or those we love, act the way we do. In this episode, Jean Wise—spiritual director, blogger, and author—presents an overview of the nine core personality types of the Enneagram. She shares some of the strengths and weaknesses of each type. Jean also shares that being familiar with personality types will help us understand ourselves better but might also explains personality may have an influence over what we write. Knowing more about personalities, the good and the bad, will also help us as writers to develop deep, realistic characters that our readers will love or love to hate. If you’re intrigued by personality profiles or just want to make your characters more life-like, then this is the episode for you.

Watch the February 4th replay.

Book Proposals & One Sheets

In this episode, Bethany Jett, co-owner of Serious Writer, Inc. and Johnnie Alexander, novelist, share their insights on book proposals and one sheets for both fiction and nonfiction. Bethany shares a template her company uses for nonfiction proposals. Johnnie explains the template she used for fiction which landed a contract for her Misty Willow Series. During this episode two from the audience share their one pages and Johnnie and some of the others in the audience critiqued the one pages. Bethany reminded us that these needed to have a picture, author bio, comps of the book, and either a short synopsis or back cover blurb. This is a must see episode whether you are attending a conference in the near future or not. A wealth of information is in the one hour episode. Check it out.

Watch the February 11th replay.

JOIN US!

Writers Chat is hosted live each Tuesday for an hour starting at 10 AM CT / 11 AM ET on Zoom. Here’s the permanent Zoom room link. 

Participants mute their audio and video during the filming then we open up the room for anyone who wishes to participate with our guests. The “After Party” is fifteen-minutes of off-the-record sharing and conversation.

Additionally, you can grow your network and add to the conversation by joining our Writers Chat Facebook Group.

Categories
Fantasy-Sci-Fi

Fantasy Heroes? This Is How You Make Them Relatable.

One of my friends recently gifted me a book. She’d loved it so much she literally went out and bought a second copy for me to read.

It’s a fantasy, and some of the characters are so heroic they seem fantastic, at least as far as Google defines fantastic: “imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality.”

It’s hard to connect to someone who’s so removed from my own abilities they seem distant. I’d like to believe I’m capable of the things this hero in this book is, but I’m not. The theme of the book is great, just like my friend said, but so far it’s been hard to truly relate to at a personal level.

How can we steer clear of this issue and write fantasy heroes who are very human, physical, and flawed, yet still capable of greatness?

Write Human Characteristics

If you’re writing a fantasy there’s no question you have some very inhuman, creative characteristics in your characters. Maybe some of your supporting characters are not even human at all. Maybe your main character (MC) isn’t! Regardless, in order to be relatable to your human readers, your MC needs to have human characteristics.

Maybe they’re very uncomfortable around a specific supporting character and this shows through their body language. Maybe their natural response to fear is to fight (ever heard of fight or flight, the very human response to negative feedback in the environment?).

Whatever it is for your MC, make it human.

Remember The Physical

Just because they may not be human, your MC is still physical. He/she can still feel the full range of emotion, and demonstrate this emotion through their body.

We all have certain physical limitations. For instance, I dislike running but I run anyway in order to stay healthy. On the other hand, I love getting with friends and experiencing the outdoors with them.

Maybe your main character loves running but experienced an injury that keeps him from running at the time your story takes place. This physical detriment makes him uncomfortable around others. He unconsciously portrays himself through the emotion of insecurity via low power poses.

We all have physical insecurities. Give your MC one too, and he’ll be far more relatable to the average reader!

We’re All Flawed

Whether we admit it or not, we all have flaws in our personal characters. Maybe our reasons for doing something good are skewed, or we see the world through a false lens.

Readers relate to flaws, and flaws enable a full character-arc for your MC.

Wherever your MC starts in the story, make sure he overcomes a personal flaw by the last page. If you can write a fictional character who overcomes, you’ll inspire your readers to overcome.

This won’t only build trust with your readership, but keep them wanting more. Your influence will expand, your writing will grow, and you will experience the pleasure of using your gifts for others.

Happy writing!

Sarah Rexford is a Marketing Content Writer, working with brands to grow their audience reach. She studied Strategic Communications at Cornerstone University and focused on writing during her time there, completing two full-length manuscripts while a full-time student. Currently she trains under best-selling author Jerry Jenkins in his Your Novel Blueprint course and is actively seeking publication for two books.

Instagram: @sarahjrexford
Twitter: @sarahjrexford
Web: itssarahrexford.com

Categories
Talking Character

Building Characters: Start with What You Know

If you’ve ever been involved in building a house or a major remodeling project, you understand how overwhelming it can be to make all the decisions the builder demands. Creating a character from scratch can feel just as daunting. Temperament, hair color, weaknesses, fears, favorite ice cream, childhood pets, past relationships, education…

How do you know which answers are right? Where do you start?

Start with what you know.

However formed or fuzzy the character is, you know something about her. So begin by writing down everything you know.

What do you know about…

  1. The part she plays in the story? Is she the heroine? The sidekick? The bratty kid who always gets to be first? Define the part she will play as much as you can.
  2. The attributes she will need to be good at the part? A sleuth needs to be inquisitive, clever, and willing to risk danger in order to track down clues. A military officer needs courage, stamina, and a sense of duty. What are the key attributes your character needs to be believable in the role?
  3. The skills, knowledge, hobbies or experiences she will need to draw on? Does the plot involve swordplay? Ballet? Horseback riding? A narrow escape through storm drains? Pretending to be a professional chef? List all the bits and pieces of story ideas and consider what the character will need to get through the challenges.
  4. The backstory facts you already know she’ll need? Jot them down and then do some free writing to see what other gems you may uncover as you build a life story around those facts.
  5. What physical attributes and demographic info make sense? Based on what you’ve written down so far, and what your gut tells you, list the details that seem obvious or fit your mental image of the character. If you have no idea what color her eyes are, skip that detail for now and focus on whichever details you do know.
  6. Random trivia. Sometimes a character inspiration comes out of some quirky combination of colorful tidbits. The girl at the coffee shop who always wears purple and owns a pet boa constrictor, for example. Jot down any miscellaneous information you have about the character. Who knows where it might lead.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly—don’t be afraid to change things.

Writing down what you know is only the beginning of the process. As you become better acquainted with your characters you will reevaluate and refine the details. Give yourself permission to make intentional changes.

Consider this the foundation from which the real character will grow and mature.

Happy character-building.

[bctt tweet=”When building a character, start with what you know. #writer #writetips” username=””]

Lisa E. Betz believes that everyone has a story to tell the world. She loves to encourage fellow writers to be intentional about their craft and courageous in sharing their words with others. Lisa shares her words through dramas, Bible studies, historical mysteries, and her blog about intentional living. You can find her on Facebook  LisaEBetzWriter and Twitter @LisaEBetz

Categories
Talking Character

Your Character’s Backstory—Use It Wisely

Every fictional character has an entire life’s worth of backstory that happened prior to the opening of your novel. A writer’s job is to discover which pieces of the story are important.

Why is backstory important?

Backstory is what brings a character to life. Exploring the events in a character’s past yields nuggets of insight that makes them unique and explains why they act the way they do. The deeper a writer delves into the backstory of her characters, the better she can understand makes them tick.

Backstory also provides information on past events and relationships that are critical to understanding the current plot.

The dangers of backstory

Not every detail of a character’s history is relevant to your novel.

It’s tempting to believe our readers are every bit as fascinated with our characters’ backstories as we are. But don’t be fooled. Readers are only interested in what’s gonna happen next. K. M. Weiland in Outlining Your Novel

Backstories can take on a life of their own and lead unwary writers off-track. The goal of inventing a character’s life history is to discover the key events that influence who they have become. Details that have no bearing on the events of the plot should not be allowed to creep in and divert the story in an unhelpful direction.

How to use backstory effectively

There’s a time and place where backstory belongs—and a time and place where is doesn’t. K. M. Weiland

Like other kinds of research, most of the information about character’s past life will not make it into the finished novel. The trick is in knowing how much information to share with the reader and when it will be most effective to share it.

It’s tempting to explain all the important backstory at the beginning of the novel. Resist the urge. Instead, work the important details into the story on an as-needed basis. In other words, don’t explain backstory details until the moment the reader needs to know them to understand what is happening.

That doesn’t mean playing unfair with readers. By providing hints that a character has certain past events that affect how they act, the writer can withhold the details until the moment of greatest impact.

For example, in Kristen Heitzmann’s novel Secrets, she hints early on that protagonist Rese Barret was traumatized by her father’s death, but only gradually reveals the whole story. If Heitzmann had explained the entire backstory at the start readers might feel sympathy toward Rese for a page or two. In contrast, doling out the father’s story in snippets keeps the reader riveted chapter after chapter.

To summarize, backstory is what turns a cardboard character into a vivid and complex person. A wise writer selects only those details that enhance the plot and explain character’s motives and attitudes.  Or, to quote from Outlining Your Novel one last time:

[bctt tweet=”The best backstories are those that influence a story without obstructing it. K. M. Weiland #writers #writetips” username=””]

Categories
Craft The Writer's PenCase

Creating Extraordinary Characters –– Part I

The Writer's PenCase

Why is it that some characters stick in our minds? What is it about them that causes us identify with them and admire them? I’ll be looking at these questions and others in this new series. [bctt tweet=”Some say it’s all about plot. Others say it’s about character. ” username=”@A3forme @donnalhsmith”]#amwriting #characters

Continue reading “Creating Extraordinary Characters –– Part I”
Categories
Talking Character

Creating Villains

In order to really show his stuff, a protagonist needs challenges to overcome. The tougher the opposition, the more our heroes can shine.

In other words, to have awesome heroes, we need formidable villains.

Like any other important character, villains need to be constructed with care. Even if they aren’t given much screen time, they deserve a multi-layered personality and backstory that explains how they got to be so nasty.

Five keys for constructing villains

  1. Give the villain a face. Sometimes our hero is fighting a corrupt government, a corporation, or an epidemic. However, a vague, shadowy them will not make a satisfying antagonist. Create a single person that represents the larger entity, such as ambitious executive driven by greed, or a character whose own agenda is at cross purposes with those trying to control the spread of a disease.
  2. Make the villain hard to beat. Better yet, make the villain seem impossible to beat. The stronger and smarter the antagonist, the more satisfying the story. Nobody will be impressed if the hero outshines the villain in strength, resources, and smarts—because there was never any doubt the hero would win. But if the villain outclasses the hero, the result of their struggle is far from certain, and the reader must read to the end to find out how the hero manages to win despite the odds. Then you have a story!
  3. Don’t let them steal the show. (Because they’ll be happy to, given a chance—cads that they are). Be careful not to create a villain who is so eccentric and flashy that they are more interesting than the upright, do-gooder hero. Also, by the end of the story it should be clear to the reader that the villain’s motivations are flawed and that the protagonist’s choice is the better way.
  4. Remember, all humans are redeemable. Your villain may not budge from his twisted evil ways, but deep inside he must have a small piece of his character that is redeemable. All humans are made in the image of God, therefore no human can be pure evil. This may not be true for otherworldy characters such as demons or space aliens, however. Pure evil works in certain cases, but for most stories a villain who retains some aspects of humanity is the more believable choice.
  5. Make the villain believable. All well-developed characters have reasons they act the way they do. Your villain’s thinking may be twisted, but deep down she must believe she is doing what is right, even if everyone else thinks her actions are wrong. The more readers understand why the villain acts the way she does, the more they can relate. Be warned, however, not to create too much sympathy for the villain’s misery. You don’t want readers to identify with the villain’s pain or the justice of her cause to the point they root for her instead of the hero.

[bctt tweet=”Good villains are important. The tougher the opposition, the more our heroes can shine.” username=””]

Categories
Talking Character

Pros and Cons of Character Questionnaires

Good writers know that developing well-rounded characters is critical, and one technique for creating such interesting characters is to create in-depth bios using character questionnaires. The point of these tools is to stretch you to think about your character in ways that might not have occurred to you.

[bctt tweet=”How well do you know your character? #amwriting #characters”]

Some examples:

  • As a kid, what did he want to be when he grew up?
  • What is her happiest memory?
  • What does she think makes a person successful?
  • What three words would be on his tombstone?
  • What superpowers does he wish he had?
  • Does she hate her middle name?

The internet offers sites with links to dozens of questionnaires, from basic to comprehensive. I even discovered a random question generator. (Is this akin to Paul’s discovery of an altar to an unknown god? And perhaps just as useful?)

Strategic character building

Running through a few of these questionnaires can help you build a more rounded character, but they might also lead you down rabbit trails that will later complicate or sidetrack your writing.

Wired for Story by Lisa Cron warns that character questionnaires can be “so all-encompassing that, ironically, they obscure the very info you’re looking for. Here’s the secret: you are looking only for information that pertains to the story you’re telling.”

If the fact that your hero is afraid of snakes doesn’t pertain to the plot, then including it does not add depth so much as reader frustration. They will wonder when the hero will be forced to face a snake, and disappointed when it never happens.

[bctt tweet=”Use character questionnaires with caution. #writetip #writer”]

Perhaps a question will spark insights into your character that will make your story richer, but beware of clogging the story with details that lead nowhere.