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I find interviewing characters a useful tool to find out more about them before I decide to put them in a story. I have to believe in the characters themselves to be able to write their stories up at all. If I don’t believe in their possibility, why should anyone else?
There are many ways into creating characters and I mix up how I go about this myself. It keeps things interesting but I do find the question and answer approach so useful. It is probably the tool I use the most often.
I find certain basic questions useful for any type of story I write but it is also fun to mix up other questions so they are more specific for the character I’ve got in mind.
If I’m writing about a mother dragon, as I have done, I’m not asking her for her worldview, as I might do for other character types. I will ask about her basic needs and how she goes about ensuring these are met and that’s just one example.
The fiction template for Scrivener comes with character and setting questions built into it, both of which are handy. Setting can sometimes almost be a character in its own right. In any case, it is handy to be able to visualise the setting yourself even if not much of the physical detail is going into the story itself. I sometimes use the Scrivener questions directly, sometimes I put my own spin on them but all of this helps.
Planning – Formulaic Writing?
Does planning out like this lead to formulaic writing? Fair question but I would say not.
Only I know what details I will use to go into my story and character. What I put in will vary according to the story and character type. No two characters or stories of mine are the same. So uniqueness is kind of built in, which is what you want naturally.
But the thinking things out like this does mean I just get on with my first draft fairly quickly. Because I already know some things, I can make good headway here. I deliberately don’t nail everything down because I want to give my characters room to “breathe” and bring the story to life.
They can and do surprise me but when I look at how they’ve surprised me, I see from my initial notes, there was something there to indicate this surprise was within the realms of possibility.
Useful Questions Regardless of Genre
The funny thing is you don’t need many of these. The following questions between them cover a lot of ground.
Who/what is your character? A rough age range can be useful too.
What do they want and why?
What gets in the way of them achieving what they want?
What are they prepared to do to achieve their wishes?
What are they not prepared to do to achieve their wishes? This one is great because you can put your character in a situation where they have to face having to do the things they don’t want to do. Will they give into temptation or will they stick to their guns here?
Specific Questions – Can Cover Many Genres
What follows can easily be adapted to suit your writing needs and style. I don’t necessarily need to know what my characters look like immediately. I do need to have an idea of how they would speak and what kind of vocabulary they’d use. Voice brings characters to life for me. I think it makes them much more authentic too.
What is your character’s style of dress?
What is your character’s typical vocabulary? What might they come out with if stressed? There will be significant differences here!
What is your character’s social status?
What is your character’s family background? This is a good one because you can explore whether your character is proud of their background or not and, if the latter, what are they doing to cover that background up?
What does your character think is their main trait? Again, this is a good one because the character doesn’t have to be right as other characters in your story can make clear!
Exploring Character Traits Further
Once you’ve got your character’s main trait in mind, you can explore this thought further. For example, if your character’s trait is honesty, other questions you could ask could include the following:-
Are you, the character, always honest? Are there any times when you could consider being less than honest, especially if that meant being kind to someone else?
What led to you being honest? Were you tired of being lied to all of the time and who did that to you?
Just those two questions alone can trigger many story ideas and you can do this for any trait. There usually is at least one good reason why someone is the way they are and upbringing and experiences in life will be the triggers here. Some of this may make it into your story.
What matters here is that you know why your character is the way they are, what this makes them do/think/speak, and then you can look at the consequences of those things. There are bound to be clashes with other characters due to these things. An overly honest person is likely to upset someone at some point!
Characters Need To Be Believable
Fiction reflects life as we know it. Sci-fi and fantasy can explore life as it might be elsewhere but all fiction is based on what we know humanity has done and/or is still capable of doing.
Every fiction writer needs a starting point. For me it is always with the character and I base mine on known behavioural/likely behavoural traits. I find it gives my characters a solid base and makes them far more believable.
One of my mother dragon stories involves her taking action to protect her unborn young. Well, we can all relate to that especially if we watch the wildlife documentaries where we see mothers doing this all of the time. I think this is what is meant by write what you know. I’d also add we can write to what we can genuinely research!
Conclusion
I love the way stories can entertain us, make us think, and encourage empathy as we get behind the characters. We should be able to understand where they come from even if we despair of the choices they make.
But it helps the writers a lot if we know more than the reader needs to. It helps us picture the characters well enough to be able to write their stories up with conviction. That authenticity comes through to the readers at a subconscious level, I think.
Occasionally I come across a character I cannot get behind. Sometimes that will be down to me – the character or situation simply hasn’t gripped me enough. Sometimes though I find the character doesn’t come across as real to me and that’s a challenge to myself to make sure my characters don’t generate that reaction.
This is why knowing the answers to a few questions about my characters helps so much and I hope you find at least some of the above suggested questions helpful with your own creations.
Happy writing!
Related Posts:-
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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