Questions to Ask About Your Characters

by Naomi

Question: I have my characters formed but just their names and birthdays and some aspects of their personalities but I want to know them more. How can I know them more? What questions can I ask to know them better and make them believable and strong?

Thanks.

Answer: There are probably an infinite number of questions to ask about your characters, just as with real life people. However, not all of them will be important for the story you are telling. You, and only you will be able to decide on the most relevant questions. However there are some general areas worth addressing...

1. External. These are questions about the character's appearance, clothing habits, gender, job, hobbies, family, speech patterns, social class, age, and other aspects of their life an outsider would see from a distance.

2. The Middle Layer. These are questions about a character that someone would discover as they get to know them. They include things such as the character's job, family, relationships, preferences (likes/dislikes), things they are good or bad at, interests, education, things they know a lot or nothing about, their background, communities they are part of, etc.

For instance, some writer's like to know what kind of cereal a character eats for breakfast, because choosing bran over sweet cereal says something about the person. You might also want to know what books, movies, music, TV, sports, art, vacation destinations, etc. a character would choose.

3. Internal. These are questions related to the character's personality. In Dramatica, they fall into 4 subcategories:
a) Purposes. What is the character trying to achieve? What does he/she want in life? What would satisfy him?
b) Methods. How does the character try to achieve his goals? What is his/her typical approach to solving problems? How does he/she react to unexpected challenges and situations?
c) Evaluations. How does the character judge things? What does he/she think about the world and other people? How does the character judge himself? How does he decide if he's winning? What are his beliefs?
d) Motivations. I have addressed these in the article on Dramatica's Archetypal Characters in the How to Write a Novel section. (https://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/archetypal-characters.html) Take a look there.

4. History. Here's where you ask why a character is the way he/she is. What significant events happened to the character in the past that shaped his personality? What was their school experience like? What was their childhood home like?

Remember too that to make your characters believable, you must make them consistent. That doesn't mean they cannot change, but it takes a tough situation to make a person change, and even then they generally can only change one aspect of their personality.

As for strength, readers generally see a character as strong if he or she makes the "right" choices even if it costs him heavily. Of course, what's right to one character may seem wrong to another.

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