Getting to Know Your Characters
by Trey Rosier
There is much debate among writers, readers, and critics about what the most important element of a story is. What drives it. Is it the plot, pulling the reader and the characters along in its wake. Is it the characters, shaping and driving the story with the force (or weakness) of their personality. Or is it even the setting, influencing, even directing, both the story and the characters' actions?
Regardless of your school of thought, it is a very good idea to get to know your characters (at least your protagonist) as well as possible. The most carefully thought-out and structured story can be blemished by inconsistent characters who either act out of character for no reason, or whose backstory changes bizarrely as time goes on (this can be particularly important if the character appears in multiple stories or books.)
To that end, I keep a simple checklist that I attempt to complete as much as possible. Of course, not every question needs an answer in every story, but I find it more helpful to have too much information lying around than not enough, and even if the information is not used explicitly in the text, it can help give the author a more complete understanding of their creations, helping to flesh them out and bring them to life.
Aside from standard biographical questions such as name, family, place of birth, favorite color, etc., of which there are countless examples of questionnaires floating around the internet, the one tool I have found most useful (at times) for getting to know my literary “friends,” is something called Proust's Questionnaire. While a teenager, long before becoming an accomplished author, Marcel Proust was acted these questions by a friend about himself, and the format has since become a great tool for delving into the psyche of fictional characters.
THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE
- What is your idea of perfect happiness?
- What is your greatest fear?
- What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
- What is the trait you most deplore in others?
- Which living person do you most admire?
- What is your greatest extravagance?
- What is your current state of mind?
- What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
- On what occasion do you lie?
- What do you dislike about your appearance?
- Which living person do you most despise?
- What is the quality you most like in a man?
- What is the quality you most like in a woman?
- Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
- What or who is the greatest love of your life?
- When and where were you happiest?
- Which talent would you most life to have?
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
- What do you consider your greatest achievement?
- If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
- Where would you most like to live?
- What is your most treasured possession?
- What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
- What is your favorite occupation?
- What is your most marked characteristic?
- What do you most value in your friends?
- Who are your favorite writers?
- Who is your hero in fiction?
- Which historical figure do you most identify with?
- Who are your heroes in real life?
- What are your favorite names?
- What is it that you most dislike?
- What is your greatest regret?
- How would you like to die?
- What is your motto?
As you can see, this list is not exhaustive, but it delves into the personality of your character (or yourself?) I find having my characters answer theses questions for me helps me to get to know them much better, to know how they think and feel, and perhaps how better to understand how they will act and react during the course of the story.