Preparing to start your book? Obviously characters’ personalities can make or break a story. Their emotions, goals, reactions to their environment, strengths and weaknesses must be perfectly clear to the reader. Of course your first goal should be to define the stories’ theme, i.e. what you want it to portray overall, so you will know what the world they are living in is like.
Following is a variety of questions you should ask yourself about each character. That way you’ll get to know them better and what they do will occur naturally. These may seem like a lot, but it’s the best way to make them real and lay the ground work for a best selling novel. Your answers may also put new twists into your plot. Some characters may rise, others recede. It will help your story flow and seem real.
- First: what role will a character play: protagonist, antagonist, a supportive person or villain? In a romance novel, there are two protagonist, the hero and heroine.
- Second: what are two or three adjectives that best describe a person? Is he large and bulky? Short and scrawny? Is she shy and nervous around people or is she self-assured and outgoing?
- Third: what does she or he see as her or his everyday world? The answers will vary depending on individual characters’ personality traits.
- Fourth: is he content, pleased or repulsed with what is happening at the beginning?
- Fifth: what does he or she believe is his or her strengths?
- Sixth: what would he or she say is his or her weakness, or does he or she believe they’re perfect?
- Seventh: what do other characters think about him and see as his strengths and/or weaknesses.
- Eighth: how does he or she feel about their earlier years and how do those experiences influence their current lives?
- Ninth: If the character is going to influence the story, what is he doing and why? How does this work into the story theme?
- Tenth: what will the readers’ reactions be to the character when he’s introduced?
- Eleventh: what is lacking internally in this character? This needs to be tied to the growth or deterioration of the character over the course of the story.
- Twelfth: what does a character value most in life and why? It should play a motivational role.
- Thirteenth: what do you see as the overall goals that are natural for this character to seek? Sometimes a character is not willing to fight for his desires until, things that happen over the course of the story, prepares him to shove aside the deterrents.
- Fourteenth: What will the results be if the character is unable to achieve his or her goals? Think the worse case and use it.
- Fifteenth: who will this character trust and be thankful to at the end of the story? How will his attitude towards others change?
- Sixteenth: describe how this character will grow and change internally during the course of the story. What will he or she have accomplished?
These are a lot of questions, but answering them will make writing your novel easier. Review your answers periodically to see if and how you may be changing that character’s personality as the story progresses. Like all aspects of a story, you achieve more insights as you delve into it. Put the changes in your notes.
James Haynes - null
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