On the internet, the most common advice for developing characters I’ve found is to fill out a character questionnaire. It’s everywhere. What’s the best way to get to know your character, you ask? Fill out this form, they answer.
The official NaNoWriMo questionnaire is forty-six questions long, guys. Forty. Six. Questions.
This may work perfectly for some people, but I look at those things and die a little on the inside.
I know I can’t be the only person who hates character questionnaires, so if you’re not a fan of forms and also have no idea where to start with your character, I thought I would share my list of things I know about my characters before I start writing.
It is not a list of forty-six things. It’s a list of four.
1. THEIR ROLE
Character is story and story is character. You can’t have characters taking up pages and doing nothing. For me, knowing the character’s role in the story means knowing who I need my character to be. Even if a story is character-driven, the first thing you should decide is what about the character is actually driving the story. The role can be specific: a girl grieving for her murdered aunt decides to solve her murder. The role can be vague: the protag’s best friend. No matter what, it’s the reason this character is in your story.
2. THEIR NAME
In real life, our names don’t usually say too much about our characters. This is not the way in fiction. Your name can say everything about your character.Whether it reveals the big stuff: Remus Lupin, Luke Skywalker. Or whether it just sets the tone of the character: Chad, Fitzwilliam, Lily. Choose the name carefully and you can get a rough sketch of a character based on it alone.
3. WHAT MAKES THEM UNIQUE
In a writing workshop, my instructor once had the class do a character building exercise. She had us close our eyes and imagine our character’s shoes. What sort of shoe were they? What color? Were they scuffed? Polished? We worked our way up the rest of the character, but first, we knew what their shoes looked like.
Having that one piece of information gave us something to use to inform the next piece of clothing, which informed their hair style, which informed the next thing, until we had a clear picture of our entire character.
It’s easier figuring out the smaller details of your characters and working your way to a composite than it is to start with a big picture. When you’re just getting to know your character have a few small, specific details about them that give you an idea of exactly who this person is and, more importantly, make you interested in this character.
Usually I like to have a mix of physical details and personality details. The best usually speak to both. They’re details that can be built upon. They give an impression of a larger picture. For example:
She has the nose of a Fox and the character of one too.
Her hair is always tied up in a messy ponytail.
She likes to wander through the garden when she can’t sleep at night.
For me, these details usually don’t change, no matter how many drafts I work through. The details are usually the reason I like writing about this character in the first place.
4. WHERE THEY’RE SORTED
When you’re writing, you need to be able to answer the question “what would X do next?” Therefore, you need to know something about your character that will help you answer that question.
How do you do this? Luckily, society likes categorising people, so there are a lot of shortcuts you can take to find a way to answer that question for every single character in your novel. You can use the Myer-Briggs system, the zodiac, even the question: cat person or dog person?
Personally, I like using Hogwarts Houses. For three reasons:
It identifies a key personality trait. It isn’t the character’s only personality trait, but it’s something to start with. Matching this with the list of things I know about my character usually defines the character completely.
It focuses on characters’ motivations. It makes me define the person at their core. I can use it as a sort of compass when guiding my character through the plot. It also vaguely answers the question what does this character want: knowledge, power, glory, other? (Hufflepuff joke, there.)
I speak the language fluently. I am my own sorting hat. I can look at anyone, sort them into a house and tell you how it fits into their strengths and weaknesses. With fictional characters as well. I don’t have to think about it. When they make a decision, I don’t need to ask myself: is this in character or out of character? I just know.
Once I know these four things, I write the first draft. I let my characters grow with the plot, using those small things I know about them to guide the rest of their development. At the end of the draft, I reevaluate my character. My list of unchanging facts about the character quadruples. Instead of using their Hogwarts House to guide their decisions, I identify single, solid goals.
The best thing about this is that it works for developing both minor and major characters. For minor characters, this information is usually all I need. Even that grocery clerk who only speaks once can have a name, a Hogwarts house and a couple of distinguishing characteristics. For more major characters, it’s the groundwork for a character I enjoy writing about.