When writing a play or a film, one of the most important – and the most fun! – things you get to do is create new characters. These characters are brand new humans (or animals, or robots, or aliens….) who didn’t exist before you thought them up!
While the creation of a new character can be exciting, it can also be overwhelming. How do you make them interesting? How do you make them different from other characters you already know? How do you make your audience care about them?
One of the best secrets about writing interesting characters is that the more you get to know them, the more interesting they become. That means, by spending time with your characters, learning about their wants, their childhoods, their secrets, their likes and dislikes, their beliefs, and anything else you can think of, you will be able to write a character that is more nuanced, three-dimensional, and interesting.
So how do you get to know them? One of the best ways to get to know a character is to ask them questions. To help you get started, we’ve listed 20 questions below. Go through each one and answer them as if you were the character (i.e. I want this or I believe this). While not every answer or piece of information might make it into your story – and in fact, a lot of it probably won’t – just by spending time with the character and learning the answers will make it easier to write them in any scene in your story.
Ready to get started? Here you go!
- Where did you grow up?
- What is your relationship like with your mother?
- How about your father?
- Do you have any siblings? Who are they? Where do you fit in your family? (i.e. oldest, youngest, etc.)
- Did your family have a lot of money growing up? How secure did you feel about having a house, food, clothes, etc.?
- Have you ever traveled outside of your hometown? If so, where did you go and why?
- What is one secret that you’ve never told another living soul?
- If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?
- Do you have a best friend? If so, who is it? If not, why not?
- How do you feel about school?
- What are your hobbies? Sports? Art? Theatre? Dance? What makes you love doing it?
- What is your favorite food?
- Do you have a nemesis? If so, who is it?
- What is the biggest lie you’ve ever told?
- Do you see yourself as smart? Dumb? Street smart? A genius? Normal?
- Do you like being around people or do you prefer to be alone?
- What sort of clothing do you wear? Are you trendy? Classic? Vintage? Sloppy? Casual?
- What is one of your greatest strengths?
- What is one of your greatest weaknesses?
- How do you feel about trying new things?
Want to share what you discovered? You can submit your answers here. Who knows? We just might feature them in an upcoming article or video!