Interviewing Your Characters and GMC

Show of hands - who here has filled out a character interview sheet before they start writing? I definitely have not - yet. But I've been reading Debra Dixon's GMC: Goals, Motivation and Conflict (which is brilliant, by the way - even for someone 10 books into this whole writing thing) and she talks a lot about building the character interview into your writing process. According to Dixon (and I agree), it helps to give you a firm grasp the characters' goals and motivations, and how they're going to respond to conflict -- all of which help you build a great story.

The foundation of every great novel, regardless of genre, is conflict. If you have a weak conflict, readers feel like they're being led along a path for no real reason. Even in romance with its guaranteed happily-ever-after, your main character (MC) must face conflict - whether it's accidentally falling for her brother's roommate or an off-limits office romance.

Ok, I see you nodding and thinking, "But how does knowing whether my MC likes dogs add to the potential for conflict within my story?" Well, let's just say you're writing science fiction and your MC had a dog back when he was kid, which was a very long time ago. He and his friends are being shot at by rebel forces and about to board their space ship to escape the hostile planet, when MC sees a dog limping into a cave twenty feet away. MC makes a split-second decision to grab the dog and take it with them, but doing so means he's under enemy fire. And the crew now have a dog onboard - who's limping along and definitely worse for the wear. Imagine the conflict this can create amongst the crew! Now, the dog isn't the central plot point or conflict (it could be, but in my imaginary story it's not), but it can be used as a plot device to help drive the main conflict - which in this case might be something along the lines of: MC is a rogue and his superiors expect him to fall in line b/c he's putting everyone in danger otherwise. Case in point? You guessed it. Dog.

Here are 25 more great character interview questions:

1. It's Monday morning. Are you excited to go to work/school or sad?
2. What do you normally eat for breakfast?
3. Do you call your mother or text? How often?
4. Do you iron your clothes? Who does your laundry?
5. Do you exercise or are you happy to sit on the couch? If you exercise, what's your favorite way to exercise?
6. Have you ever played a team sport? If you no longer play, why not?
7. What is your favorite TV show?
8. How do you typically spend your Friday night?
9. What do you do when you're bored?
10. How many hours/day do you work/go to school?
11. What would you be embarrassed for people to know about you?
12. If you go to a party, do you prefer to talk to people you already know or meet new people?
13. What do you drink during the day? Water? Coffee? Ice Tea? Beer? Nothing?
14. What kind of books do you read? If you don't read books, do you read magazines, newspapers, or online content?
15. If a stranger rings your doorbell, do you answer it or do you wait in the kitchen until they leave?
16. What is your favorite food?
17. If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would it be?
18. How many siblings do you have? Are you close or estranged?
19. Do you have a pet? If so, what kind?
20. What would be your perfect gift to receive?
21. What do you like best about yourself?
22. What do you like least about yourself?
23. How long have you known your best friend?
24. You're stuck waiting in an unexpectedly long line. How do you react? What do you do while you're waiting?
25. What is one color you think looks great on you and why?

These are only the tip of the iceberg of questions you can use to "interview" your characters, so I'm curious -- if you do a pre-writing character interview, what kinds of questions do you ask your characters?

Striving for Imperfection

I read a lot of books in 2016 (at least compared to my usual level of reading), and something started to become clear: Current fiction has a lot of ‘perfect’ characters. Most of the time the perfection is represented in appearance—piercing green or blue eyes, framed by a perfectly shaped face, topped with a mop of soft locks that are always perfectly tousled. The male protagonist has abs that could be used as a washboard, completed with that enviable ‘V’ just above the belt, and is over six feet tall. The female is dainty with kissable pouty lips, and she fits perfectly into the nook of her lead male’s arms. And she’s made even more ‘perfect’ through her obliviousness to the fact that every man wants her.

“But wait. These ‘perfects’ are humanized by their character flaws. Right?”

Umm, maybe. The thing is, many times their flaws are also pretty perfect—at least for the sake of the story. They are often assigned to the character for the sole reason of supporting the plot. There needs to be conflict, so our perfect male is too arrogant. There needs to be tension, so our perfect female is too trusting. It reminds me of that ridiculous question during job interviews. You know the one I’m talking about:

“What’s your biggest weakness?”

Of course you’re going to respond with a perfect flaw. The one that doesn’t actually make you look bad. “I’m very dedicated to my work and have difficulty shutting it off at the end of the day.” Or, “I can sometimes be a perfectionist.” I feel like that’s what we’re often getting these days with characters. It’s like we readers asked this same question and were given the sugar-coated perfect answer in return.

As a reader, I’m sort of becoming exhausted by all the perfection. Why? Well, mainly it’s predictable. One of the things I love about reading is getting lost in the story and having it take me somewhere unexpected. It’s as though the writing community has assumed the majority of readers can only care about one certain type of character so that’s what we get. My other fear is that it’s a result of writers who are so focused on churning out book after book as quick as possible they don’t take the time to let new characters develop. They just recycle the old ones—give them a new name and new hair color and no one will notice, right?

I’ve started to avoid certain books where I know there is a high probability of excessive perfection. And to be clear, I’m not just talking about romance novels where good-looking characters are practically a prerequisite. Perfection popped it’s pretty little head up across all the genres I read last year (and in both traditional and indie published). I did stumble on the occasional book where perfection was presented in some form but not dwelled upon. For example, the ‘perfect’ features weren’t mentioned every time the two primary characters saw or thought of each other. It saved the book for me a bit because it gave me the freedom to forget and picture the characters as average as I liked.

As a writer, it has me thinking. I’m not immune to wanting to write about dreamy characters. Marcus from both Kingston’s Project and Kingston’s Promise is my version of hot, hot, HOT. Although, I did try to avoid talking about it every moment his name appeared on the page (thanks to my beta readers for helping to keep me in check on this!). His primary flaw is his vulnerability to his father’s disinterest. My female protagonist from those same books, Sarah, is good looking but isn’t a knock-out. Her primary character flaw is that she holds on to guilt like it’s a life raft. I know these flaws aren’t unique, and I’ll admit they do benefit my plot to an extent. But I wasn’t thinking about the annoyance of perfection and the attractiveness of imperfection back then like I am now. And, yes, I do understand that many times it’s the flaws that actually drive the plot. I’m not saying flaw assignments should neglect the plot completely. I guess I’d just like to see more depth.

My recent frustrations have pushed me to want to do better in creating imperfect characters. I view it as a challenge in many ways. It’s sometimes easy to become invested in characters who are attractive or have predictable flaws, but I like the thrill of trying to make the reader root for the love interest who doesn’t look like he just stepped off the center pages of an underwear advertisement. I also like the challenge of representing a more diverse set of characters in my books. Humans are complex by nature. Many of our flaws are similar and predictable, but many more are unique and subtle. Some of the books I’ve enjoyed the most this past year had characters who were very average or very complex and unique.

Last week in my critique group we spent a little time talking about villains. Someone commented that the most realistic villains tend to have one redeeming quality. It was a serendipitous conversation given my recent thoughts on perfection. A perfectly evil villain can be just as annoying as a perfectly perfect hero. I don’t exactly have a villain in my current WIP, but Grandpa is pretty darn close. When I drafted out his character profile, I did give him an opposite viewpoint (I won’t call it redeeming because I’m not sure yet if he will earn redemption). My plan was to slowly reveal that side of his character later in the story but not give it away entirely. I still don’t plan to give it all away, but after last night’s discussion I realize it might be better to start introducing it sooner in the story. If I don’t, I may end up stripping him of his shot at redemption without intention because readers may not see him as realistic.

So that’s my writing challenge for this year—creating imperfect characters my readers will love better than any perfect character I could give them.

Who’s with me?

~Carrie

5 tips for getting to know your characters

Characters are essential to every good book, and the stories that really stay with you are the ones with

A post by Mary Fan

complex and well-developed casts. The more a reader cares about a character, the more eager they'll be to find out what happens to him/her. But creating characters that spring off the page and take on lives of their own isn't easy, especially when you have a lot of them (and you don't want to neglect the minor ones). Well, as the famous line goes, you can't really know someone until you crawl into their skin and walk around in it (paraphrasing here). That goes for fictional characters too.

Here are five tips to help you get to know your characters.

1. Ask them about their childhoods 

Nothing comes from nothing, and one good way to get to know your character is to figure out what made her the way she is. A person's childhood is instrumental in shaping one's personality, and whether it's a huge event (like the death of a parent) or a little nudge (such as a teacher's words of wisdom), all these factor act as hammers and chisels that carve a human being out of a previously shapeless block of life.

So for each of your characters, try scribbling a few words about their early lives as an exercise. Don't worry about getting too in-depth or detailed (unless you want to!). Just jot down a few notes, like "Devin Colt was one of those kids who was plenty smart but never did his homework, and even fancy private school teachers couldn't turn that around." You might learn something new about them!  

2. Picture what their homes look like

A person's home, whether it's a house, apartment, or pirate ship, is a reflection of who they are. An ambitious, high-achieving Ivy League graduate might have a neat, well-designed apartment even if they're still in the "penniless assistant" part of their careers, whereas a free-to-be-you-and-me artist might have clutter in every corner, despite having been born to hedge fund managers and having plenty of money for a housekeeper.

Jane says her favorite
make-up is eyeliner

Even if it's never a setting in your book, it's helpful to picture what your character's dwelling looks like (for instance, "Riley Winkelpleck spends his life on the computer and barely notices the rest of his apartment exists, so he's got sparse furnishings and candy wrappers all over the floor."). It'll give you further insight into who they are.

3. List a few of their favorite things

What kind of music does your character listen to? What's her favorite book/movie/holodrama/virtu-game? What's her favorite color? What kind of outfits does she favor? Does she like animals, and if so, what kind? These are all pieces of your character's unique personality, and it taking a moment to answer these questions from her perspective is a great way to walk around in her skin. You don't have to mention them all in your final novel (in fact, you probably shouldn't), but once you have the answers, little pieces here and there will trickle in and give your character added dimension. 

4. Imagine the in-between moments

Every book has time jumps. Most go unnoticed because they're little in-between moments that you wouldn't want to read about anyway (for instance, your character's trip to the grocery store... unless she runs into an axe murderer there or something, no one cares about that). And sometimes, as a writer, you'll need to skip over parts that are boring in order to keep up your pacing, even if they're significant enough to get mentioned later (for instance, no one wants to read the snooze-fest of details about how Agent Adesina made her way back to the secret base after the space battle - all that matters is that she made it).

But imagining what happens during those in-between moments, which can also be considered preemptively deleted scenes, can tell you something new about your character (Adesina was upset about losing a team member in the battle and was forced to re-think her methods). Though these are things that would bog down your pacing if you included them in your book, they're good for you as a writer to know about.

5. Psycho-analyze them

You don't need an official psychology degree to psycho-analyze your characters. The University of Wikipedia will do just fine for getting-to-know-your-character purposes. Pretend you're a pop shrink and ask your characters how they feel, then try to get to the root of why they feel this way. Or try figuring out their personality types based on things like the Myers-Brigg chart (here's the test).

Speaking of which, I may have gotten a little carried away with mine...

Which character from the Jane Colt trilogy are you? Click here for character descriptions :-)