Glimpsing Your Character's Soul
Posted by Andie Ryan Blog at 3/9/2010 11:25 PM 
Categories: Characterization
Tags: Marcel Proust James Lipton character study character questionnaires three-dimensional character fiction questionnaires Bernard Pivot emotional life character Inside the Actor's Studio favorites
Categories: Characterization
Tags: Marcel Proust James Lipton character study character questionnaires three-dimensional character fiction questionnaires Bernard Pivot emotional life character Inside the Actor's Studio favorites
There are many tools out there to help you get to know your characters. But think like James Lipton, the host of Inside the Actor's Studio. He asks his subjects what their favorite curses are and what they want to hear God say when, if Heaven exists, they arrive there. There are questionnaires by Bernard Pivot, a French talk show host known for interviewing authors. Even Marcel Proust answered questionnaires -- once at thirteen and once at twenty.
http://senselist.com/2006/09/06/the-questionnaires-of-james-lipton-bernard-pivot-and-marcel-proust/
You can find questionnaIres that deal with physical appearances, basic likes and dislikes, family and marital situations, where they live, who their friends are. They resemble a character study for a play, researching or establishing where your characters are coming from. They're important.
But you want to dig deeper into your character's emotional lives, paying attention to what sights and sounds and tastes and smells evoke memory, what touches their soul.
Here are a few starters, some basics:
When you develop your own questions,span your characters' lifetimes. Invoke all the senses. They can be clues to the emotional past, deepen your sense of what your characters appreciate and why -- critical components to their three-dimensional well-being. You won't disclose all these details through telling in your story. But you will refer to them, use them to establish patterns and themes, at critical moments in your character's emotional upheaval. Your readers will feel closer connections to them.
What are your favorite questions?
http://senselist.com/2006/09/06/the-questionnaires-of-james-lipton-bernard-pivot-and-marcel-proust/
You can find questionnaIres that deal with physical appearances, basic likes and dislikes, family and marital situations, where they live, who their friends are. They resemble a character study for a play, researching or establishing where your characters are coming from. They're important.
But you want to dig deeper into your character's emotional lives, paying attention to what sights and sounds and tastes and smells evoke memory, what touches their soul.
Here are a few starters, some basics:
- Favorite season, soap, toys and games as a child and as an adult, comfort food, favorite flavoring (i.e., in coffee or pastries or liqueurs)
- Most rebellious act
- Best practical joke
- Favorite novel, nonfiction, movie, play, song, music, cookie
- What do they find difficult not to touch when it is nearby?
- What memories are aroused by their favorite and least favorite smells?
- What memory is associated with their favorite and least favorite sounds?
- What are the sounds and smells of their profession or avocation? Which are most pleasing? Most repellent?
- What's the one memory from a past love that doesn't go away?
- If they could have their choice of view out their window, what would it be? An ocean? A golf course? A cityscape?
- If they could have dinner with three people from history, who would the three people be?
- Who would they like to wake up to when they die?
- What would they most want to say if they could see their closest deceased friend for only ten minutes?
- If their parents are deceased and could return for only ten minutes, what would your character most want to say to them?
- Is there anyone they want to kill?
- Is there anyone they want to meet?
- If there's one thing they could get away with stealing, what would it be?
- What is their attitude toward money? Does it match their spending habits? Do they resent people who seem to have it?
- For a party, are they more likely to bring wine or food?
- If they bring food, will they bring an appetizer, main course, or dessert?
- Would they be more likely to be a painter or a bricklayer if they had to choose?
- Do they smell their clothes before wearing them?
- Do they smell the clothes of their children before dressing them?
- What do they do when they're awake and everyone else is asleep?
- Would they have a dog or a cat?
- What do they drink in a restaurant? at a bar? alone?
- What is their morning routine, their "toilette?"
- What is their secret vice that no one knows about (Mallomars or spying on the neighbors)?
When you develop your own questions,span your characters' lifetimes. Invoke all the senses. They can be clues to the emotional past, deepen your sense of what your characters appreciate and why -- critical components to their three-dimensional well-being. You won't disclose all these details through telling in your story. But you will refer to them, use them to establish patterns and themes, at critical moments in your character's emotional upheaval. Your readers will feel closer connections to them.
What are your favorite questions?
Comments