{"id":823,"date":"2012-08-19T15:39:34","date_gmt":"2012-08-19T19:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/?p=823"},"modified":"2012-08-19T15:39:57","modified_gmt":"2012-08-19T19:39:57","slug":"the-dilemma-of-character-questionnaires-part-the-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/the-dilemma-of-character-questionnaires-part-the-second\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dilemma of Character Questionnaires, Part the Second"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"run\" src=\"http:\/\/t2.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiGRqHhwstAw30_4DUdSffvOb0765hY7PIi7xhld3ZpsoFz6WQsQFLEN1D6Q\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/des-your-character-keep-barf-in-her-refrigerator\/\">Last time I wrote<\/a>, I implicitly compared the act of filling out character questionnaires to\u00a0finding barf in your refrigerator. By &#8216;character questionnaire,&#8217; I mean questions writers ask themselves about the characters they plan to put into a novel. Most writers have a vague idea of the character&#8217;s age, appearance, occupation, and personality, but of course it&#8217;s useful to think ahead of time about the character&#8217;s background and the things that motivate her. The more you know about those,\u00a0the more you know how she will respond to external forces. Response=action, and that&#8217;s plot, baby!<\/p>\n<p>That said, so many writers I know cringe as they face, or even consider facing, a character questionnaire, and I&#8217;ve been one of them. So many of the questions are overly generic or, worse, \u00a0silly but without ammunition&#8211;no power. Until I found one that included questions like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0How does the character handle stress and problems?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Such a good one. I have a character whom I pictured as an uber-confident, uber-cabaple, uber-connected uber-goober, but when I got to this question, I realized that in a crisis, the character blamed others as much as he possibly could. \u00a0Will that create action? You betcha!<\/p>\n<p>So will this question:<\/p>\n<p><strong>What does this character notice when he walks into a room?<\/strong><\/p>\n<dl id=\"\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 288px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  \" title=\"one\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn1.google.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR16SYDTnM4O-KUaCBlLBBINYZwvzaPN9NEtsocuJkNilq4Feyz\" alt=\"\" width=\"278\" height=\"181\" \/><\/dt>\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Does anyone get the pun here?<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p>From the get-go, I might think that&#8217;s a refrigerator question (my new term for useless questions like, &#8216;What does your character keep in her refrigerator?) On second glance, though, the answer to this question will generate action as well. Does this character notice things first, or people? A character who obsessively<\/p>\n<dl id=\"\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 262px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"      \" title=\"bbbaby\" src=\"http:\/\/cache.boston.com\/resize\/bonzai-fba\/Globe_Photo\/2009\/05\/14\/1242351661_2037\/539w.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"252\" height=\"202\" \/><\/dt>\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Doesn&#8217;t this scene end with a collapse of these bones?<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p>notices if something&#8217;s out of place will try to fix it and maybe other people will react to that, creating action once again. A character who desperately hopes no one in the room will embarrass her will become tense if the room contains someone threatening, and maybe do something embarrassing just because. \u00a0Maybe she&#8217;ll even do something suspicious, which, in a mystery, would further fuel the plot.<\/p>\n<p>A final series of questions I really liked:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Best trait?<\/li>\n<li>Worst trait?<\/li>\n<li>What is this character&#8217;s opinion of self?<\/li>\n<li>What kind of person do others think s\/he is?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Answer these back-to-back and you&#8217;ve got multiple dimensions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 317px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  \" title=\"mirrors\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-u43q-v-x5kw\/Tk4CU-LM2HI\/AAAAAAAAAOo\/ZUIeJplkO20\/s1600\/hall-of-mirrors.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"307\" height=\"209\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Is that Lou Reed?<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This does not provide an exhaustive list of the questions I found helpful, and if you find these loathsome, no worries&#8211;don&#8217;t answer them. I was just pleasantly surprised to find some useful questions that went beyond, &#8220;What do you want? What do you fear?&#8221; and I thought I&#8217;d share.<\/p>\n<p>Final note: strange to say, although I thought these all came from a list I was going to share with you, apparently I&#8217;d cobbled them together with other lists,<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 280px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  \" title=\"hide and seek\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/127\/403773804_e4d108d58a_o.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"270\" height=\"186\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">I find this image a little chilling. Much less bad than playing H and S with Google.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>and cut and pasted. Maybe Google is hiding what it once gave me so readily; maybe I forgot my search terms. In any case, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/88395240\/Character-Development-Chart\">here<\/a>&#8216;s the closest thing I can find to the list of questions I&#8217;ve been using, although it must be said that there are a great many herein that give me the barfs.<\/p>\n<p>Happy question-and-answer!<\/p>\n<p>ps If you get my picture-pun, put it in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last time I wrote, I implicitly compared the act of filling out character questionnaires to\u00a0finding barf in your refrigerator. By &#8216;character questionnaire,&#8217; I mean questions writers ask themselves about the characters they plan to put into a novel. Most writers have a vague idea of the character&#8217;s age, appearance, occupation, and personality, but of course [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-writerly-monday","tag-character-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}