How Well Do You Know Your Character?

For a moment, think about your main character (MC) and how well you truly know him or her. Aside from the basic physical attributes, and possibly some back story, can you hold your right hand up and swear that you know your MC inside and out?

Try this simple exercise. With your MC in mind and without hesitating, can you answer the following questions?

• MC is in a restaurant. Do they order an appetizer, main and dessert? Or are they more high maintenance, requesting that the fish be baked instead of fried, the onions held and the dressing on the side?
• Does MC arrive fifteen minutes early for everything in order to get a good seat? Or is your MC late for everything because they think they have plenty of time.
• Is MC afraid of commitment because of fear abandonment issues which spring from being abandoned at the age of five by a parent?

A couple of years ago, I read Elizabeth George’s book on writing, called Write Away, which I highly recommend. In it, she suggests writing a detailed character analysis before you even write the first chapter.

Before she starts any of her literary crime novels, George tacks up a character prompt next to her computer screen. The prompt would have basic cues like hair color, education, etc and more in-depth cues like gait, what the character does alone, what’s the first thing that others notice about the character, etc. The key, according to George, is not to just fill in the blanks but to prompt you. Thus the name, character prompt — to write using stream of consciousness about your character to get the creative juices flowing.

This is one exercise that I love doing. I may get pages and pages of info and I may not use all of it. It gives me great insight into my character and what motivates them.

While you are at it check out The Writers’ Workshop Advice Library which has a great exercise titled, The Ultimate Character Builder. It can guide you in developing your character. I would not recommend doing this for every character in your book or you’ll never get to that first chapter. But it certainly goes a long way in shaping your primary characters.

Check out Michele Brouder’s books on Amazon.ca.

This article first appeared on the Book-in-a-Week website 08/15/2010.