Keep collecting your favorite posts on writing for Writing Wednesday next week!

When I saw Jeannie’s guest post on author Elizabeth Mueller’s blog (another friend!), I knew I had to play along. Normally I’m reluctant to post much about my works (aside from excerpts that have done well in contests), but I’m making an exception today. It’s just three questions, right? And since I’m still working on falling back in love with my story, this seems like a fun opportunity. Plus it’s just three questions.

The character I’m playing with today is Frank Walters. He served in the Office of Strategic Services in World War II and when the story takes place, just after the war, he’s with the Central Intelligence Group (predecessor of the CIA). Physically, he’s based loosely on my husband’s grandfather Walter, who was in the Navy in WWII, pictured here. (Somehow we ended up with his WWII scrapbook. He traveled the whole world during the war, with pictures and postcards from Hawaii, Scotland, Iceland, Morocco, the South Pacific, and I know he served in Japan, too.)

And over to Frank:

What is your greatest fear?

Losing myself to the job. The peace might not be as assured as the general public would like to believe, but I’m here to keep things from falling apart again. At the same time, I need to prove something to myself—that we’ll prevail. That I’m on the right side. That we’re the right side because of our principles, and we don’t have to undermine those principles to do it.

What is your biggest accomplishment?

I don’t know. Standing up for someone who’s weak. Doing the right thing when it’s hard. It takes a lot of those little things like that to make it worth it—and just one failure to wipe it all out.

What is your biggest regret?

After the war, we had custody of a bunch of the Nazis’ POWs, including some Soviets. Some secret deal at one of the Big Three conferences included one little stipulation that we must’ve bowed to: all Soviets would be returned to the USSR.

Some of these men said they’d never even been to the Soviet Union. Some of them had come from there, and they couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the constant terror. After surviving a Nazi concentration camp, they’d be labeled as traitors and German spies. Maybe sent to Soviet labor camps. Maybe executed.

They begged us not to return them, to shoot them instead. Some of them even killed themselves before we handed them over.

But I followed orders. I sent grown men—and boys—begging, screaming and crying for mercy . . . to the slaughter.

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Aaand back to me. Of these, question #3 was the only one I’d really worked on in depth before. #1 was there but this helped me refine and crystallize it a little. #2 was by far the most challenging. Isn’t that odd? Shouldn’t it be easier to think of something we’re proud of?

What do you think? What would your characters say? Which question would be hardest for you?

Remember: gather up your favorite articles on writing for Writer Wednesday next week!

I’ve been following Jeannie Campbell for a long time. Man, so long I can’t remember how I found her. So long that it’s been more than a year and a half since she analyzed my character on her blog. So long that I’m really excited for her new ebook, the Writer’s Guide to Creating Rich Backstories.

(Yes, backstory can be evil—but that’s more in how you stick it in your story. It’s a necessary evil. Plus, the guide is only $5!)

Jeannie Campbell is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of California, and she’s an award-winning writer. She combined her two loves (brilliant!) with the Character Therapist blog, and she’s expanded those offerings with the new Character Therapist site.

Since I’ve been through the free blog version of the character assessment, I can tell you a little about how it works:

I wrote to Jeannie to explain the situation in my book, and asked how my character might react, and whether my planned reaction was psychologically feasible. We exchanged emails for a few days, and she gathered background information on my characters and their interactions. She asked for a lot of details to make sure her analysis was thorough.

Once my turn came up in the queue, I got to see just how thorough she was: very! She briefly summarized my character’s situation, the background and my question, then she discussed the various possible reactions, and the factors that would influence my character. Her advice was not only applicable to me and my characters, but they’re also general enough to help any character in a traumatic situation.

Check out her assessment for me here!

Tomorrow I’ll be participating in Elizabeth Mueller’s MC blogfest, using questions from Jeannie’s character assessment “intake form.” Why don’t you join in?

What do you think? What would you ask a Character Therapist?

Character therapist illustration by Elizabeth Mueller

I’m not really that into character interviews myself, but I’ve been working on characterization lately for my WIP. So I’ve come up with a few questions that might be a little more informative than “When is your birthday?” or “What’s your favorite color?”

So, some questions to get to know your characters better:

• What’s your favorite color? (I’m hilarious, aren’t I?) Why? How would you feel in a room painted that color? Who else would you want in there with you? Who wouldn’t be allowed? What would you do there?

• What is your favorite food? When and where did you first taste it? What do you think of when you taste it again? What is your least favorite food?

• Where are you from? What is that place like? How do you feel about the location you’re in now? What are your favorite spots in your current location? How has it changed over time?

• If you absolutely must wake up, what scent of candle would you light? What kind of smell makes you feel relaxed? What did your grandparents smell like? What does your home smell like?

• Do you consider yourself a funny person? Do you prefer dry, zany, slapstick, punny or another kind of humor? Would you rather be seen as funny, clever, respected, stoic, mature or something else? What’s your favorite joke?

• If you hear bells, what do you think of? How about rain? Motors/engines? Running water? Sirens?

• Think of your favorite clothing. How does it feel—rough, smooth, heavy, stretchy, warm, cool? How does it make you feel? Where would you wear it?

The emphasis here isn’t so much the hard facts—it’s on the character’s senses and emotions. How do these things make him or her feel? Why? How can you incorporate these sensory and emotional experiences into the whole of your character?

What do you think? What else do you focus on when getting to know your characters?

Photo by Svilen Mushkatov

We’ve talked about how to get into a character’s head here before, and it seems most of us discover our characters along the way, but the perennial question came up recently on one of my writers’ email loops. I especially liked the breadth of the following answer by member John Waverly, reprinted here with his permission (with video and formatting, including emphasis, added).

Call me weird, but I collect things like this. Here’s some of the ideas I’ve collected:

Write a day in their life

This is kinda like [a previously posted] journal idea, but it doesn’t have to be first person. I like starting by describing their name on a nametag. Then zoom out and describe their clothes and their physical characteristics. Then zoom out and describe where they are and why. Who else is there? What do they think about these people? Etc. At some point they leave and go home. Why do they leave? How do they travel? How far do they travel? What do they drive/ride? What do they do in the car? Do they listen to music? Do they sing? Do they get angry? Describe their home. They listen to their voice mail or check their email. What messages do they have? Who are they from? How do they feel about them? Then they go to bed. Describe their nighttime rituals if any. What do they dream about?

Define their possessions

Start writing about the things they own, the things they treasure, the things they want to own and or the things they used to own or the things they would never-in-a-million-years get caught dead with. And why.

Describe their surroundings

This is similar to defining their possessions only in this case you describe where they work and live. Describe their office/desk, kitchen, bedroom, garage, yard, etc.

Write a biography

Pretend you are a biographer and write a story from the person’s life. Pick something the character finds important. You can also do this like a journalist writing an article. In this case, YOU get to pick the topic—a topic that will be interesting to a general audience.

Interview them

Someone already mentioned that they go online and find character questions and interview the character. Another fun thing you can do is to have one of your characters interview the other. Then you can begin to see the relationships between the characters as well. Some of my characters will answer one way if a parent or teacher interviews them and a different way if their best friend (or a romantic interest) interviews them.

Brainstorming

Sit down and type everything you know about the character. When you feel the “flow” has gotten slow, set a timer for 10-15 minutes and keep going, writing anything that pops into your head until the timer goes off. It is sometimes surprising what you come up with once the “well is dry.” After you are done brainstorming, go back and delete all the stuff that doesn’t make sense.

Pictures

Go through magazines or look online for pictures. What does the character look like? Who do they wish they looked like? What do they drive? Where do they live? What do they wear? Where would they like to go on vacation? If you are doing this online, copy the picture into Word and then write a short piece about why the character resonates with that picture.

Real people

Try to think of real people the character reminds you of and see if there is anything in that real person’s personality that you can “borrow” for this character. Make sure to use traits from several different people so the original sources aren’t obvious, especially if you are working on a villain. (Unless it’s me, I’d love to be a villain in your book.)

Bio sheets

There are hundreds of character sheets online. Pick one. Fill it out. This is different than the Interview mentioned above because in an interview you are answering in the character’s voice and point of view. In the bio sheet you are answering as the novelist with an omniscient point of view.

There are some variations on each of the themes, but the ideas I’ve gathered fit into one of these. I would be interested if anyone has found other ideas.

For me, creating a character is a bit different each time, but I get the most mileage out of the first option.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these methods? What are your favorites?

About the author

John Waverly loves to write and is endlessly fascinated by the different ways writers approach the craft.

I’m gearing up to write something new—you know, when life with a new baby and adjusting to three children all settle in. But even the gearing up phase is going slowly, because I’m feeling like I have to get to know the main character inside and out before I start writing. Before, we’ve looked at creating sympathetic characters, but now I’m just thinking about creating characters themselves.

I know some people do just that—spend hours, days or even months designing a character and bringing him or her to life, tweaking every last nuance of his or her backstory, weaving it into the plot outline, crafting quirks, homing in on weaknesses—all before they start writing a word of the first draft.

And then there are people like me, who outline characters in broad strokes and then launch into a draft. I edit and add to my characters’ life stories as I draft—and often don’t actually create those histories until I have something come to me in a stroke of genius, which usually requires some rewriting of the draft to that point.

Then I get to the end of the draft and have these characters that have evolved over the course of the draft. Even their voices have developed and been refined, until at the end of the draft, they have more distinctive voices, and going back to the beginning, I find bland, voiceless narration.

“Fixing” all that, and further refining and defining my characters, can be a lot of work. That’s part of the reason I wanted to try to get all that figured out in advance. And while I’ve definitely worked to develop my new character, her life story and her personality (with some ideas from The Power of Point of View by Alicia Rasley), I’ll find most of who she is and how she sounds in the writing, and for me, can’t be found any other way.

When do you do most of your character crafting—before, during or after drafting? What are your favorite ways to get to know your characters? (Warning: awesome responses to the second question just might be “foreblogged”!)

Photo credit—Michal Zacharzewski