Go on a First Date with Your Characters

I heard recently that as you outline and write your novel you get to know your characters so much that you know, for certain, how they would react in any given circumstance.

And that’s when I realized that I didn’t know my characters well enough!

And so I decided to take each of them on a first date. You know, that awkward and hopefully enjoyable, outing with someone where you think of any possible thing to ask them in order to keep up that chit chat so that the silence doesn’t creep up and make it, well, awkward.

And it’s those first-date type questions that you should ask your characters! I mean why not, right? You may never ever put a character’s favorite snack food in your book, but just like “real” people, you need to get to know your characters from the ground up. And honestly, if you’ve never written down the answers to the following questions then you probably don’t know what your character would say.

Here’s the questions that I came up with. Comment below if you have any more that you’ve used on a first date!

Again, these are first date type questions for your character, you don’t want to scare them off with a deep or prying question right from the get go…. Easy does it. In my next post we’ll look at some deeper questions to help further character development, but for now… just… take… it… slow… 🙂

 

Questions for your character:

What is your character’s full name? And where does it come from? 

• (It’s a surprisingly good question to ask if you haven’t flushed it out yet, maybe there is a back history to their middle name or how they got their first name, or where their last name is from that you could incorporate into the novel).

What is your character’s favorite food? Favorite snack food or candy?

What is your character’s favorite color?  

What do (or did) your character want to be when they grow up? 

What is your character’s greatest fear?

If your character could have one superpower what would it be? 

What character or famous person is your character most like? In looks and personality.

How old is your character?

Who is your character’s biggest past crush? Celebrity crushes count.

Favorite sport?

Favorite movie?

Favorite book?

Favorite video game?

Favorite superhero?

Favorite hobby or past time?

 

Thanks for reading! Props to NowNovel.com for getting me started on this train of thought.