In an attempt to gain a better understanding of my characters in Djinn I set up a series of questions that I answered as my protagonist, Kyra.
I really love this technique of interviewing; it’s a great way to get into your character’s head and hear their voice more when you write. This is especially good if you are writing in first person (which I am) because answering as your characters will help your writing style as well as know your character.
I found some questions easy to answer and other harder because I hadn’t given them much thought. Interviewing really makes you think about aspects of your character’s personality or life that you may have missed.
I discovered new things about Kyra the more I interviewed her. She started to seem like a real rounded character with many layers to her personality that just weren’t there before.
There are some great sites with examples of interview questions, but really it depends on what kind of story you are telling and what sort of character you have. The questions you ask won’t all be the same. In my opinion they shouldn’t all be the same because not everyone is the same. Sure they can answer the same question differently, but a lot of the time questions won’t be relevant to some characters.
Like I mentioned earlier, interviewing is great for those writing in first person. You really want your protagonist to have their own voice, with their own thoughts and feelings. When I started answering as Kyra there was a lot of me in those answers, but the deeper I dived into her life and personality the more she began to have her own voice, unique to her character.
I thought about posting Kyra’s interview here, but it would give too much away about my story so you’ll have to miss out on that one. I want to try this with a few of my underdeveloped characters next to flesh them out more.
Try picking the protagonist from one of your stories and interviewing them. See if you learn something new about them or see them in a different light.
Do any of you interview your characters? What do you ask? What do you learn?
