Okay, so I figured since I'm having hardly any luck at all with Google, that I'd ask the lovely people of the forums to help. I'm looking for a few things. First would be character interview questions. Not to be confused with little fact sheets that ask about what they look like, they're favorite foods and blahblahblah. I have plenty of those that I never use, as they really don't provide much insight. I'm just looking for your average, random questions to ask my character. Perhaps some of situations past? Hope that makes any sense at all. I really want one of these to get into writing mode and get a better feel for my characters and their mannerism. Plus, I find it would be a fun warm up. Also, if anyone can provide help with naming/creating races and such for my fantasy story, I would just be thrilled. Also, some articles about developing a comic book. Thanks for any help you can provide! Ask me to elaborate if you need me to, I know I sometimes don't make sense. P.S. The character interviews, I'd really prefer them be set up like the character herself is actually answering. Not like "What was your characters past like?" but rather "What was your past like?" and so on. If that makes sense.
Someone gave me the wonderful tip of having my characters do the psychological and fun quizzes on the internet it was a great idea and has helped me greatly. I use Behind the Name Random Renamer for my names. My book is fantasy to be honest noone seems to mind my main characters are called things like Tom, Gilbert, Angus, Nate etc, for my indigenous race I have corrupted asian names that the renamer threw up.
Do you interview new friends to get to know them? Or do you just get to know them by seeing how they act in various situations? Get to know your characters by putting them in situations in your writing, and how they work their way through them. You'll build up a consistent "picture" of the character from that.
I'm good with names! I mean names for the race! Haha, I have three baby name books...I'm not new to writing either. And thanks for the advice :]
Doesn't everyone? Oh well...darn. And I understand that as I write, I'll get a better feel for my character, that's usually how I operate but I decided I want to try something new. And interviews seemed far less annoying than the stupid character template crap.
sorry didn't explain myself well, for the fantasy names I used the renamer, and based them on certain cultures. I took mostly chinese names and tweaked them a bit to make them Hai-renese (one of the indigenous races in my book). Behind the name is better than a baby name book its actually more varied culture wise and more accurate for meanings. My Quwanren (another race) are based off Maori names and then tweaked. My English style names are descendants of a group of Christian Puritans from Earth
Sounds like fun! Who is your best friend/ the person you trust the most? When and how did you meet? Do you have any fears? (rational or otherwise) Describe your childhood home. Give a broad and inclusive list of things you like. (Strawberries, acting, jazz, Norse mythology, etc.) Now dislikes. (Children, pretentious ringtones, mushrooms, soccer, etc.) What do you dislike about yourself? (My freckles, I'm a push-over, etc.) What are you proud of? If you could go anywhere in the world, where? If you could have just one magic power, what would you chose? (If they already do, what would they trade if for?) If you tell me more about your characters, I can ask better questions.
Here is what I do. You know the outlines where you have a beginning scene, next scene, middle scene, next scene, or end scene, or whatever? Where you have boxes or bubbles or whatever and connect them with arrows to show their order? Do the same thing with a character. Make a linear diagram. A timeline, so to speak. Something like: A ---> B -----> C ----> D etc. Now, here's what you do. First of all, the character has to have the conflict intervene in their life to the point where they must overcome said conflict to acheive whatever their goal may be. So, have "A" be the "Situation," so to speak. How does the character get involved in the story? Then, the character must have a goal. Is the goal to escape something? Cause something to happen? After having the conflict happen to her, she will have something that she wants to achieve. This goal is "B." "C" is the character's plan of how to reach the goal. The means to the end. "D" is the obstacles that he/she encounters while trying to reach the goal, followed by how he/she overcomes these obstacles. For a novel or longer story, you'll most likely have lots of these. You can use other things too, like points at which the MC has an epiphany or undergoes a personality change. Once you make this skeletal outline thingy, you can draw little branches off of it where you plan out what scenes woud happen to propel it all along. Hope I helped. PM me if you want, or if you're stuck, I like to help people.
This is what I do. I often write scenes about my characters that are not intended to be in the final story. They're just there to help me know the characters better, and to help me get the prose voice I need to write about them. One thing that's sometimes fun is to take your character and put him into a totally different situation from any that can occur in your story. Put your character into a different universe. How would your character function as the captain of the Enterprise in Star Trek, for example? Write a scene about that. How about putting your character in Victorian England, in a Sherlock Holmes story? How would your character function if dropped into the Corleone crime family? Try writing scenes like these - they can help you learn quite a bit about your characters. Besides, they can be a lot of fun!
