Write Drunk, Revise Sober
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 . 4:19 PM
The Pre-Drink - 10/2/07 Since this week's focus is character, check out this website for an exhaustive list of questions you can answer about your protagonist (and other characters):http://www.errantdreams.com/static/pc_questions
Some of the questions are, in a sideways sort of fashion, actually questions about setting. You may want to hold on to these for later, or you can answer them now and fill in more details when we get to Sobriety Test #3: Setting.
Don't let yourself be overwhelmed; you don't have to answer all the questions, and you certainly don't have to answer them all at once. Try tackling one group at a time, or just pick the ones you find interesting, or set a timer and give yourself ten minutes to answer as many as possible and skip the ones you don't know. You can always go back and change your answers, so don't worry about being right or wrong.
The more you know, the less you have to make up while you're actually writing your novel, which avoids potential conflicts and confusion. You'll also be better prepared when we get to Sobriety Test #2: Premise.
So load up on knowledge about your character. As the great Terry Pratchett said, "...a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance." 1 comments
1 Comments:
Hey there. Happened to stumble across this, and thought you might want to know that the set of questions you linked to got turned into a much longer and more thorough toy, the 365-question pdf, found about halfway down this page of resources. Personally I think 1-5 questions per character (usually 2-3) is about right, but I love having variety to choose from.
Then there's the epiphanies, which includes some character questions as well.
Part of what I love about random character questions is that you never know what you'll learn about your character!
Anyway, I'm glad you liked the questions.
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October 3, 2007 at 8:43 PM