Everything you need to know to make your reader crave the next chapter.
Are your villains villainous enough? Are your heroes heroic? How to make dialogues sound believable? Build an atmosphere? What about diversity? The plot? The pacing? Is your hea...
This is a questionnaire I once saw online and found it--if not helpful--extremely amusing. It's called Gotham Character Questionnaire, so you can look it up if you want.
The purpose of any questionnaire is to help you learn more about your characters by asking them--yourself--questions and imagining your characters in different life situations. Long story short, create a problem to solve a problem--and I guess this describes the whole process of writing, huh?
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Anyway, here's what you can ask your character to figure out what kind of person they are and what makes them memorable:
What is your character's name?
Does they have a nickname?
What is your character's hair color?
Eye color?
What kind of distinguishing facial features does your character have?
Does your character have a birthmark? Where is it? What about scars? How did he get them?
Who are your character's friends and family? Who do they surround themselves with?
Who are the people your character is closest to? Who do they wish they were closest to?
Where was your character born? Where has they lived since then? Where do they call home?
Where does your character go when they're angry?
What is their biggest fear? Who have they told this to? Who would they never tell this to? Why?
Do they have a secret?
What makes your character laugh out loud?
When has your character been in love? Had a broken heart?
Then dig deeper by asking more unconventional questions:
What is in your character's refrigerator right now? On their bedroom floor? On their nightstand? In their garbage can?
Look at your character's feet. Describe what you see there. Do they wear dress shoes, gym shoes, or none at all? Are they in socks that are ratty and full of holes? Or are they wearing a pair of blue and gold slippers knitted by their grandmother?
When your character thinks of their childhood kitchen, what smell do they associate with it? Sauerkraut? Oatmeal cookies? Paint? Why is that smell so resonant for them?
Your character is doing intense spring cleaning. What is easy for them to throw out? What is difficult for them to part with? Why?
It's Saturday at noon. What is your character doing? Give details. If they're eating breakfast, what exactly do they eat? If they're stretching out in their backyard to sun, what kind of blanket or towel do they lie on?
What is one strong memory that has stuck with your character from childhood? Why is it so powerful and lasting?
Your character is getting ready for a night out. Where are they going? What do they wear? Who will they be with?
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P.S. The questions about fear, birthmark, and scars helped me a lot with building my Yaroslava's personality in my story Witches Burn at Dawn. Still, it was weird to imagine a wicked witch in a dark fantasy story stretching out on a rainbow blanket in her backyard to sun...
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