Questions to Ask Your Character
For fiction writers and roleplayers interviewing a character they are still inventing, whether that is a novel's lead, a tabletop character or an OC with a reference sheet and no story yet. These character development questions are put to the character directly, as in an interview, and grouped by layer: basics, history, wants and fears, relationships, behavior under pressure, then voice and habits. Some go after the large things, such as what they want and what they would never forgive, and others after details a reader can see, such as what is in their pockets or how they eat alone. Each has a note on what the answer does for the story: a scene it suggests, a contradiction worth keeping or a choice it forces.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Basics
What name do you answer to, and who still calls you something else?
Why ask it
A nickname, a title and a name left behind each mark a different relationship. Whoever still uses the old one knew the character before the story began, so decide what happens on the day that person turns up.
How old are you, and how old do strangers take you for?
Why ask it
The gap is the useful part. A character read as younger tends to be underestimated and one read as older tends to be handed responsibility, so you know how a room treats them before they have said a word.
How would you describe yourself in three words, and which one would your friends argue with?
Why ask it
The three words are how the character would like to be introduced, which is not the same as what they are. Take the word a friend would argue with and write the scene that settles the argument, because that is where self-image meets behavior.
What is your greatest strength, and when has it got you into trouble?
Why ask it
A strength with no downside is only a line on a character sheet. Loyalty that keeps them beside the wrong person, or cleverness that stops them listening, gives you a virtue and a fault grown from one root, and that holds together better than two unrelated traits.
What is your worst flaw, and are you the last to know about it?
Why ask it
Pick a flaw that costs something in the plot, such as pride that refuses help or a temper that ends a negotiation, over a harmless one like clumsiness. If everyone around the character can name it and they cannot, you already have the outline of an arc, ending in the scene where someone says it to their face.
Where do you sleep, and whose name is on the door?
Why ask it
Owning, renting, borrowing and hiding are four different kinds of security. If the place belongs to someone else, that person has leverage you can use the first time the plot needs the character out by morning.
How do you earn your keep, and what would you do if you did not need the money?
Why ask it
The distance between the two answers measures how trapped they feel. If the answers match, work is not where the pressure is, so the story has to take something else from them.
An hour after meeting you, what would a stranger remember about how you look?
Why ask it
One or two details do more than an inventory of hair and eye color. Whatever the stranger would mention to a friend is what goes on the page, and the rest can stay in your notes.
What do you wear when you need to be taken seriously?
Why ask it
Clothes chosen on purpose show who the character thinks is judging them and what they believe authority looks like. One who has no answer has either never needed anyone's permission or has stopped expecting to get it.
What can your body not do, or no longer do?
Why ask it
A bad knee, failing eyesight or a limit of size or stamina closes off the easy way through a physical scene and makes the character solve it differently. Decide whether they admit the limit or hide it, because hiding it is a second problem.
What are you good at that nobody around you has any use for?
Why ask it
A wasted skill is a promise to the reader. Either the story will eventually need it, or the character will leave to find somewhere that does, and both of those are plots.
What are you bad at that someone in your position should be able to do?
Why ask it
A ship's captain who cannot swim, a healer who goes faint at blood, a detective who forgets names. The gap makes them depend on someone, and covering for it is a small secret that the plot can make expensive.
If you have a gift, a power or rare training, what does using it take out of you?
Why ask it
For a roleplay character or anyone in genre fiction, the cost is where the person is. An ability with no price flattens every scene it appears in, so name what it drains, who notices, and how long they take to recover.
How much money do you have right now, and how long would it last?
Why ask it
A number of days is more useful than rich or poor. It tells you which problems they can pay their way out of, and if the answer is forever, the trouble in the story has to be something money cannot touch.
Where are you from, and can people tell when you open your mouth?
Why ask it
Whether they kept, lost or sanded down the accent says how they feel about home. An accent that slips back when they are tired or angry is a tell that costs you one line of dialogue.
When is your birthday, and who remembers it without being reminded?
Why ask it
On an OC profile the date is a box to fill in, but in a story the guest list is what counts. Someone who lets the day pass unmentioned and someone who plans it a month ahead are asking different things of the people around them. In an invented world, decide first whether birthdays are kept at all.
Who has authority over you: an employer, a law, a family, a god?
Why ask it
Nearly every character answers to someone, even if it is only a landlord. Naming them gives you the rule the plot can push the character to break and the person who will come asking why they broke it.
What is the one thing in your home a visitor would ask about?
Why ask it
Pick an object with a story behind it and you save a page of backstory. The visitor asks, and the character tells the truth, lies or changes the subject, and each of those is a usable scene.
What do you never leave home without?
Why ask it
Sort what they carry into tools and comforts. A tool says what trouble they expect from an ordinary day, a comfort says what they would not admit to needing, and either can go missing at the moment you choose.
What is in your pockets right now, and what had you forgotten was there?
Why ask it
Skip what they packed on purpose and look at what has piled up: a ticket stub, a key to someone else's door, a receipt they meant to throw out. Each stray item is a place they went or a person they saw this week. If you can think of nothing, the character has not been set down in a world yet.
What does an ordinary day look like before the story interrupts it?
Why ask it
You need the routine in order to break it. Find the one part of the day they would fight to keep, then have the opening chapters take that part first.
History
What is the earliest thing you remember, and who else was in the room?
Why ask it
A first memory sets what the character assumes the world is like: safe, loud, lonely, watched. The other person in the room is often a relationship you had not planned and can now use.
What is your happiest memory, and could you get back to anything like it?
Why ask it
It shows what the character thinks a good life contains: a crowd or one person, a win or a quiet afternoon. If the day cannot be repeated because someone in it is gone, you have a loss to write toward, and if it could be, ask what is keeping them from it.
What was there never enough of in the house you grew up in?
Why ask it
Money, space, attention, quiet: whatever ran short then is what they hoard or overdo now. That gives you a present-day habit to put in a scene, which does the work of a childhood flashback without stopping the story for one.
What did you own as a child that you would still know by touch?
Why ask it
Asking about touch gets you weight, texture and a worn corner where a biography would give you a date. Then settle where the object is now, whether kept, lost, sold or sitting in a sibling's house, because that half of the answer is the one the plot can use.
Who raised you, and what did they expect you to become?
Why ask it
Going along with the plan, failing at it and refusing it produce three different adults. A character still living out someone else's plan has an arc ready: the day they notice.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Why ask it
Set the childhood answer beside what they do now. A character who laughs at it has made peace with the distance and one who changes the subject has not, which turns the old ambition into something a rival or a child can bring up at a bad moment.
Which sibling, cousin or childhood friend were you always measured against?
Why ask it
Whoever it was can walk into the story at any point and make the character twelve years old again. If nobody did the comparing, ask who the character measured themselves against, since that habit is harder to shake.
What were you punished for as a child that you still do?
Why ask it
If punishment did not stop it, the trait is close to the core of them. Note whether they do it openly now or still hide it, because a grown adult hiding a harmless habit tells the reader who is still in their head.
What did you learn at school, or in place of school?
Why ask it
Schooling settles what they can read, reckon, quote and repair, and what they are touchy about not knowing. You will need it in any scene where a document, a machine or a better-educated person turns up.
Who taught you the thing you are best at?
Why ask it
A teacher is a relationship with terms attached: a debt never repaid, a falling-out, a standard the character still works to. If they taught themselves, ask what they went without while they learned and who they wish had been watching.
When did you leave home, and was it your idea?
Why ask it
Leaving by choice tends to leave guilt behind it, and being pushed out leaves a grievance. If they never left, consider whether leaving is what the story is about.
What memory would you erase if you could?
Why ask it
You do not have to put the event itself on the page. What a reader sees is the steering around it: the street they will not walk down, the song they turn off, the joke they do not laugh at. Choose one and the memory is present in every scene that comes near it.
What single event made you the person you are?
Why ask it
Let the character name it, then check the answer against the rest of the interview. People often credit one dramatic day when a slow, ordinary pressure did more of the shaping, and a character who has the cause wrong is one the plot can correct.
What do you regret most, and would you still do it again?
Why ask it
Regretting an act and being ready to repeat it can sit side by side, and that contradiction is worth keeping. Ask about what they did, not only what was done to them: guilt gives a character something to make up for, and making up for it is action.
What is the worst thing you have done that nobody found out about?
Why ask it
Decide now who could find out, and at what point in the story it would do the most damage. Even if you never use it, a character guarding something behaves differently in every scene with the person who could expose them.
What cause, faith or person did you once follow without question?
Why ask it
What ended it tells you what the character cannot forgive. If they are still following, you have found the belief the story is there to test.
Who did you love first, and how did it end?
Why ask it
Look at the ending before the person. It sets what they brace for in the next one, being left, being known too well or being needed, and whether they repeat the pattern or steer around it.
Who have you lost, and what did you never get to say to them?
Why ask it
An unfinished conversation is one the character may try to finish with the wrong person. If they have lost nobody yet, they do not know how they grieve, and neither do you until the story makes them.
What are you proudest of, and who have you never told?
Why ask it
The achievement is what the character counts as winning. Look harder at the person left untold: someone whose praise they have given up on, or someone they fear would shrug. There is a scene in that person hearing it from somebody else.
What place can you never go back to?
Why ask it
Once you know the place, the plot can require them to go there. If they could return and simply will not, the reason is worth more than any locked gate.
Where were you a year before the story starts?
Why ask it
The recent past does more work than childhood. What they had just finished, lost or settled into is what the first chapter disturbs, so if the answer is the same place and the same life, ask why they stayed.
Wants and fears
What do you want badly enough to do something about this week?
Why ask it
A want that produces action within days is what scenes are made of. If all they would do is think about it, the want is a mood, and the plot will stall waiting for them to move.
What do you want that you would never say out loud?
Why ask it
The stated goal moves the plot, and the unspoken one decides the choices readers argue over afterwards. If the two turn out to be the same want, every scene will play exactly as announced, so look for the smaller, less flattering thing underneath.
What do you believe would finally make you content?
Why ask it
Let the character answer, then note beside it where they are wrong, because a character's theory of their own happiness is rarely the whole truth. The ending can hand them the thing and prove it is not enough, or withhold it and prove they never needed it.
What is the one thing you would not trade for what you want?
Why ask it
Everything they would trade is the cost of the middle of the story. The one thing they would not is the climax, because the last choice should put exactly that on the table.
What have you already given up on?
Why ask it
When the plot reopens an old want, it lands harder than a new one would. Listen to how they talk about it, as a joke, a shrug or a silence, since that is how they will first react when the chance comes back.
What are you saving money, time or favors for?
Why ask it
People only hoard toward something, so the answer names a future they are counting on, and a jar of coins or an uncalled favor is easy for the plot to spend or steal. A character who saves nothing either trusts tomorrow completely or has stopped expecting one, and you should know which.
What are you afraid of that you could explain to a child?
Why ask it
Heights, dogs, deep water, the dark. A plain fear is easy to stage: put it between the character and the thing they want and see how much they want it.
What frightens you that you have never admitted to anyone?
Why ask it
The fear under the plain one tends to be about what they might turn out to be: ordinary, unlovable, the image of a parent. You will rarely state it on the page, but each bad decision the character makes should trace back to it.
Where do you feel safest, and who else is allowed in?
Why ask it
The place tells you which threat they are always half expecting, since a locked room and an open hilltop answer different fears. Whoever is allowed in holds a rare kind of trust. The day the place is searched, sold or burned, the character has to carry their safety some other way.
What keeps you busy so that you do not have to think?
Why ask it
Whether it is work, other people's problems or prayer, the avoidance is visible behavior, so it is what a reader sees first. Take it away for one chapter and the character has to face what it was covering.
What would you never forgive in another person?
Why ask it
Have them commit that act, or watch someone they love commit it. Either way a rule they thought was fixed has to be revised in front of the reader.
What have you forgiven that you swore you never would?
Why ask it
Here a principle gave way to a person, and it matters whether the character files that under growth or under weakness. If they have never once bent, leave the answer open, because the story may be the first time.
What do you believe you deserve?
Why ask it
Characters who think they deserve more and characters who think they deserve less both tend to turn down what is offered, for opposite reasons. The answer predicts how they react when something good arrives halfway through.
What do you think happens to people after they die?
Why ask it
The belief sets how they take risks and how they mourn. In an invented world you also have to decide whether they are right, and whether they will find out.
How do you want to be remembered?
Why ask it
The answer names the audience the character is playing to: family, a town, history, one person. Then write the obituary they would get if the story ended today. Whatever is missing from it is the work they have left.
What is wrong with the world as you see it, and whose fault is it?
Why ask it
Their theory of blame decides which side they take when the plot splits a room. Then give them one case the theory cannot explain and watch what they do with it.
What would you do the day after you got what you wanted?
Why ask it
No answer at all suggests the goal is a way of avoiding something else. A detailed answer means they care more about the afterwards than the goal, and the afterwards is what an opponent can threaten.
What temptation do you not trust yourself around?
Why ask it
A known weakness is a trap you can set in plain view while the reader watches the character walk toward it. How they manage it, by avoidance, by rules or by a friend who keeps watch, is characterization too.
What do you want for someone else more than you want anything for yourself?
Why ask it
Wanting something on another person's behalf gives sacrifice somewhere to go. Check whether that person wants the same thing, because if they do not, the character's love is the conflict.
What are you sure will never happen to you?
Why ask it
Certainty is a setup. Illness, betrayal, poverty, falling in love: deliver the thing they ruled out and the character has to revise who they think they are.
What do you believe about yourself that stopped being true a while ago?
Why ask it
An out-of-date self-description (the reliable one, the one who never needs help, the one nobody notices) is an arc in a single line. Other people have usually seen the change first, so pick who says it. If the character has already noticed, you are writing the aftermath and can start the story later.
What would you risk your life for, and what would you only say you would?
Why ask it
Write both lists. The gap between them is a scene where someone calls the bluff, and the character learns which list an item was really on.
If you could put one question to whoever made you up, what would you ask?
Why ask it
A favorite of OC ask games, and more use than it looks. Whatever they would demand to know, why the brother had to die, why the bad leg, when it gets easier, marks the piece of backstory that has not yet earned its place. Give that piece a reason inside the story or take it out.
Relationships
Who is the most important person in your life, and have you told them so?
Why ask it
This is the person the plot can threaten, take away or turn against the character, so know who it is before you outline. An attachment that has never been spoken is also a clock: the reader starts waiting for it to be said, and you decide whether it is said in time.
What are things like between you and your family these days?
Why ask it
History covers who raised them, and this asks who still writes, visits or needs money. Living family means obligations that can pull a character out of the plot for a chapter. If they are cut off or orphaned, find out who has taken up the vacancy.
Who would you call at three in the morning, and would they pick up?
Why ask it
The second half matters more. Reliance that runs one way is a relationship about to be tested, and if there is nobody to call, ask who that person used to be.
Who knows you best, and what do they still have wrong?
Why ask it
Even the closest person is holding an outdated version. The correction is a scene: the moment that friend watches the character do something they would have sworn was impossible.
Who do you owe, who owes you, and which debt would you sooner forget?
Why ask it
A debt is plot on credit, since a creditor can call it in at the worst moment. A character with no debts in either direction is free to walk out of the story, so give them one.
Who are you a different person around?
Why ask it
Softer with a child, harder with a father, funnier with one old friend. Put two of those people in the same room and the character has to choose which self turns up.
Who did you stop speaking to, and who would have to make the first move?
Why ask it
The answer about the first move tells you who the character thinks was wronged. Write the reunion in your head, including the version where the other person remembers it the opposite way.
Who do you look after, and do they want looking after?
Why ask it
Someone who depends on the character is a reason to refuse the adventure. Someone who resents the care is a quarrel waiting for the right evening, and it marks where the character's kindness shades into control.
Who in your life do you underestimate?
Why ask it
Answer this one over the character's head. That person is your best candidate for the betrayal, the rescue or the surprise late in the story, because the character will not see it coming.
What does a person have to do before you trust them?
Why ask it
The test gives away what the character thinks the danger is. It is also a door: a con artist, a spy or a rival who has studied them can pass it on purpose.
How do you act around someone you are attracted to?
Why ask it
A romance thread needs behavior to put on the page in place of a declared feeling, and this is it: clumsier, bolder, sharper or suddenly silent. If the character is the last to notice, the people around them get the good lines.
What do you do when someone you love is in the wrong?
Why ask it
Saying so, going along with it and fixing it quietly behind their back are three different kinds of loyalty. Whichever they use is how conflict runs inside their closest relationships, and a change of method late in the story is a clear mark of growth.
Who would say you ruined something for them?
Why ask it
Most people are the villain in somebody's account. That somebody is an opponent with a real grievance, harder for the character to dismiss and better to read than an enemy who is simply bad.
Who could ruin you with one sentence?
Why ask it
The person holding that sentence is a ready-made opponent, or a hostage the character has to keep safe and close. Look at what the sentence is about, too: what a character thinks they could not survive having known is often smaller than the worst thing they have done.
What do you and your closest friend never talk about?
Why ask it
The avoided subject is holding the friendship up. The scene worth writing is the one where one of them finally raises it, and the question is whether the friendship can stand afterwards.
How do you treat people who can do nothing for you?
Why ask it
One exchange with a waiter, a servant or a stranger asking directions lets a reader make up their mind about the character well before any heroics. A mismatch, kind to strangers and short with family, is worth keeping.
What is the last kind thing someone did for you, and what did you do about it?
Why ask it
Suspicion, a rush to repay, embarrassment, a quick sum of what the other person must want: how someone takes a kindness gives them away faster than how they take a threat. A character who cannot recall one is describing the world you have put them in.
What do people tend to assume about you when you first meet, and how long do you let them?
Why ask it
A wrong first impression is something the character can correct, put up with or use. One who lets people go on thinking they are harmless, rich or slow has chosen an advantage, and the moment they drop the act is a reveal you can plan from the first chapter.
Who do you look up to, and what would they think of you now?
Why ask it
An admired person is a measuring stick the character carries everywhere. If that person is alive, their disapproval is a scene. If they are dead or were never real, the character gets to imagine a verdict that suits them, and it is worth catching them doing it.
Whose approval do you still want, even if you would deny it?
Why ask it
It is seldom the person they would name as a hero. A parent who was never impressed, an old teacher or a friend who moved on can explain choices that look irrational from outside. Decide what happens to the character's drive on the day the approval arrives, or the day it plainly never will.
Who is your rival, and what do you admire in them?
Why ask it
The admired quality is usually one the character lacks, and it makes the rival more than an obstacle. If they admire nothing, the rival is thin, so go and interview the rival next.
Who would notice first if you disappeared, and how long would it take?
Why ask it
A character nobody would miss for a week can vanish into a plot easily. One who would be missed by dinner needs a lie or a goodbye scene first, and whoever does the noticing is the person the story has to account for.
Who in the group do you trust least, and what would change your mind?
Why ask it
For a roleplay party or an ensemble cast, friction inside the group fills the scenes between the big events. If another player owns that character, agree on the distrust with them first so it is fun on both sides of the table.
Under pressure
What do you do in the first ten seconds of a real emergency?
Why ask it
The first reaction comes before they have time to be who they want to be, and the second is who they are trying to be. Write both: the freeze and then the order given in a steady voice, or the joke and then the shaking hands.
How do you behave when you are losing an argument?
Why ask it
Louder, colder, off the subject, onto the other person's character. These are tactics you can use in every dialogue scene. A character who never loses an argument on the page starts to look like the author's favorite.
What makes you angry faster than anything else?
Why ask it
The trigger points at what they are protecting: their competence, their family, a sense of fairness, the right to be listened to. Anyone in the story who learns it can steer the character with a sentence, so decide which opponent has worked it out.
What does your anger look like from the outside?
Why ask it
Settle two things: whether it is loud or quiet, and whether it arrives at once or is stored for months. Anger that looks like politeness is more unsettling than shouting, and it lets other characters miss it until it is too late.
When you are frightened, what do you pretend to be feeling?
Why ask it
Acting bored or irritable, or telling a run of bad jokes, lets you write fear without using the word. The cover also gives one sharp-eyed side character something to see through.
What sound makes you flinch?
Why ask it
A flinch can happen in the middle of a scene with no explanation given, which makes it handier than a paragraph of backstory. Name the exact sound, a key in a lock, a kettle starting to whistle, boots on gravel, and you have named the day it comes from. 'Loud noises' means you have not found that day yet.
When you are caught out, what comes first: an apology, an excuse or an attack?
Why ask it
A character who cannot say sorry needs people willing to accept something else in its place: a favor, a gift, a changed subject. The story gets more interesting when one of them stops accepting it.
Two people need you at once and you can only reach one. How do you choose?
Why ask it
Whatever rule they use is their ethics in practice: nearest first, weakest first, whoever asked first. Stage the choice literally at least once, and let the one they did not reach remember it.
What law, order or rule would you break without losing sleep?
Why ask it
You are looking for the point where their own code parts from the official one. A law-abiding character with exactly one exception is more interesting than a general rebel, and the exception usually names what they love.
Who do you turn into when you are hungry, hurt or short of sleep?
Why ask it
Decide how long they hold out and who arrives afterwards: someone mean, tearful, silent or reckless. A long journey, a siege or a deadline will need this, and a small early glimpse of the turn makes the big one feel earned.
What do you do when you are handed power over another person?
Why ask it
Give them a prisoner, a new hire, a younger sibling or a beaten enemy and write one short scene. Mercy, pettiness or plain discomfort on the page tells a reader more than a chapter of good intentions.
What would it take to make you betray a friend?
Why ask it
'Nothing' is the answer of a character who has not been tested. Find the threat or the offer that would make them hesitate, because the hesitation is the scene even if they hold firm.
How do you take bad news: in the room, or later on your own?
Why ask it
If the reaction is delayed, you can cut away and come back when it lands. The answer also settles who is allowed to see the character undone, which may be nobody until the story changes that.
What do you do when a plan falls apart halfway through?
Why ask it
A plan coming apart is a standard turn in a story and a regular event at a game table, so you will use this answer more than once. Note whether they improvise, retreat or look for someone to blame, then pair them with a character who does the opposite.
If the story put a weapon in your hand, could you use it, and what would you be like afterwards?
Why ask it
In stories and games where fighting is routine, the afterwards is what separates a person from a game piece. For a quieter story, ask the same about the harshest thing they could say to someone they love.
What makes you cry, and who has seen it?
Why ask it
The list of witnesses is a map of trust. If nobody has seen it, the first person who does is a turning point in that relationship, so choose them with care.
If you had to leave tonight with only what you could carry, what would you regret leaving behind?
Why ask it
A deadline ranks attachments the way no open question about love can. The regret tends to be small and unheroic, a dog, a half-built boat, a neighbor who would never learn why, and the small answer lands harder on the page than the noble one.
What is stopping you from walking away from all of this?
Why ask it
If the honest answer is nothing, a sensible character leaves in chapter two and the reader does not blame them. Find the tie that holds them, whether a person, a debt, pride or having nowhere else to go, and have the plot tighten it before things get hard.
What would you have to lose before you changed?
Why ask it
The answer is the price of the ending and tells you how much story it will take to get there. Ask it last, once the other answers have shown what the character is holding on to, and be wary of a low price: someone who would change after a stern talking-to does not need a whole book.
Voice and habits
What word or phrase do you overuse?
Why ask it
A verbal habit lets a reader identify the speaker without a dialogue tag. One is plenty, and it works best rationed to unguarded moments. If someone close has picked it up, you have a relationship on the page in a single word.
What do you say when you mean no?
Why ask it
'Maybe later', 'we'll see', a silence and a flat no belong to four different people. How a character refuses tells you how much power they believe they have in the room, which is worth knowing before you write their first argument.
What habit takes over when you are nervous?
Why ask it
Choose something small enough that the character does not know they do it: straightening objects, talking faster, going very still. Used sparingly, it lets a reader spot the nerves a beat before the character owns up to them, and it gives anyone who knows them well an early warning.
How do you swear, and who do you stop in front of?
Why ask it
In an invented world, the curses tell you what the culture holds sacred. In any world, the person they clean up their language for is someone whose opinion still counts.
What do you find funny that other people do not?
Why ask it
Humor is easy to claim for a character and hard to write. Try three jokes they would make, and if you cannot, they have a description of a sense of humor and not yet the thing itself.
What is your pet peeve, the small thing that annoys you more than it should?
Why ask it
A petty irritation is useful because it is out of proportion, which makes it funny and human at once. Give the offending habit to someone the character has to travel, work or live with, and their scenes have friction before the plot supplies any.
What do you do for fun when nobody needs anything from you?
Why ask it
A pastime shows the character with nothing at stake, and you need that register so the tense scenes have something to stand against. If they cannot name one, that is an answer too. Note who or what used up the time, and whether they mind.
What is your favorite meal, and who makes it the way you like it?
Why ask it
On its own a favorite dish is trivia. Tied to a cook, a kitchen or a place they can no longer reach, it becomes something another character can offer as a peace gesture or get slightly wrong, and both of those play as scenes.
How do you eat when nobody is watching?
Why ask it
Standing at the counter, the same dish every night, fast with one arm around the plate, nothing ever left over. Eating habits carry upbringing and scarcity without a word of history, so put one meal on the page early and let the reader work it out.
What subject can you not stop talking about once you start?
Why ask it
A hobbyhorse puts enthusiasm into action and gives other characters a way to distract or handle them. It is also somewhere to hide a little exposition, as long as someone in the scene is allowed to get bored.
If you left a note on a friend's door, what would it say, and how would you sign it?
Why ask it
Written voice differs from spoken: curt, formal, apologetic, full of crossed-out words. Notes, letters and messages put the character on the page while they are absent, and the spelling and the sign-off carry their schooling and how close the two are without anyone mentioning either.
What do you do last thing at night?
Why ask it
A bedtime ritual tends to show what a person is guarding: the locks checked twice, a prayer, a look in on someone asleep. Break it once and the reader knows something has shifted before the character admits it.
How do you enter a room full of strangers?
Why ask it
Along the wall, straight to the middle, toward the host, toward the dog. This is staging you can reuse whenever the setting changes, and it tells you where they rank themselves before anyone else has a say.
What is the first thing you notice when you walk into a room?
Why ask it
Exits, faces, the price of the furniture, the one clean chair. Trade, class and old fears all show in what the eye goes to first, and once you know it you have a filter for describing every new setting from inside this character's head.
What is the last lie you told, and who was it meant to protect?
Why ask it
Look at which way the lie points. One told to save their own skin, one to spare someone weaker and one to keep up a story they need believed come from three different people. A character who says they never lie has just answered the question.
How can someone who knows you tell that you are lying?
Why ask it
A tell is a tool for other characters, and whoever can read it has an advantage. The first time the character lies without it marks how much they have changed, or how much is at stake.
What do you sound like talking to a child, an animal or someone who is ill?
Why ask it
The gentle register brings out tenderness in a hard character, or awkwardness in a charming one, with no feeling declared. It is a good short scene to write early as a test of the voice.
What do you know by heart?
Why ask it
Whatever is memorized was repeated, and whatever was repeated was either loved or drilled into them. A song, a prayer, a route or a list of names can surface under stress and stand in for a page of history.
What saying or rule do you live by, and who did you get it from?
Why ask it
A motto usually comes from somebody, so the source matters as much as the words: a parent, a sergeant, a book, a bad year. Write the scene where following it is the wrong thing to do, since a rule only becomes character once it has been tested.
What do people imitate when they do an impression of you?
Why ask it
To answer, you have to find the two or three most recognizable things about their voice and manner. If nobody could do the impression, the character is not distinct yet.
What song would you choose to have playing when you walk in, and what song actually suits you?
Why ask it
The theme song from OC ask games does real work once you split it in two. The song they would choose is the image they are selling, the one that suits them is your call, and the distance between the two is a private joke you can share with the reader. In a world with no recorded music, make it the tune someone whistles when they see them coming.
How do you say goodbye?
Why ask it
Abruptly, at length, never, or every time in case it is the last. The habit carries their history with loss, and it gives you a line to vary at the end of the story to mark what changed.
Running a character interview without filling in a form
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you ask anything
Answer as the character
Write each answer in first person, the way the character would say it aloud, dodges and half-truths included. 'He is stubborn' is a note. 'I said I would think about it, and I have' is a line you can put in a scene.
Let the character dodge
If the character changes the subject, answers a different question or says it is none of your business, write that down as the answer and note which question caused it. A refusal marks a sore spot more exactly than a confession would. Come back to it at the end, when the other answers have given you something to press with.
Start with the layer the draft is missing
There is no need to begin at the top. If the plot keeps stalling, go to Wants and fears. If everyone sounds alike, go to Voice and habits. If a scene between two people lies flat, put the Relationships questions to both of them and compare the answers.
Bring the story with you
The interview serves a story or a campaign, so keep the premise in front of you. When an answer fights what the plot needs, that is useful: either the character changes or the plot does, and it is cheaper to find out now than in the third draft.
If there is no story yet
An OC that exists as a drawing or a profile, or a roleplay character made before the first session, has nothing to serve so far. Begin with Wants and fears and Under pressure. A want, something in its way and a line the character will not cross are enough to start a story, and the other layers can wait until it needs them.
Answer a few properly
A dozen answers followed all the way to a scene are worth more than the whole list answered in a word each. Pick the questions you cannot answer straight away, since the easy ones only tell you what you already knew.
Turning answers into story
Sort what you have
- 1Mark each answer that suggests a scene, and write that scene's first line underneath it.
- 2Mark any two answers that pull against each other. Keep both, and decide which one wins when it matters.
- 3Mark the answers that force a choice: a debt, a vow, a person they cannot lose. Those go into the outline.
- 4Leave the rest in your notes. It has done its job by making the other answers easier to find.
Follow the answer that surprised you
When an answer comes out that you did not plan, ask why, and then ask why again. A surprise means the character has started to exist apart from your outline, and it is often the best material of the session.
Keep the contradictions
Generous with money and mean with praise, brave in a fight and a coward about a difficult letter. Resist tidying these into one consistent trait. People are uneven, and a character who is uneven in a specific way is easier to believe.
Ask someone who knows them
Put a handful of the same questions to a second character about the first: the sister, the rival, the commanding officer. Where the two accounts disagree, do not settle it. The disagreement is what makes the first character seem to exist when you are not looking.
At a table or in a shared story
For a tabletop or roleplay character, pass two or three hooks to the game master or your writing partner: a debt, a rival, a fear. Keep the other answers to yourself and let them come out in play, where they land better than in a backstory document.
When it starts to feel like a form
Blanks are allowed
Not knowing yet is a fair answer. A sheet with every box filled feels finished, and that feeling is what stops a writer from asking anything further. Leave a question open until a scene needs it.
Favorites rarely matter
A favorite color or food earns its place only if someone in the story can give it, withhold it or use it against the character. If an answer could be swapped for another and no scene would change, drop it.
Answers that would fit any world
An OC built as a profile can end up with answers that would hold in any setting and any century. Push each one until it touches something local: a street, a price, a law, a custom, a person with a name. A character afraid of 'losing everything' is floating, and one afraid of the landlord's knock on the first of the month lives somewhere.
History that changes nothing
The History answers explain the character, but explaining is not a story. Test each one by asking what it makes them do now. If it changes a present-day choice, show the choice and let the reader infer the past.
Answers that are too tidy
A character who knows exactly why they are the way they are sounds like a case file. Let them be wrong about themselves in a few answers, and write what is true in the margin where only you can see it.
When to stop and write
You can predict them
You have done enough when you can drop the character into a situation you never planned, such as a long wait or a wrong order, and know what they do first. Past that point, more answers add notes without adding understanding.
An answer turns into a scene
If an answer runs past a paragraph and people start talking in it, you are drafting. Carry on in the manuscript. The remaining questions will keep.
Come back when you are stuck
The interview often helps more in the middle of a draft than before page one. Return with one specific problem and go straight to the layer that fits it.
Let the page overrule the notes
When the character does something in a scene that contradicts an interview answer, the scene is usually right. Change the notes to match and keep writing.