Interviewing Your Characters Yields Juicy Material for Your Novel

Every June in my part of Wisconsin the turtles lay their eggs. This one was checking out our yard for a potential nesting spot. In the background, my cat Ranger was checking out the turtle.

In my last post, I mentioned that I’ve been interviewing my characters as I work on a new middle-grade mystery novel. I started with my villains because I knew less about them than I did about my protagonist, Jazz, an 11-year-old girl. After seeing how much I discovered about my villains, I decided to use the same approach with Jazz.

I first asked her to tell me about her family. Knowing what your characters think about each other—not just what you, the writer, thinks about them—can also help you understand everyone better.

In my initial quick character sketches, I’d decided she had one younger sister, a dad, and a mom who’s been absent from the family for years.

I wasn’t sure why the mom was missing. Jazz filled me in. She’s clearly angry with her mom, so that suggests some tender emotions to explore. That angry history may also help explain how and why Jazz gets taken in by one of the villains.

Jazz told me about her dad and her sister, who’s very different from her, though they get along fairly well. Jazz’s comments about her sister led to a discovery about one of my other kid characters.

In my initial list, I’d included a kid antagonist for Jazz, someone who could have an ongoing presence if I’m lucky enough to turn this novel into a series.

This was my sketch about her: Brittany is the CEO’s obnoxious kid—this girl could be someone Jazz dislikes, especially if the CEO is an alpha type and the girl takes after him/her. She could be somewhat akin to the antagonist to Stan in Stanley Will Probably Be Fine. (See part 2 of my interview with the author of this novel in which we discussed secondary characters and their development.)

Jazz had A LOT to say about Brittany. For one thing, they are former best friends. That was a big surprise.

I suppose there are writers who can plan everything out in advance. They could plan for their protagonist to have a former friend as an antagonist. That’s certainly a common trope. It hadn’t occurred to me in my high-level planning.

As much as I like having plans, I’m not too bothered when things change. The joy of discovery makes writing fun. And I need every ounce of fun when drafting a new novel. For me, first drafts are a chore.

Discoveries like Jazz-and-Brittany-used-to-be-best-friends are another good reason for me to keep doing these character interviews. They reveal so much fascinating back story without me having to work that hard! Instead, I let things bubble up from my subconscious.

In addition to learning about characters’ pasts and thoughts about others in the story, I use my interviews to learn more about the events of the story itself. Especially why characters behave as they do.

So I asked Jazz for details about her final confrontation with the villain. I hadn’t been able to nail that down in my inside outline. I know better now how the climax and resolution will unfold.

I’ve interviewed five of my human characters so far and next I want to tackle several of my animal characters. All of the character detail I’m discovering is creating a really solid foundation for this story. Soon I’ll be ready to draft scenes that let these characters really shine.