14 More Questions to Ask to Write more Compelling Characters

Why You Need to Do This Exercise

This is continuation of the article "15 Questions to Ask to Write More Compelling Characters, which you can find here). 

Making strong characters is not about creating physically or magically powerful characters, unless you're writing a superhero or magician story. It's about character growth throughout the plot, compelling backstories, and a distinct personality, among other things.

Before we begin, there are two essential points to remember:

Everything about your character will connect to other facets of their personality. The values, opportunities, desires, and so on of your characters are influenced by even the most fundamental demographic information.
The values, opportunities, desires, and so on of your characters are influenced by even the most fundamental demographic information.
Character growth occurs throughout your novel; there is no need to reveal all of these aspects about your character in the first few chapters.

Even though this list is divided into categories for easy organization, creating a character is not a straightforward process. As you draw ties between your character's traits and decisions, objectives and traumas, and more, things will get a little tangled. But be sure to have fun with the process!

Personality and Beliefs

1. What is their Myers-Briggs type (MBTI)? (find a list of types by clicking here)
2. What are their weaknesses? These may include moral flaws, prejudices, etc.
   
3. What misconceptions/false beliefs do they hold about themselves and about others?
   
4. What are their idiosyncrasies? These may be amusing, charming, annoying, etc.
   
5. What is his or her worldview? Why do people see the world in this manner?
   
6. What frightens them? Consider regrets, losses, etc.
   
7. How do their inner beliefs contradict their outer actions?
   
8. How do their inner thoughts correspond with their external actions?
   

Goals and Motivation

Stories have broad plots, but what drives them are the decisions and desires of your characters. 

What your characters want and need will shape their identities and the actions they make throughout your narrative. Here are some questions to better define their goals and motivations. 

1. What does your character value?  Family? Money? Friendship? Safety? Loyalty? These values can be anything, both physical and emotional.
2. How do these values either (a) stay the same, (b) change, or (c) affect the decisions of the characters?
3. What does he or she want? What are they missing? (They don't always match!)
4. How might they get in the way of themselves as they try to reach their goals? 
5. How might their false beliefs, regrets, and other things affect what they do and how they act?

Conclusion: Putting it All Together

All of this leads to the internal and external pressures that make stories and characters interesting. Our inner thoughts and feelings affect what we do in the in the outside world, and things in the outside world can change what we believe about ourselves.

At their core, stories are really about what it means to be human and how to deal with problems like fear, grief, loss, and more. This is especially true of sci-fi and fantasy.

The first step to exploring this internal push and pull is to think about all of your character's parts—his or her story, personality, goals, desires, and dreams—and how they affect their decisions. This is how character development happens on the page, and this is how you'll make characters that readers will want to read about.