Much has been made of the importance of getting to know your characters, with suggested tools such as questionnaires (what three things would your character bring to a deserted island?), histories (and then in kindergarten, she. . .), profiles (his deepest secret is that he only took up the guitar because he was appallingly bad at macramé) and interviews (“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to . . . wait . . . yes!  I do expect you to talk!  Now tell me about your first great love or the laser moves another half-inch.”).

It’s a balancing act, really, because these tools can yield a lot of useful data, but they can end up consuming far more time than they deserve.  All the background data in the world is no good if you never get around to telling the story.  For this reason, these techniques are often restricted to protagonists, antagonists, and perhaps the romantic interest.

Questionnaires and the like can help you understand your characters before you begin drafting, but don’t forget about them once drafting has begun, or even during revision.  If you find something that looks inconsistent, ask a character about it.  Just take a few minutes away from your manuscript and you may discover rationales and motivations you didn’t expect.

Here’s an example, drawn from my thesis novel.  While revising, I came upon a scene that describes why a ship captain has chosen to alter his official route without informing the proper authorities of the change.  This is a risky move.  If anything goes wrong in transit, any search teams will comb the wrong area.

In the scene, the captain explains his logic, and it makes sense – it’s also wrong.  The reason he gives is based on information he would not have had before the ship left port, and therefore could not be the real reason.

I stared at the page.  A lot happens in the novel because of that route change, but based on what I was reading – what I had written – it should not have happened.  So I asked the captain.  He disavowed the words on the page, and gave me a stronger, more coherent reason that tied better into his background and makes a lot more sense in context.  I actually had to laugh.  It was so simple that I should have seen it before, and of course it was what he would do.

Characters: the cause of and solution to all of a story’s problems.

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Submissions Update: Since I last posted, I have submitted to the Intro Journals Project.

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