One Key to Character Development: Get Curious

In my current Prep: From Concept to Outline workshop, the online message board discussion was about subplots. In the workshop, we explore my principle on that subject: Subplot = Relationship. By identifying key characters and their relationships, we zero in on them as subplots, each with their own specific Beginning-Middle-Ending arc and impact on the story’s central plot.

One of the workshop’s writers in commenting on another writer’s story provided several great questions about some of that story’s characters in terms of who they are, why they are, how they are, and so forth. Here is my response:

Thanks, Christine, for your post as it not only raises some good questions for Will to ask about several subplot relationships, it also points out the importance of curiosity for the process of character development. Note how you list a number of questions. That is curiosity put into action. Questions provide windows into the lives of characters, revealing inner states of mind and emotion, as well as personal history and backstory.

So when you have an impression about some aspect of a character — let’s say, you get a sense they are an introvert — ask: Why is she an introvert? How does being an introvert impact her social life? Does she like being an introvert? Does she wish she could change? Is her introversion innate to her as part of her nature or is it a characteristic forced upon her by life circumstances? If the latter, what are those life circumstances? Does her introversion impact the way she speaks? Does her introversion impact the way she has feelings or even allows herself to have feelings?

All that and more based on a single impression. Obviously, the questions here lead to other impressions of the character which lead to other questions. Pretty soon, you have a fleshed-out sense of the character, one that will almost assuredly influence the emergence of the story’s plot via her relationship with other characters.

That’s what curiosity can do for you in terms of developing characters.

Here’s a great quote from Tarantino: “I need to know where these people [his story’s characters] come from. It’s a universe I’m creating, and I have to know my universe backward, forward, and sideways. The audience doesn’t need to know, but they need to know I know.”

The bridge to that level of understanding is questions you ask about and of your characters.

So one key to character development: Get curious.

Questions can be amazing tools in both character development and crafting a story. And curiosity is the engine that empowers the question-answer process.