The only thing that matters in fiction is why. Why does what is happening matter to the protagonist and other characters? Why should we care? It’s not enough for things to happen to your characters. You have to know what it means to each of them and how it affects their lives. This means you need to know what makes your characters tick. Why they make the choices they do. Why they react the way they do. Why they don’t just walk away.
Asking questions is a great way to discover the stakes of your writing. But talking about “stakes” often removes the emotion from the endeavor. It’s too analytical. Too sterile, which is the opposite of what a good story demands.
Dive into the emotion. Dig into the sticky mess that is human life if you want to craft compelling scenes.
Interrogate your characters relentlessly. Here are some questions to ask:
Why Bother?
Why are you sticking around? Why not just leave this situation and go about your life? What is making your protagonist break out of their comfort zone to move forward on what is likely to be a difficult path? What makes your protagonist choose the difficult choice? What makes her leave her status quo to begin the journey?
Every story starts with this choice. It’s the definition of an inciting incident—something that demands change, that forces the character into a difficult choice that requires leaving their previous way of life behind. It can be small (moving to a new city), medium (the end of a relationship), or huge (save humanity by embarking on a life-threatening journey). Each incident forces change. Each demands a new way of living from that point forward. But why does the character go along with it? Why not stay in the bad relationship? Stay in the small town instead of moving to the big city? Refuse the dangerous task? If you can discover the answer to that question and include it in your writing, you will have an inciting incident worth reading.
Reactions
How are you going to react? Why are you making that choice? Taking that action? Each scene demands a reaction to what is happening. It’s best if the action taken by the character comes from within the character herself. It shouldn’t be just a reaction to what is happening to her. The response needs to be in line with her personality, purpose, and chosen path. It needs to support her ultimate goal in the story, also known as the throughline of the story. Her goal should be the reason she didn’t walk away. It’s her deepest desire that made her break out of her comfort zone in the beginning. Her reactions should, in her mind, get her closer to her goal. That may not be the case in the end, but it should make sense to her and appear as the best choice at the time.
Goals
How will this get you closer to your goal? How does it play into your plan to get what you want without having to sacrifice anything or face any fear? This is, of course, not possible for a good story, but your characters will want to win without giving up anything. It’s human nature. We all want to get something without pain. But how does the action your character chooses play into that philosophy? How does it get her closer to her deepest desire without facing her biggest fear? Or flaw?
Obstacles, Fears, Beliefs
What is standing in your way? What obstacles or fears or beliefs are standing in your way? Why can’t you just go ahead and do whatever you need to do? What is the sacrifice? The hardship? The tough choice? There is always a tough choice—a point between desire and fear/loss/sacrifice. What is the crux of that terrible choice? This is your character’s internal conflict—the push/pull between what she wants and what she doesn’t want to face. It may be a truth she doesn’t think she can handle or an actual choice between two difficult options.
What You Know
What don’t you know? What do you need to find out? Readers love curiosity. They have a deep need to know what is going to happen next. It’s what makes them turn pages and binge watch show after show. Unresolved issues drive curiosity. Unanswered questions. We want to know what path the character will take and where it will lead them. Why? Because we identify with characters. They are a proxy for ourselves. We experience what they do and learn lessons along with them. We are invested in characters and their choices. It’s what drives us toward stories in the first place.
The second part of Character Interrogations is coming next week.