I'm having a go at NaNoWriMo this year. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. In honour of this vast undertaking, here is a character questionnaire I made a while ago.
There are several such questionnaires around on the web but, frankly, knowing a character's favourite colour does not help me to get into their skin. Instead this one concentrates on exposing their inner selves, by digging out their complete back-story in detail.
For ease of comprehension I'll copy it here but, if you want to use it, here is a version in RTF format, and here is an example of its use for a rather unusual character. (Warning: there are a couple of four-letter words.) Answer as many questions as you can. Sometimes some of them don't apply, sometimes an answer to one is an answer to another, but generally try to answer them all. Answer in first person and stay in character.
Character Questionnaire
If you really want to get into character answer as many as possible of the following in as much depth as possible. Answer in the first person if at all possible.
The First Ten Years
- When and where were you born?
- Describe the community you were born into. What are its beliefs, composition, communications and technology?
- What is your astrological sign? Is it a good match to your character? Why?
- Who are your parents?
- What are their careers?
- Who are your grandparents and great-grandparents?
- What are your parents relationships to their parents?
- What are your parents relationships to their parents-in-law?
- How and when did your parents meet?
- How did their getting together affect their lives?
- Did they marry? Why?
- How old were they when you were born?
- How did your birth affect their lives?
- What is your earliest memory?
- What was your relationship with your mother over the first ten years of your life?
- What was your relationship with your father over the first ten years of your life?
- From the first ten years of your life which events that you remember were: the most exciting? the most dangerous? the most frightening? the most important?
- Who was your best friend?
- Describe a secret, from this period, which you have never told your parents.
Teens
- How did your relationship with your father change during your early teenage years?
- How did your relationship with your mother change during your early teenage years?
- Describe a secret, from this period, which you have never told your parents.
- How did your relationship with your father change over adolescence?
- How did your relationship with your mother change over adolescence?
- How old were you when you first fell in love?
- Who was the first person you fell in love with?
- Describe the relationship.
- How long did it last and how did it break up?
- What is your relationship with that person now?
- How did your life change over your teenage years?
- What was your relationship with your peer group during your teenage years, both same and opposite sex? How did it change during this period?
- What is the most important event from this period?
- Who were the three most important people in your life in this period? Why?
Adult
- What were your politics when you were twenty?
- What are your politics now?
- What is your current relationship with your father?
- What is your current relationship with your mother?
- What is the most important event of your entire life? Describe it.
- Would you rather be loved or feared?
- What would be sufficient cause to make you kill a person?
- What would be sufficient cause to make you kill someone you know?
- What would be sufficient cause to make you kill someone you love?
- How has your morality changed over your adult life?
- What is your religion? How has it changed over your life?
- Describe your first religious experience? How did it affect your life?
- Have you ever had a transcendental experience? Describe it/them. How did it affect your life?
- How do you relate to the Diety?
- What aspects of a different religion would cause you to condemn it?
- How many lovers have you had?
- In which period of your life were you most happy?
- In which period of your life were you most unhappy?
- If you could live your life again what, if anything, would you change? Why?
- What question did you expect to find in this questionnaire, but did not? Answer it.