- What do you fear most? -- A story moves forward building tension. What does your character fear most? Find out, and then drop it on them! Think about what might cause your character to face this fear. Think Indiana Jones and the snakes!
- What is your goal? What do you want most? --Again, this is a recipe for tension. What does he want? Take it away! Place obstacles there.
- What did you do the week before the story begins? --I like this, because it helps put your first chapter in the middle of action, rather than at the beginning of it all. Give yourself a feel for what's already in motion, what's going on just before the first page begins. That way you've already got some tension right from the getgo. (Are you noticing a theme here? Tension! Tension!! TENSION!!!)
- What are your likes and dislikes? --That's a pretty general question, but again... think in terms of tension. Maybe the heroine is a neat-freak. So everywhere she goes, she notices things out of place. You can use this to cue the reader in to when she's really internally upset by her noticing everything out of place and it bothering her to an unreasonable degree.
- What's your theme song? --Okay, this is a favorite of mine. The music someone likes speaks volumes about who they are. Is it old? New? Upbeat? Melancholy? A love song? A break-up song? Something classic?
These are not the only five, but these are a great place to start. You can find other questionnaires and surveys all over the internet. Confession: sometimes I'll pull a survey off the MySpace bulletin board and fill it out for the characters in my current story. It's a great way to see how much you know... or to waste an hour, depending on your point-of-view! (Procrastination is evil!!)
Add a "Why?" to any and all of these questions and you've got a whole deeper layer.
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