Character development questions are questions you answer for, or as, a character to find out what they want, what they fear, what shaped them and how they'll act under pressure. The 140 below are in eight groups, from everyday basics to the plot itself. Start with the five just below, or pick the group where your character is thinnest, answer five questions in the character's own voice, and keep only the answers a scene can use.
The character profile template has ten questions that feed its fields. These go further, group by group. First, five sample answers and the scene they suggest, so you can see what a useful answer looks like before you start.
| Group | What it finds | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| GroupThe basics | What it findsDaily life, money, body, home | Questions1–14 |
| GroupThe past | What it findsFamily, childhood, the wound | Questions15–31 |
| GroupRelationships | What it findsWho they love, owe, fear and lie to | Questions32–51 |
| GroupBeliefs and values | What it findsRules, morals, the belief that's wrong | Questions52–69 |
| GroupWants and goals | What it findsThe want, the need and the price | Questions70–87 |
| GroupFears and secrets | What it findsWhat they hide and what they dread | Questions88–105 |
| GroupVoice and habits | What it findsHow they talk, argue and react | Questions106–122 |
| GroupThe story itself | What it findsTheir place in your plot | Questions123–140 |
Start with five questions
If you've only half met your character, start with these five. They come from different groups, and each asks for a habit, a lie or a person, which are things a scene can use:
- 8. Walk through an ordinary Tuesday, from the alarm to lights out.
- 37. Who do you lie to most often, and about what?
- 93. What's the secret you've kept longest, and who would it hurt?
- 120. What do you say when someone asks how you are and you're not fine?
- 130. Who in the story knows something about you that you don't?
Here they are answered by an original character: Enzo Bassi, 61, a wedding photographer in Providence, Rhode Island, who has shot more than a thousand weddings and never married.
8. An ordinary Tuesday? Tuesday is editing day. I go through the happiest day of other people's lives with the radio on. By four I've seen the same first kiss from four angles.
37. Who do you lie to most? Couples. Every one of them asks about rain, and every one of them hears me say it makes better pictures. Sometimes it does.
93. The secret you've kept longest? Pass.
120. When you're not fine? “Busy season.” It's always busy season.
130. Who knows something about you that you don't? My sister. She says I never married because of Dad. She might be right, which is why I don't visit.
The dodge on question 93 and the sister on question 130 point at the same thing. Put them in one room and there's a scene:
At the rehearsal dinner the bride's grandmother, married fifty-two years, asked Enzo why a man who loved weddings had never had one. He checked the forecast on his phone. “Rain tomorrow,” he said. “Better pictures.” Across the room his sister, working as his assistant for the first time in ten years, put down her fork.
The conflict comes from answer 130. His sister thinks she knows why he never married, and he stays away because she might be right. The other answers supply the tools: the rain line from question 37 becomes his deflection, the “Pass” on question 93 becomes the question someone finally asks, and the sister is in the room to see it. That's the test for any answer: can it be staged?
With twenty minutes more, add questions 30, 70, 84, 90, 107, 126, 129 and 132. Between them they cover the family story, the want, the need, the fear, the voice, the reason to stay in the plot, the belief the plot will test and the change at the end.
Questions about the basics
These anchor the person in a body, a home and a budget. Each one asks for something a scene could show: a key, a scar, an appointment put off.
- What's your full name, who chose it, and what do people actually call you?
- How old are you, and how old do you feel on a bad morning?
- Where do you live, and how long have you meant to leave?
- Who else has a key to your home?
- What do you do for money, and what would you do for free?
- Roughly how much is in your bank account right now, and how often do you check?
- What do you eat when you're alone?
- Walk through an ordinary Tuesday, from the alarm to lights out.
- What's the first thing people notice about your face, and what do you wish they noticed instead?
- Where is your scar, and what story do you tell about it?
- What can your body do well, and what has it stopped doing?
- What's the most expensive thing you own, and what's the most precious?
- Which room in your home do you avoid?
- Which appointment are you putting off?
Questions about the past
Backstory questions find the wound. Answer them for yourself: very little of this belongs in chapter one, where it would arrive as an info dump.
- Who raised you, and who actually raised you?
- What did your family never talk about?
- What were you caught doing as a child, and what did you get away with?
- What did you overhear through a wall as a child that you weren't meant to hear?
- Who was your first friend, and how did the friendship end?
- What were you punished for that you didn't do?
- Which childhood ambition did someone laugh at?
- What was the first thing you were good at, and who noticed?
- What's the earliest humiliation you still remember in detail?
- When did you first realize your family wasn't like other families?
- Was there enough money in your house growing up, and how could you tell?
- Which adult outside your family did you most want to impress?
- Who was the first person you lost, and how old were you?
- What's the worst thing you did as a teenager, and who knows about it?
- Which year of your life would you erase if you could?
- What's the story your family tells about you at holidays, and is it true?
- Which decision from ten years ago are you still paying for?
Questions about relationships
A character is partly who they are with other people. These find the allies, the rivals and the people who can hurt them.
- Who do you call first with good news, and who do you call second?
- Which relative are you most like, and does that please you?
- Who do you owe money, and who owes you?
- Who haven't you spoken to in years, and whose fault is it?
- What role do you play among your friends: the planner, the joker, the driver, the one who listens?
- Who do you lie to most often, and about what?
- Who was your first love, and what did the ending teach you?
- What are you like in a relationship after the first three months?
- What would your last partner say was the problem?
- Who do you envy, and do they know?
- Who would you protect even if they were in the wrong?
- Which friendship have you outgrown but not ended?
- Whose approval do you still want?
- How do you behave around people who have power over you?
- How do you behave around people who need something from you?
- Who depends on you: children, parents, employees, a dog?
- Who has a hold over you, and what is it?
- Which people would come to your funeral out of duty?
- Who can you not stop arguing with, and what is the argument really about?
- Who in your life would be surprised to learn what you think of them?
Questions about beliefs and values
What a character believes decides what they do when the plot pushes. Look hardest for the belief that's wrong, because that's the one the story will test.
- What do you believe about God, luck or fate, and when did you last test it?
- Which of your own rules have you already broken, and how did you justify it?
- What do you think people deserve, and did you get it?
- Is it ever right to lie? Give an example from your own life.
- What makes someone a good person, and are you one?
- What would you take if you knew you'd never be caught?
- Which injustice makes you angriest, and what have you done about it?
- What do you believe about money that your parents believed too?
- What do you think happens after death, and does it change how you live?
- What did you believe at twenty that embarrasses you now?
- Which subject do you avoid at family dinners, and why?
- What do you think is wrong with people younger than you?
- What do you tell yourself on the nights you can't sleep?
- Who do you think has it easier than you, and are you right?
- What would you sacrifice for your family that you wouldn't sacrifice for yourself?
- What do you look down on, and what does that protect you from?
- Which belief would you defend in a fight, and which would you drop for a quiet life?
- What does loyalty mean to you, and who has failed the test?
Questions about wants and goals
The want drives the plot, the need drives the arc, and the price connects them. The guide to character development explains how the two pull against each other.
- What do you want by the end of this year, in one sentence?
- What have you wanted for so long that you've stopped mentioning it?
- What would you give up to get it?
- Who stands in the way, and are they wrong to?
- Which want are you ashamed of?
- What did you get that you wanted, and how did it disappoint you?
- What do you want from the person you love that you've never asked for?
- If you got everything you're working for, what would next Monday morning look like?
- What do you want people to think when they hear your name?
- What would you do with a year's salary and no obligations?
- What are you waiting for someone else to do first?
- What do you want for someone else more than they want it?
- What's the deadline, and what happens if you miss it?
- What will you do the day after you get it?
- What would your oldest friend say you need, as opposed to what you want?
- How far will you go: what's the first line you'd cross, and what's the last?
- What did you want at fifteen that you still secretly want?
- Which goal did you give up on, and does it still visit?
Questions about fears and secrets
Fears and secrets give a character something to protect, which is where tension comes from. For the weaknesses that grow out of fear, such as freezing when it counts or rehearsing the worst, see the personality weaknesses list.
- What are you afraid of that would sound silly said aloud?
- What's the worst thing that could happen to you this year?
- What are you afraid people will find out?
- What do you avoid doing because you might be bad at it?
- What would you do to stop the worst from happening?
- What's the secret you've kept longest, and who would it hurt?
- What do you do when you're frightened: freeze, run, joke, attack or take charge?
- Which memory do you steer conversations away from?
- Which place will you never go back to?
- What are you afraid you've inherited from a parent?
- What would you do if your secret came out tomorrow?
- What were you afraid of as a child that still frightens you?
- What would make you leave everyone and everything?
- Who are you most afraid of disappointing?
- Which fear are you ashamed of?
- What have you never told a doctor, a priest or a partner?
- Which would be worse: being hated or being forgotten?
- What do you check twice before you go to sleep?
Questions about voice and habits
Answer these in dialogue, not description. If two characters give the same answers, one of them isn't finished.
- How do you answer the phone?
- What do you say when you're caught out?
- Which words do you overuse, and which would you never use?
- When do you swear, and do you swear in front of your mother?
- What do you call your parents, now that you're grown?
- How do you talk to waiters, children and dogs?
- How do you end an argument: walk out, go quiet, make a joke or apologize first?
- What does your face do when you're bored and can't show it?
- What's your tell when you're about to cry?
- How do you text: full sentences, no punctuation, voice notes?
- Which phrase did you pick up from a parent and hate hearing yourself say?
- How do you tell a story: in order, from the punchline, or with every detail?
- Which habit have you tried to break three times?
- How do you walk into a room full of strangers?
- What do you say when someone asks how you are and you're not fine?
- What makes you laugh out loud, and what do you only pretend to find funny?
- What would it take to make you say the thing you've never said out loud?
Charlotte Brontë answers question 122 early in Jane Eyre (1847), when the young Jane finally speaks back to her aunt, Mrs. Reed:
“I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up…”
Afterward, Jane says, “my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph.” One outburst sets the terms for the whole novel: plain speech, a hard sense of justice, and the price of both.
Questions about the story itself
These tie the character to your plot. If you answer only one group, answer this one; the guide to character arcs shows how the answers line up with the structure.
- Where are you, and what are you doing, on the first page?
- What's wrong with your life at the start that you've stopped noticing?
- What does the inciting incident take from you, or offer you?
- Why don't you just walk away from this story?
- What's the first choice you make that you can't take back?
- What's your worst moment in the book, and who sees it?
- What do you believe at the start that the plot will test?
- Who in the story knows something about you that you don't?
- Which scene from your own story would you cut if you could?
- What do you do at the climax that you couldn't have done on page one?
- Which relationship does the ending repair, and which does it break?
- What do you want in the scene you're in right now, however small?
- Which other character would you swap places with?
- What do you get wrong at the midpoint?
- What will you remember about these events in ten years?
- If your enemy told this story, how would you come across?
- What would happen if you said no at the turning point?
- Where are you on the last page, and who is with you?
How to use character questions
- Pick the thinnest group
If you know her job but not her family, start with the past. If you know her history but can't hear her, start with voice.
- Answer in the character's voice
Write in first person, in full sentences, as if the character were being interviewed. “My mother” tells you more than “her mother”, and the way they answer shows their voice before a scene needs it.
- Ask why, twice
The first answer is the one they'd give at a party. Ask why, then ask why again. The third answer is usually the one with the wound in it.
- Mark the dodges
When a character changes the subject, jokes or refuses, write that down. A question your character won't answer is a scene waiting for someone to ask it.
- Turn one answer into a scene
Pick the answer with the most pressure in it and put it in front of another character, as Enzo's sister is in the scene near the top of this page.
- Keep only what a scene will use
Move the useful answers into the character profile and leave the rest in your notes. A hundred answers and no scenes is the trap the character development guide warns about.
When the answers are in, ask the Strokes Assistant beside the document which answers contradict each other and which questions you dodged. The dodges are worth a second look, for the reason in step 4.
Mistakes with character questionnaires
- Every question for every character. A walk-on needs a name and one detail. Save the full set for the protagonist, the antagonist and anyone with a viewpoint.
- Answering as the author. “She is insecure” is your diagnosis. “I always order second” is her answer, and it's the one you can use.
- Collecting trivia. A favorite color or a star sign earns its place only if a scene will use it.
- Treating answers as fixed. When chapter 9 contradicts question 16, decide which is true and change the other. The draft often knows better.
- Skipping the uncomfortable groups. Fears and secrets are the questions writers leave blank, and the ones that make tension.
- Answering instead of writing. Set a limit, such as an hour of questions, then write a scene with whatever you've found.
Frequently asked questions
What are good character development questions?
Good ones produce scenes. Instead of a favorite color, ask what the character lies about, who they owe money, what they would never say out loud or what the inciting incident takes from them. Questions about wants, fears, secrets and relationships matter most, because they create pressure the plot can use.
How many character questions should I answer?
As many as your draft needs. For a main character, twenty to forty well-chosen questions usually beat all 140; for a minor character, three or four. Stop when the answers start repeating or stop suggesting scenes, and come back after a draft to fill the gaps it reveals.
What questions should I ask my villain?
Ask what they want and why it seems reasonable to them, what they lost before the story began, who they love, what they won't do and what they believe about the hero. Questions 53, 66, 73 and 138 on this page work well for antagonists. A villain whose answers make sense to them is far more frightening than one who is simply evil.
