interview your character!

From Lauren Grodstein, “The Interview” in Now Write! Editor Sherry Ellis, Penguin, 2006.

Journal exercise:

This assignment involves creating a character and getting to know that character as well as you can. Your job is to interview your character as though you were a journalist for, say, Esquire or The New Yorker, and your character were the subject of a big juicy profile piece. Here are some of the questions you might want to ask your character;

--What is your earliest childhood memory?

--What’s your idea of a dream vacation?

--If you could have any other job, what would it be?

--Whom do you consider a hero?

--Which do you prefer: rock, opera, or jazz—and why?

--Or do you only listen to talk radio? Or do you listen to nothing at all?

Ask your interviewee anything you want!

It’s not that you will use all of this information in your fictional piece, but interviewing your character gives that character depth enough “to convince your reader of the genuineness of your fictional world. A thin character is not strong enough to hold up the narrative dream your stories should create.”