INTERVIEW YOUR CHARACTERS
A Personal Essay
By Author/Playwright Linda S. Gunther
The plot for a potential story can sweep into my consciousness without me intentionally trying to manufacture one. For example, my latest protagonist, Laura Styversant, appeared in a vivid dream I had one night. I awoke, grabbed pen and paper, and started to outline the story based on my dream.
The protagonist I started to sculpt in my head, was a sassy, salty, routinely cynical 51-year-old San Francisco Bay area female private investigator (P.I.) who had everything go wrong in the last year, including a bad car accident which resulted in a broken arm, a fractured ankle, and two cracked ribs. After a slow four-month recovery period she gets back into the P.I. game with a ritzy senior corporate executive male client, Daniel Sarnoff. It’s a challenging case for Laura. Her mission is to locate the man’s ex-wife, who suddenly disappeared, and find out what she did with the stacks and stacks of money, a huge nest egg they hid together inside the master bedroom wall of their Long Island house.
Although Laura, my character, is physically back on her feet from injuries, there are complications in this new case, and her anxiety is off the charts. The client, Daniel Sarnoff, has gone missing. He doesn’t answer her calls. He’s not at home where he’s lived for twenty years. His mail is piling up. And he’s nowhere to be found. Laura thinks that he’s likely intentionally ghosting her. Or is it something else? He’s already paid her a hefty “up front” fee up but Laura despises unfinished business and so, she becomes obsessed with finding him.
Remember, this all came from a dream I had; one of my treasure chests for surfacing potential plot concepts when I want to start a new project.
In the midst of designing the skeleton of this new story, possibly a novel, I decide to attend a webinar focused on Crafting More Compelling Characters.
The webinar’s presenter opens with posing this question:
“Do you interview your characters?”
She goes on to say, “As a writer, you want to find out everything about your lead character; likes, dislikes, fantasies, fears, joys and more, more, more! The only way to do that is to ASK THE DIRECT QUESTIONS. Just pretend you’re interviewing them across the table. And, go deep.”
My mind swirls as I listen to this wisdom. When I exit the webinar, I immediately list specific interview questions to ask Laura Styversant, the protagonist that I’m creating. I come up with ten questions:
- Laura, what motivated you to become a private investigator?
- Do you wish you’d chosen a different line of work? As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
- You seem cynical about life and a bit sassy, maybe edgy. What happened in your life to shape you this way?
- Who is the one famous person you’d like to have dinner with? Anyone – alive or dead? Why does that person appeal to you?
- What creeps you out, scares you, makes you nervous?
- What would an ideal day for you look like? An ideal location for you anywhere in the world?
- What family member do you most admire? Connect with? What is it about them?
- What one thing or accomplishment would you like to leave as your legacy?
- What secrets do you carry from childhood? high school? Your twenties? Something you don’t want anybody to know.
- When did you have your first kiss? What was the experience like?
This list was easy to create because I was totally curious as to how Laura would respond.
These questions helped me get “inside” Laura’s head, and that is exactly where I wanted to be.
Visit Linda S. Gunther’s website to read 52 weeks of her WRITE-BYTES BLOG which features Tips for Writers of All Levels and Genres.
Website: www.lindasgunther.com
AUTHOR BIO:
Linda S. Gunther is the author of six published suspense novels: Ten Steps from the Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost in the Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, Dream Beach, and Death is a Great Disguiser. Her memoir titled A Bronx Girl (growing up in the Bronx in the 1970’s) was released in 2024. Her short stories and book reviews have been published in a variety of literary journals across the world. Linda’s short plays, Listen While You Work, Divided We Stand, and Waiting for Magic are being produced and performed in 2025 at theaters located in New York, Napa Valley, CA and in the Monterey Bay area in Northern California.