My daughter is nine years old. Like lots of nine year olds, she loves to poll everyone on their favorites.
And you’d better have an answer.
I haven’t thought very much about my favorite anything for probably the last thirty years.
Until now. :) After several conversations with my daughter that ended with her saying, “How could you not know what your favorite song/color/food/season/book/movie is?!” then I actually took a few minutes to think about it one night.
I was able to make some headway on some of my favorites. I’m partial to yellow, although brown is my favorite color to wear. I like spring. I still wasn’t too sure about a favorite song, book, or movie.
My daughter, though, wasn’t going to leave it at that. Why was spring my favorite season? Had it always been my favorite?
This actually, made me think a little deeper about it. Winter was my least favorite season, so spring always makes me feel relieved because winter is over. I always did love spring—especially when I was a kid because I have a spring birthday…and we had Daylight Saving Time, which meant more time to play outside in the evenings.
It started me thinking about my characters’ favorites.
I didn’t used to do major profiles of my characters before writing because I felt I knew my characters right off the bat. They were frequently amalgams of people I knew and were easy for me to write.
But now, I’ve written so many characters that I’m finding character surveys more helpful.
What are my characters’ favorite TV shows? Why? Or do they even watch TV? Are they readers, instead?
I don’t spend a ton of time doing character profiles, but I spend a lot more time than I used to. I rarely use the information that I come up with in my books, but it does help me to create a more rounded character that pops off the page.
One of the more helpful collections of character development worksheets can be found here: Adventures in Children’s Publishing (and, no worries…these worksheets are for adult characters, too). There are four parts to the worksheet and four posts on it.
Do you know your characters’ favorites?
Great post! It is important to know the tiny details of our characters. I will check out the link, because you can never know too much about the ‘people on the page’. After all, they are the story – we should know if they like T.V. or books, chocolate or strawberry… Looks like I’ve got some work to do. :)
What an interesting post! I know that my favourite season here in Australia is Autumn,, I just love all those russet and golden colours the trees wear. But you know I’ve never thought about doing this exercise for my characters, what a great idea – I shall give it a whirl!
Elizabeth – This is really an interesting way to think about character development. The more we know about our characters, the better we can share them with others. I know a few things about my protag’s favourites, but I can work at fleshing that out. This is just a great idea!
And I like to wear brown, too!
Excellent points raised here, Elizabeth. The more we can become familiar with all of the ins and outs of a character, it becomes easier to inhabit them and portray them in an authentic manner. Thanks for linking to Martina’s character sheets, too!
Marissa :)
I’m working on a new project with new characters, but I still prefer to figure out what I need to know about them when I need to know it. I’m trying to make a point of noting all these details, but haven’t done it on a character sheet–feels too “homeworky”.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
I seem to be stumbling onto many posts about knowing our characters favorites, their histories, their families, etc. I never really thought about it before, but I’m realizing that the more we know about our characters, the more real they will appear to our readers.
Thanks for the link!
Jen
I know the favorites of most of them, but some don’t dare to tell me >:)
Cold As Heaven
I might not know their top 20 favorite things but I do know some of them. I’m nto a big one to use character sheets…yet. :)
I know my character’s favorite hobbies.
TK Richardson–I think we should know them better than anyone…then we can choose what parts of them we want to show the world.
Helen–Good luck with it! I’ve been surprised by some of my characters’ answers.
Adventures in Children’s Publishing–The sheets are fantastic–very helpful. :)
Margot–Thanks! And I’m glad to get a fellow brown-wearer! :) It’s the forgotten neutral, isn’t it?
Cold As Heaven–Ha! Sounds like the kind of characters I’d like to get to know better!
Laura–I wasn’t either…it’s kind of been a recent conversion for me.
Alex–You know, that’s another thing I haven’t thought a lot about–what they do in their spare time, when they’re not involved in murder. :)
How funny that I was thinking of making posts on my blog that were along the lines of a “Meet the cast”. The more I have gotten into my current MS, it is sort of creepy how I could describe the main characters as if they truly existed. I suppose they do exist.Character development is so important and always something that either draws me in or pushes me away. If the character is too flat it is hard to care about what happens to them. But if a character draws me in, regardless of them being a good guy or the bad guy, I’m hooked. Great post!
This is a wonderful way to fill out our knowledge about our characters. You’ve got me thinking. I think I know my characters’ favourites….
Excellent post. Writers can never know too much about their characters. Create a list of likes and dislikes, then add to it as you write. Things often come up that you hadn’t even considered before you started writing.
I almost always know my characters’ favorite alcoholic beverages…. :D
It’s always an adventure learning about my characters. Every time I think I have them figured out, they uncover a new layer of themselves:)
So funny I’m reading this post just after I tweeted something about delving into your character’s personality more! I came across this quiz: What’s Your Color Personality? Consider answering the questions as if you were your characters! You might find out a little more about them. Here’s the shortened link: http://bit.ly/drZjLL
Hope you’re having a great week, Elizabeth!
Terry–You know, it IS a little like that, which might be why I didn’t do it for such a long while. But now I think I’m looking at it more as a tool…maybe even a shortcut to quickly getting acquainted with a character.
Rayvenne–It’s a weird feeling, isn’t it? They start to feel like real people after a while..people we know! You’re right–flatness in characters is a real reader turn-off.
Jen–It’s not usually something that ends up in the book, but it really does help to paint a portrait of the character, for sure.
Helen–I the idea of keeping the list as a resource for future books, too.
Simon–Funnily enough…my protagonists don’t seem to imbibe much. I think it’s all the sleuthing they’re doing. :) Keeps them off the sauce…
Laura–Thanks for the link! Some bloggy synchronicity!
I enjoy poking at my characters and seeing what makes the tick. I don’t always do formal character sketches before writing, but I often do it for fun at random times.
An additional consideration about favorites is what they communicate. As writers we may want to focus on some thing or other because of what it says in conjunction with the story – maybe pushing a detail more than others.
And as you daughter said – the why is important sometimes (but not others). In my WIP, I expect George’s favorite color would be blue, because he is at his heart pretty conventional and conservative (and at the time of the story he is missing blue skies). Karla’s favorite color, on the other hand is red, except when it’s purple, or bluegreen, never yellow except when it’s THAT color of yellow, maybe gray sometimes, but definitely not orange, except sometimes when it is….
You know… my cozy MC matches your favorites… though spring would be about GARDENING and FLOWERS… but I see her as a Yellow… Probably a Jane Austen fan…
I don’t actively think about the favorites just yet, but I DO get a feel (and Cam HAS said she likes the spring greenhouse best…) I suspect, like you, when I have a lot more characters behind me, I will need to makes more deliberate decisions to keep them all straight–though I’m not sure I could have said favorites before I got to know the character…
Wow, the things we learn from children! This is a brilliant insight! I’m going to try this method with my characters.
Hart–That makes a lot of sense and fits right in with her interests!
Yes, unfortunately, the need to always be writing new characters with new interests, traits, and personalities is making me try new things!
Heather–Hope it helps!
Elspeth–And of course *some* of our characters’ favorite activities involve murder. :)
Tamika–They like to keep us guessing!
The Daring Novelist–Good point. Because if we *focus* on one trait or interest, it probably means we’re doing it to really show something about the character to the reader.
And, who knew, the WHY is as important as the WHAT, as far as favorites go. I’d never really thought about there being a *reason* behind a favorite before..it just was!
9 year olds have the most interesting brains! Love her questions and the thinking behind them :)
Okay, I must have the mind of a nine year old then, because I’m always thinking of favorites!
I probably know my characters favorites better than my own! I need to work on that.
Diane–Maybe it goes hand in hand with spunk?
Jane–Funny how grown-ups never seem to ask each other these things!