Getting to Know Your Characters by Jeannie Campbell, Part Four

This month, character therapist, Jeannie Campbell, has shared a great series with  us on characterization. She's back with the conclusion today. Enjoy!

Getting to Know your Characters, Part Four

by Jeannie Campbell

This week we’re finishing up my series of four questions your characters need to answer and why. We’ve covered:

1. What is your biggest fear?
2. What is your biggest accomplishment? 
3. What is your biggest regret?

So far, these have been questions that I’ve selected from my intake form on my website where I give free psychological mini-assessments to fictional characters. But today’s question is one that I reserve for really digging deeper in a full assessment (valued at $14.99).

Question 4: What concept or principle would you be willing to die for?

The basis of this question stems from Dr. Stanley Williams book, The Moral Premise. Characters usually aren’t motivated to action by trivial thoughts and feelings. They, like real human beings, have core values that ultimately influence what they do, say, and think.

Whatever your character identifies as being worthy and important enough to die for is a good indication of what they value. Dr. Williams writes, “Psychologically, a set of values is the fertilizer for ideas, ideologies, and thought that course through our mind and soul and give us motivation to take action” (p. 9).

Dr. Williams then goes on to say that stories have to grow from a conflict of values, or the result will be “nothing more than…unmotivated juxtapositions.”

So while the answer to this question says a lot about the character, which I use for characterization purposes, it also says a lot about the structure of the book. How? I compare the answer to this question with the answer to two additional questions that are on my free intake form:

1)      What is your external goal in the book? Why do you want that goal and who/what stands in the way?

2)      What is your internal goal in the book? Why do you want that goal and who/what stands in the way?

These are sound questions for your characters to answer anyway, but when paired with the value question asked above, the three together give me a great sense of whether the storyworld you have developed is the best environment to showcase the particular character you’ve dropped on my couch.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this series of learning how to get to know your heroes and heroines better. Stop by my website, http://charactertherapist.com, and let me know if I can ever put one of your fictional characters on my couch…for real. 

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Jeannie Campbell is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFC # 45366) in the state of California. She is Head of Clinical Services for a large non-profit in Humboldt County, and enjoys working mainly with children and parents. Two of her “therapeutic romance” manuscripts have garnered the high praise of being finalists in the Genesis Contest for unpublished writers, sponsored by the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), of which she is an active member. She writes a popular monthly column for Christian Fiction Online Magazine and has been featured in many other e-zines, newspapers, and blogs.

Getting to Know Your Characters by Jeannie Campbell, Part Three

Thanks for joining me at Seriously Write. If you missed the previous two posts in this series, you can click here for Question one and here for Question two. I’ll jump right in to the next question. Let's dive into question three. 

Getting to Know Your Characters, Part Three

by Jeannie Campbell

Question Three: What is your biggest regret?

The answer to this question truly reveals a goldmine of information about someone, on at least two layers that I’ll explore further here.

If a character’s regret centers around themselves, how they were unable to get a big promotion or marry the right person, that’s revealing in and of itself. If it centers on how someone else was mistreated or abused or harmed in some way, that gives information. Even more so, if the character’s regret centers on something they said or did in the past that harmed someone else.

As your character answers this question (I suggest you write out the answers in your character’s voice, just as I have authors do on my intake form), look for the underlying emotion(s) he or she feels. Once you determine what truly motivates their regret, you’ll understand an additional layer about your character.

If a person feels shame or guilt about something they did in their past or something they are currently doing, this gives a glimpse into their internal values and moral code. To feel either means that person knows they were in the wrong, either through action or inaction.

But if a person is embarrassed or annoyance about what happened, that’s a feeling about a feeling, called meta emotion. It glosses over the actual event or the actual hurt or rejection, which is revealing. This type of character could be narcissist or too concerned about self-image to care about others.

Either way, a regret can be a huge motivation. On my intake form, I look at this question in relation to the character’s internal or external motivation in the book. I like to see how much of their psychological distress causes them to act.

Join me next week as we conclude this series on getting to know your main character!

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Jeannie Campbell is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFC # 45366) in the state of California. She is Head of Clinical Services for a large non-profit in Humboldt County, and enjoys working mainly with children and parents. Two of her “therapeutic romance” manuscripts have garnered the high praise of being finalists in the Genesis Contest for unpublished writers, sponsored by the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), of which she is an active member. She writes a popular monthly column for Christian Fiction Online Magazine and has been featured in many other e-zines, newspapers, and blogs.

Getting to Know Your Characters by Jeannie Campbell, Part One

Hey writers, Annette here. Today Jeannie Campbell begins a new series: Getting to Know Your Characters: Four Questions Your Character Must Answer and Why. She's the "character therapist." Let's pull up a couch and learn something, shall we?

Getting to Know Your Characters: Part One

by Jeannie Campbell

I've found that there are several questions that every character needs to answer in order for his or her author to get to know them better. For this reason, I’ve included these questions and more in my character intake form.

For this series, I want to take a look at each of these questions and discuss why they are so important. Be sure to come back each Monday in August to get all of the info!

Question 1: What is your greatest fear?

While this is not the first question on my form (I ask for basic info like name and age first), it’s perhaps one of the most important. Our fears, which usually center around a limitation or a failure, perhaps a disappointment or frustration, hold the key to our biggest vulnerability.

The same is true for characters.

Fear is fundamental—present in every living thing. Every reader can relate to it in a book simply because of its existence in a character’s life. A reader might not be able to relate to the specific fear your character has, but you draw them in simply because the character fears.

We all have fears, and how we go about relating or not relating to that fear says a lot about us and our fictional counterparts.

Some characters stare fear in the face, like Bella Swan. Yes, they're scared, but perhaps excited and energized at the same time Some go to great lengths to minimize opportunities for a fear to manifest, like Edward Cullen running away from Bella at various times in the Twilight saga.

An author has to have an understanding of what drives their character's fears too. If I give my character a fear of, say, bees, then I need to have in mind a plausible reason why she fears them, like her finding her father dead in the garden from anaphylactic shock due to bee sting.

So give this some thought for your MC. Fears can absolutely define a person, so what does your character's fears say about him or her?


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Jeannie Campbell is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFC # 45366) in the state of California. She is Head of Clinical Services for a large non-profit in Humboldt County, and enjoys working mainly with children and parents. Two of her “therapeutic romance” manuscripts have garnered the high praise of being finalists in the Genesis Contest for unpublished writers, sponsored by the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), of which she is an active member. She writes a popular monthly column for Christian Fiction Online Magazine and has been featured in many other e-zines, newspapers, and blogs.