I've been giving my first novel a rest for the last six weeks, but i am now ready to start the final i hope rewrite. However one thing that has come up by more than one reviewer is the similarity of the voices of my three MC's all first person, present.

I need to really engage with these three characters to find their 'true' voices so i would like to interview them, as is recommended on here and other sites.

Does anyone have a list of questions or ideas on the sorts of questions i should ask them. so far i have thought of:

describe your first memory
describe your first day at school
who will you vote for in the next election
do you agree with the death penalty
are you religious/ spiritual

but i am sure there must be a WWer who has done this before and has a set of questions to share

Juliet

I'm actually just about to do this exercise to kick off my next novel. There are various versions floating about, but this is one I've used in the past:

When were you happiest?

What’s your greatest fear?

Which living person do you most admire?

What you most dislike about yourself?

What you most dislike about others?

What was your most embarrassing moment?

What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?

What’s your most treasured possession?

Where would you like to live?

What would your super power be?

What makes you depressed?

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

Who would play you in the film of your life?

What’s your most unappealing habit?

What is your favourite smell?

What is your favourite word?

What is your fancy dress costume of choice?

To whom would you most like to say sorry and why?

What is the worst thing anyone’s ever said to you?

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

What or who is the love of your life?
What does love feel like?

What is the worst job?

If you go back in time, where/when would you go?

When did you last cry, and why?

How do you relax?

What keeps you awake at night?

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?

What is your greatest achievement?

How would you like to be remembered?

Where would you most like to be right now?

Tell us a joke

Tell us a secret

If you're starting pretty much from scratch as I am, you'd need to add into the mix some more prosaic questions such as Place of Birth, Age, Marital Status, Sexual Orientation, Family Background etc.

I have to admit I have not had much luck with questions like these, but instead find it easier to pose a topic for discussion and envisage the characters arguing it from opposite sides of the fence. Artist v's Scientist is a good one. Grown-up Son v's Dad is another.

- NaomiM

thanks Lammi, they're great just the thing i am after (i knew WWer's wouldn't let me down). I've just started it, and i have to say i wasn't sure it would work, but it is fascinating how it makes you focus in on that one characters unique view of life, now i just have to get that across in their chapters.

I like the topic idea as well Naomi, i think mine will discuss global warming as it does come up a number of times in the novel.

it also made me realise that i knew one character much better than the other two, and i think her 'voice' was dominating.

Juliet

and i think her 'voice' was dominating.

- often it's our own, Juliet.

Do you mean, Juliet, then if you wrote down their speech without tags, it would be difficult to tell who was talking?

I had this problem and to remedy it thought really hard about the vocab i was using.

I noticed, eg that my 40 year old female lead and 30ish male lead both said similar things - eg

"I don't mind"

I thought about it and the male would probably really say

"yeh, whatever" or "cool"

Think about every single word/each phrase each character says

would they say 'bye' or 'goodbye', 'see ya' or 'ciao'

would they say 'how are you?' or 'you okay?' or 'What's up?'

you get the picture.

I went through my book about 5 times, solely reading the dialogue of a particular character each time, making sure that each line of theirs was in keeping with their voice.

Good luck

thanks Casey that's a really useful way to tackle it. And yes Naomi, the voice is mine but the thing is i can see that now, so back to work.

J

gulp - this is going to be hard...

That's really good advice, Casey. I'll give it a go

WHY?

Hope it helps,

Grinder

Good list, Kate. Hope you don't mind if I borrow it sometime.

And I agree about voices - I've got one character at the moment whose voice doesn't stick, and I keep having to go back and translate from my defaults into how he' actually say it.

Emma

WHY?

Yup, and WHAT IF.

And good luck with the new novel, Kate!

Emma

Thanks.

I've never done this. I tend to concentrate on 'feeling' my characters so I feel I'm inside them. I wonder if my way works too or whether I should be doing the question thing (or otherwise compiling lists of stuff about them).

Deb

I don't think you 'should' do anything, other than what works for you, Deb.