I thought about posting this after the thread about how much you should let your readers know about your MC. But just how well do we, the writer, know the characters we're writing about? How much SHOULD we know to portray a convincing antagonist or even protagonist? How much fleshing out should they have to come alive on the page?I picked up a book at my favorite used bookstore entitled "No More Rejections" by Alice Orr. One part of her book lists about 2 1/2 pages of questions to be answered about what she calls the big 3; the antagonist, the major supporting character, and the protagonist. The questions are broken down into the following catagories, and Ms. Orr says right up front to use just what you need and ignore to rest:
Basic Biographical Information
Additional Biographical Information
Physical Characteristics
General Character Traits
Outstanding Character Traits
Personal History
Emotional History
I've decided to try this with my next short story, though I'm sure Ms. Orr has novels in mind instead of short stories. She also stresses the need to be flexible and change anything if the story calls for it. In other words; don't straight-jacket your characters after doing this exercise. Your answers can be bent or changed if needed.
So just how much do you folks think we as writers should delve into our characters to make them realistic enough for our readers? I should add that I know this is what the "Character Interview" forum here on Hatrack is for, but this list of questions Ms. Orr suggests is quite thorough and does make you think.
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