24 character development questions for your story

A useful character question gives you something to write. “What is her favorite color?” may help with a costume choice. “What would she hide from the person she most needs?” can generate an entrance, an argument and a decision.

Use the questions below for a novel, short story, play or screenplay. Pick six, answer each in one or two sentences, and write a moment that tests one answer. You do not need to complete all 24 before drafting. The goal is to discover a person through action, then let the pages change your first assumptions.

Start with a choice, then build the profileLink to this section

Here is an original example. Nia, a bicycle courier, wants to buy back her father's repair shop. She tells herself she never needs anyone's help. When a customer accidentally pays her twice, returning the extra payment would cost her the shop's reservation deposit.

“Independent, loyal, ambitious” could describe thousands of people. This situation makes those traits compete. Nia can keep the money, return it, ask for more time, or admit to her brother that she cannot cover the deposit. Each option gives you a different scene.

You can keep your answers in the editable character profile, or download the character profile template. Both give the notes a home. These questions are a way to decide which notes deserve to become pages.

Questions 1–6: what does this person pursue?Link to this section

1. What do they want before the story interrupts them? Name something they could get, lose or fail to do. Nia wants enough for the reservation deposit by Friday.
2. Why does it matter this week? Give the desire a current pressure. The seller has another buyer, rather than an indefinite willingness to wait.
3. What do they think getting it will prove? Nia thinks owning the shop will prove she can preserve her father's work without depending on her family.
4. What smaller thing do they want in the next scene? A signature, a ride, an apology or five uninterrupted minutes can be played now.
5. What are they already doing to get it? Choose a strategy that puts them in contact with other people. “Worries about money” is a state; “asks for an advance” is an attempt.
6. What would count as failure to them, even if everyone else called it success? Nia could get the shop through her brother's investment and feel that she has lost the argument she was trying to win.

Scene test: Write a request. Give the other person a good reason to refuse. Stop when your character changes their approach, rather than when they repeat the request more loudly.

Questions 7–12: what makes their choice difficult?Link to this section

7. Who wants something incompatible with their immediate goal? The other buyer may need the same building for a community project. Opposition becomes richer when it has its own purpose.
8. What useful belief now gets in their way? Nia's self-reliance helped her earn a living. It also makes a reasonable request for help feel impossible.
9. What do they refuse to ask for? Name the person they would have to ask and the words they cannot bring themselves to say.
10. What promise would be hardest to keep? Put two responsibilities on a collision course. Nia promised to return the money and to pay the deposit by noon.
11. What line do they say they would never cross? Then identify a situation that makes crossing it tempting. Let the pages test whether the declared rule is true.
12. What would they lose by making the right choice? A choice without a cost may establish a virtue; a costly choice can reveal its limits.

Scene test: Write the moment before the decision. Show the tempting alternative clearly enough that the reader understands why it is tempting. An antagonist can be a person, institution or other source of resistance; you do not need a cruel villain for every story.

Questions 13–18: how do they behave with other people?Link to this section

13. Who gets the most polished version of them? Decide what they rehearse before meeting that person.
14. Who notices the performance? Give that observer a detail they recognize: a borrowed phrase, a folded receipt or a sudden change of subject.
15. What do they do when they need someone to stay? They might joke, bargain, offer food, start a fight or pretend they do not care.
16. How do they answer a question they do not want to answer? Write one exact reply. Compare it with what another character would say.
17. What practical favor do they accept easily, and which one feels like a debt? A cup of tea and a loan may create different responses even from the same person.
18. What changes when they have power over the other person? Test whether they become generous, impatient, evasive or newly careful. Do not let a label answer for them.

Scene test: Give two characters the same information and different reasons to withhold it. Write eight lines in which neither says the withheld fact. Use the dialogue exercises if both voices start sounding alike.

Questions 19–24: what can the reader actually see?Link to this section

19. What ordinary action exposes their priorities? Nia repairs a stranger's loose brake while leaving her brother's message unanswered. Both choices can appear on the page.
20. What object do they treat differently from everyone else? An old shop key can be rubbish to one person and evidence of a promise to another.
21. What do they do after getting away with something? Relief, repetition, confession and a new precaution each suggest a different next scene.
22. What would make them revise their first judgment of someone? Create an event that challenges their interpretation, rather than having another person explain that they were wrong.
23. What earlier choice will the ending ask them to make again? Change the cost or the person involved so repetition has meaning.
24. What can they do at the end that they could not do at the beginning? They may ask for help, refuse a reward, tell the truth or keep a difficult promise. A story can also end with a person refusing to change; make the consequence legible.

Scene test: Write the first and last versions of one decision. Compare the behavior, not a paragraph explaining the lesson. That contrast can help you find the character arc.

A 30-minute character interview for a writing groupLink to this section

Work in pairs or groups of three. Participants may invent a character in the room; nobody needs to share a personal experience or answer in their own voice.

1. Minutes 0–5: Choose a character, a deadline and a request. Write three facts the interviewer is allowed to know.
2. Minutes 5–12: The interviewer asks four questions from the list. The writer answers as the character. A third participant, if present, notes evasions and changes of tactic.
3. Minutes 12–17: Switch roles. Keep the questions that produced a surprising answer and drop ones that only added biography.
4. Minutes 17–25: Each writer drafts a scene of roughly half a page in which the character must act on one answer.
5. Minutes 25–30: Read a short passage. Listeners say what the character seemed to want and which action gave them that impression.

For a solo version, write a direct answer and an evasive answer to the same question. Then put the character with someone who recognizes the evasion. You have a scene partner and a source of pressure before you have a plot outline.

Turn the answers into a working scene briefLink to this section

Copy this brief into your notes and fill only what you need for the next scene:

• Person: Who is making the choice?
• Immediate want: What response or result are they pursuing now?
• Resistance: Who or what prevents the easy version?
• Temptation: What shortcut could work, and what would it cost?
• Visible choice: What do they actually do?
• Consequence: What becomes harder, easier or impossible afterward?

For Nia, the visible choice might be returning the payment while asking the customer to recommend her repair work. That action preserves one value, gives up an easy solution and opens another possible path. It does not settle the whole story. It gives the next scene a consequence to follow.

Keep discovery alive after the worksheetLink to this section

If a drafted scene contradicts the profile, investigate the contradiction before forcing the scene to agree with your notes. The profile is a working hypothesis. Behavior under pressure is evidence you can read.

For tabletop play, try the five-minute NPC workshop: fantasy names, immediate wants and reactions that leave the players' choices open. For a new scripted premise, try the contained short film ideas. To develop a screenplay from that premise, use the first-draft guide. Plot gives you a place to write the scenes and compare alternate choices without losing the draft you started from.

Further readingLink to this section

The BBC Writers resource library includes John Yorke's story questions, scriptwriting essentials and produced scripts to read. Use published work to test how a character's goal, resistance and decisions become visible.