If my character has a secondary role, what is it?
She is also a shape-shifter to a certain extent. At the beginning of the story we see her as a wronged and likeable young woman, but as the story progresses we see her ‘true colours’.

What personality traits lead my character to take that role?
She is naturally a friendly person, making her likeable and easy to relate to.
She is in general a caring person, and will sacrifice in order to help people.
She is dependable, and people trust her.
She is family orientated, and will do anything to protect her family.
She is hot-headed, often regretting her actions.
She is power-hungry (due to childhood incidents) and her goal is to gain power.

What skills does my character have that might help to fulfill that role?
She is talented at healing, and has been dabbling in herbs and their medicinal properties for years.

What are my character’s goals and how do they relate to their role?
She is driven by her goal to gain power for herself, and for her family. This relates to her role as the shape-shifting hero, as this desire and goal gradually reveals itself over the course of the story.

How are my character’s goals changed by their role?
Her role is influenced by her goals, not the other way around.

What flaws does my character have that influence their role?
She is materialistic, and will prioritize this over her other desires and even needs. She is quite hot-headed, and will often say things she doesn’t really mean, or do something she’ll regret later.

What experiences lead my character to take that role?
She was ignored as a child, in the wake of her more interesting siblings, and this fueled her desire to amount to something important. Also, her rape at the hands of one of her fathers old friends seriously affected her, and lead to her deep seated desire for power, as she clearly had none in this situation.

I’m a 16 year old student in Australia, and this is part of my major work for english extension 2 in my final year of school. Any suggestions or critique are greatly appreciated!!

Classic Anti-Heroes include

The Man with No Name: started with Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, later adapted by Sergio Leone in the Spaghetti Western Fistful of Dollars played by Clint Eastwood, this character popularized the anti-hero by setting him as the hero of a western, a genre that until that time was defined by its moralistic heroes and there morally depraved villainous counterparts. (hence good guys wear white hats bad guys wear black hats)

Han Solo: From star wars, selfish materialistic loner modeled in part after The Man with No Name.

Wolverine of X-Men: The quintessential Anti-Hero, and Probably one of if not he most popular.

In my opinion there is a big difference between anti-hero and tragic hero of simply a villainous protagonist. Macbeth, although the protagonist, is not portrayed sympathetically, we are not meant to route for him but rather to marvel at his downfall.

Sorry i know it was a little much, forgive me, just wanted to clear that up.

Rebecca Talleys last blog post..Writing for Children

What is my Kunal’s primary role?
As the Virtual Assistant to Henry Jarvis, he serves as a mentor. He provides essential information, sometimes serves as a counselor, and provides gifts.

What personality traits led Kunal to take that role?
Kunal is an efficient and organized person. He takes his work seriously but also has a rich family life that keeps him grounded. He is used to fulfilling requests, no matter how odd.

What skills does Kunal have that might help to fulfill that role?
Kunal is a virtual assistant. In that role he is part administrator, accountant, concierge, investigator and marketer. He serves as a representative of a fairly large organization that is aimed at meeting the business and personal needs of their clients. He is an excellent researcher with a staff of people to back him up on requests he cannot handle personally. If he cannot handle a problem himself, he arranges for someone else to carry out the task.

What are my character’s goals and how do they relate to their role?
Kunal’s main goal in life is to provide for his family, which includes his wife, his mother, his sister and his adolescent son. He also has a brother who is a computer programmer and another who works at a call center. Kunal takes customer satisfaction very seriously, as does his employer, and measures his own success by the success of his clients.

What experiences lead my character to take that role?
Kunal has worked for the Intelligasia, an international outsourced services company, for five years and has worked with Henry Jarvis for nearly three years. Before that, he worked for a call center for three years. He is very used to working with Americans and has an expansive though skewed knowledge of American pop-culture. He is, in fact, more knowledgeable of American pop culture than Henry Jarvis is.

How are my Kunal ’s goals changed by his role?
Because he finds himself playing more and more of a mentor role to Henry, he begins to feel more confident of his own abilities. He also begins to view Henry as more of a friend than a client.

What flaws does Kunal have that influences his role?
Because of the distance and the communication gaps between Kunal and Henry Jarvis, Kunal sometimes misinterprets tasks or delivers results in ways that surprise Henry. This confusion can be a problem, but sometimes results in unexpected benefits.

Obviously, the approach you listed above is just one of many, as you said, John. But I’m not sure I like this one. It is too linear as a way to begin. For me, writing a character is a process in the same way that getting to know someone is. They slowly evolve to have their coherence and their depth. Along the way, I learn things about them that I did not know when I started telling their story.

Having said that, I can see the benefits of answering these questions, but further along in the process, as a way to make the novel’s structure work. I wonder: If this method is used as a starting point, is it more suited to genre fiction, which is more often plot driven than character driven? Or is it simply a reflection of the way any given writer’s mind works?

I would love to read any book you write!!!