Character Interviews as Ways to get to Know Your Characters

I read a manual on writing once that said doing character interviews were a great way to get to know your characters. Honestly, I feel strange doing them because I feel like I'm doing an interview with myself.

It sounds strange, but the characters feel like another facet of myself. They feel as if they're a completely different part of my personality. And I know that sounds strange, almost like I'm saying that I have dissociative personality disorder, but that's the best way I can describe it. I feel as if I know everything about them without having to ask them about it.

I know that Rosalind, the main character in my Elemental Royals Trilogy, hates blackberry tarts and that she has a scar on her left foot from falling off her first pony when she was five. I know she learned how to read tarot cards from her tutor, who thinks that every educated woman should know how to tell the portends of the future.

I know that Kable, the main character in my upcoming Off World Saga, is terrified of heights and hates confrontation. She has panic attacks and blackouts.

The truth is, I don't a character interview to tell me these things. I just know them. And I know them because these characters are a part of me and they tell me everything about their lives.

It doesn't matter that character interviews don't work for me. Sometimes they work for other writers. And that's absolutely okay. Every writer has their own process, their own zone, their own way of dealing with their characterizations.

Characters are part of my life. They are like extensions of myself, extensions of my family. I love them, nurture them because they tell me their stories and share their lives with me.