This is an extract from the transcript of an intervew given by the
well known British writer Philip Martin.
The discussion was about a writer friend who was stuck because the publishers felt that his characters lacked ‘depth’
So I said to him, What about interviewing your characters?” And he
said, “Huh?” I said, “Look, you get a piece of paper
, you sit down
and then you write questions as if you are interviewing your
character.
You ask them about what is their most happy childhood moment? What
is their worst childhood moment? What are their politics? What was
their first love affair? How do they think about the future of
nuclear disarmament?
You ask them anything.
You will keep at it and you’ve got to keep going until you
hit the wall really. Then leave it and come back and then ask them
a few more questions.
I guarantee you, you will really TALK about the man and the women
who are the main characters. I guarantee you, spend a whole
day on it if necessary because it is very important and I guarantee,
when you come back to it, you will find that those characters are
richer and you know them in a way that you didn’t know them before.
He said, “I’m flabbergasted.” He said, “That’s great.” He said,
“Oh, wow. I can’t believe it. I can’t wait to get to it.” We were
talking late at night. “I can’t wait till tomorrow when I can get
on with this and talk about it.”
I thought, “That is absolutely remarkable because this guy is
creating a best seller. It is a major American literary agency and
a simple thing like that could literally put the book on the best
seller list.”
For those who want to learn the wonderful art of writing.
Grab some really useful resources right now from Philip’s main website:
http:howtowritesuccessfully.com
Philip Martin
Writer
236 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
Continuing the Discussion