by Zena Dell Lowe @ZenaDellLowe
Recently, as I was puttering around on Twitter, I ran across several tweets from writers to the writing community, asking specific questions about their MC's. These questions ranged through a variety of topics: "What did your MC have for breakfast?" "Did your MC have a pet as a child?" "How old was your MC when he/she had their first kiss?"
If these types of questions help you, if this gets your creative juices flowing, then, by all means, keep asking these types of questions. There is no one right way to do this, after all. The acid test is, “Does it work?” So again, if this helps you, keep doing it. That said, unless these questions specifically play into the narrative in some way (i.e., unless your MC suddenly gets food poisoning because of what he/she had for breakfast), then it is my strong opinion that questions like these are a waste of time. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be asking questions, but you'll save yourself a lot of time and energy if you learn to ask the right ones. The right questions are those that matter—the ones that play into the narrative—things that are important for the story NOW. If you don't know which questions to ask, I've got you covered.
