Saturday Scribes

November is novelling month for all the NaNoWriMo writers out there, so for each Friday in November we’ll be posting special novel-related exercises along with the usual word and theme prompts.

Having trouble fleshing out your characters? Wanting to get to know them better, without taking time away from that frantic push towards 50k? Set up an interview with your characters. Sure, it’s a bit of a detour from the story, but it’s amazing how much more you’ll know about your characters once you’re finished. Best of all, you can write it right into the story! MC lost in space, or wandering through medieval Germany? Not a problem.  It’s NaNoWriMo, after all, where spontaneous purple elephants and other random gear shifts into ridiculous improbability abound – who says Oprah isn’t waiting around the next corner, just dying to interview our famous hero?

To help get you started, I’ve compiled a list of interview questions over the past couple of years, many of which were gleaned from a forum on that very topic over at the April Fools NaNo-spinoff site. Clicking on this link here will get you to a PDF version of the interview questions.

For those of you who are in poem or short-story mode, consider the most unlikely interview you can imagine having (think of how much success Anne Rice had running with that idea!).  For the traditionalists, the usual weekly prompts can be found below.

Theme: Complicated

Words:
curvaceous
latitude
beneath

As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.