EXERCISE: Character Questions! (4 of 5)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting March 16 2010

Writer's Digest, May 2006, page 41 has a sidebar suggesting that we think about some of these questions concerning the ancestors and descendents who influenced the life and motivations of your characters. Feel free to expand on these with your own ideas.

Extended Family

• who was your characters' most eccentric relative?
• which aunt or uncle is the one every cousin avoids? (tink wonders -- why?)
• what heirlooms have been passed down?
• who's the most famous family member?
• who's the black sheep?

Beyond the nuclear family, there's all those fringes. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, who knows how they're related people? And the stories about them, who stands out, who should be standing outside, who got great grandma's sugar bowl? All that stuff...