After you've created a strong storyline and staffed it with well-developed characters, you might wish to give the people in your text more depth and color. While there are many different methods you can apply to fill out the biographies of your characters, a great way to give them humanity and personality is to run each one through the Proust Questionnaire.
This personality quiz is made famous by Marcel Proust, a French novelist who lived during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Around this time, answering revealing questions about oneself was a popular parlor activity, as they revealed the impressions and aspirations of the one responding. Proust with his friend Antoinette Felix-Faure recorded his answers to a group of questions on a confession album entitled, "An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc."
By using this questionnaire to "interview" your own fictional characters, you can uncover details about your own characters that help them take shape within your story, and they will assume greater depth and breadth as personalities, and you can more easily "get into their heads."
The Proust Questionnaire comprises 35 questions as follows:
- What is your idea of perfect happiness?
- What is your greatest fear?
- What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
- What is the trait you most deplore in others?
- Which living person do you most admire?
- What is your greatest extravagance?
- What is your current state of mind?
- What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
- On what occasion do you lie?
- What do you most dislike about your appearance?
- Which living person do you most despise?
- What is the quality you most like in a man?
- What is the quality you most like in a woman?
- Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
- What or who is the greatest love of your life?
- When and where were you happiest?
- Which talent would you most like to have?
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
- What do you consider your greatest achievement?
- If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
- Where would you most like to live?
- What is your most treasured possession?
- What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
- What is your favorite occupation?
- What is your most marked characteristic?
- What do you most value in your friends?
- Who are your favorite writers?
- Who is your hero of fiction?
- Which historical figure do you most identify with?
- Who are your heroes in real life?
- What are your favorite names?
- What is it that you most dislike?
- What is your greatest regret?
- How would you like to die?
- What is your motto?
The nature of these questions is such that they reveal the likes and dislikes as well as dreams and admirations of your characters. The answers reveal how the character ticks, how he or she might react in situations, and what thoughts he or she might entertain.
Many publications use the Proust Questionnaire today; for example, Vanity Fair runs an iteration of this set of questions in every issue to help readers become familiar with the personalities of famous figures being interviewed. The responses revealed details about many well-known figures such as Jane Goodall, David Bowie, and Amy Poehler. The following are the responses from each of these celebrities that provide a glimpse into how they think and some details their fans might not have known. (Note that not every interview included every question; this list includes the available answers):
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Goodall: Sitting by myself in the forest in Gombe National Park watching one of the chimpanzee mothers with her family.
Bowie: Reading.
Poehler: A good nap and a full house.
What is your greatest fear?
Goodall: That I shall be tortured and be a coward.
Bowie: Converting kilometers to miles.
Poehler: That I take this questionnaire too seriously and reveal my crimes and misdemeanors, or I treat this questionnaire too flippantly and bring shame to the House of Proust.
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Bowie: Santa Claus.
Poehler: Cap'n Crunch.
Which living person do you most admire?
Bowie: Elvis.
Poehler: Beyoncé/Beyoncé's hair person.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Bowie: While in New York, tolerance. Outside of New York, intolerance.
Poehler: Stealing from the elderly and then acting real cocky about it.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Goodall: Hypocrisy.
Bowie: Talent.
Poehler: People who can't read my mind.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Goodall: Long-distance phone calls to my friends.
Poehler: Baby tuxedos, caviar pajamas, coal-powered private jets.
What is your favorite journey?
Goodall: My favorite ever journey was my first trip from Nairobi City to the Serengeti to Olduvai Gorge before it was famous, when there were no roads and all the animals were there. We were in an overloaded Land Rover, four people and two Dalmatians.
Bowie: The road of artistic excess.
Poehler: When my hard head takes the high road.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Bowie: Sympathy and originality.
Poehler: Symmetry.
On what occasion do you lie?
Poehler: Don't worry about it.
What do you dislike most about your appearance?
Goodall: Aging skin!
Poehler: My adorable but useless tail.
Which living person do you most despise?
Poehler: Margaret. She knows what she did.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Bowie: Chthonic, miasma.
Poehler: "Care to swing?"
What is your greatest regret?
Bowie: That I never wore bell-bottoms.
Poehler: The time I met Prince and asked him, "How was your summer?"
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Goodall: My childhood companion and teacher — my dog, Rusty.
Poehler: Doritos and my children.
When and where were you happiest?
Goodall: In the early 60s, when I was alone at Gombe with the chimpanzees.
Poehler: Here and now.
Which talent would you most like to have?
Goodall: Ability to learn languages.
Poehler: The ability to do one lousy pull-up.
What is your current state of mind?
Goodall: Deep concern at the state of the planet, environmental and social.
Bowie: Pregnant.
Poehler: New York.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Goodall: I need to be 20 years younger — there is too much to do.
Poehler: I would change myself into 50 percent robot, in order to prepare for the inevitable robot apocalypse.
If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
Bowie: My fear of them (wife and son excluded).
Poehler: I would stop my children from growing up so fast.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Goodall: Starting our youth program, Roots & Shoots, along with helping to blur the line between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom.
Bowie: Discovering morning.
Poehler: Figuring out how to send a group text.
If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
Poehler: Carol Channing.
If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
Poehler: Channing Tatum.
What is your most treasured possession?
Bowie: A photograph held together by cellophane tape of Little Richard that I bought in 1958, and a pressed and dried chrysanthemum picked on my honeymoon in Kyoto.
Poehler: A beautiful ring I stole off some lady at a hospital. Ha-ha! It was so easy!
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Goodall: Knowing you have let someone down, betrayed their trust.
Bowie: Living in fear.
Poehler: Having to listen to someone describe their workout.
Where would you like to live?
Bowie: Northeast Bali or south Java.
Poehler: In Batman's Lair with my two boys.
What is your favorite occupation?
Goodall: Observing animals alone in the wilderness.
Bowie: Squishing paint about a senseless canvas.
Poehler: Teacher.
What is your most marked characteristic?
Goodall: Determination/optimism.
Bowie: Getting a word in edgewise.
Poehler: My laugh, once described as "the sound a raven makes when run over with a shopping cart."
What is the quality you most like in a man?
Bowie: The ability to return books.
Poehler: Broad shoulders.
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Bowie: The ability to burp on command.
Poehler: Broad soldiers.
What do you most value in your friends?
Goodall: Being able to share happiness and sadness and have a good laugh.
Poehler: A love of laughter and a shared belief that life is a dream.
Who are your favorite writers?
Goodall: Shakespeare, Tolkien, Mary Wesley.
Poehler: Kurt Vonnegut, Anne Lamott, Dolly Parton. Anyone who has ever worked for Norman Lear.
Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Goodall: Robin Hood.
Poehler: Atticus Finch.
Who are your heroes in real life?
Goodall: My mother, until her death; dedicated teachers; Kofi Annan; Nelson Mandela; Muhammad Yunus.
Bowie: The consumer.
Poehler: Firefighters and orphans.
What are your favorite names?
Bowie: Sears & Roebuck.
Poehler: Archie and Abel.
What is it that you most dislike?
Goodall: Receptions and dinners in noisy places with people talking too loud, riding in stretch limos, waste.
Poehler: Retirement communities with top-notch security systems.
How would you like to die?
Goodall: Peacefully and before losing my physical and especially my mental facilities.
Poehler: Performing a daring rescue caught on tape.
What is your motto?
Goodall: "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
Bowie: "What" is my motto.
Poehler: "Yes please."
Some of these answers are right on par with what you'd expect from these celebrities based on what you've seen of them, but some of the answers reveal character traits that are lesser known, such as Amy Poehler's obvious love for her children, Jane Goodall's trepidation with aging, or David Bowie's sense of humor. If I were writing a book with these people as my characters, this information would give me greater insight into how they'd react in different scenes.
Using the Proust Questionnaire will give you a greater sense of your character's personality, and many times he or she will tell you who he or she is through this process! Give it a try; you might be surprised by the details you will discover!
