Unlocking Your Characters with Michele Regenold

In this episode, I sit down with Michele Regenold, an author and certified book coach, to delve into the intricacies of character development. We explore the importance of knowing what drives your characters, distinguishing between their wants and needs, and identifying their fears. 

Michele introduces her character development tool 'Interview for Insight,' which aids writers in gaining a deeper understanding of their characters. 

You'll also hear about 'First Draft Confidence,' my free workbook designed to help you plan and write your novel more confidently. 

Join us as we uncover techniques and tools to enrich your storytelling. 

00:00 Understanding Character Desires

01:28 Interview with Michele Regenold

01:59 Introducing First Draft Confidence

02:59 Michelle's Writing Journey

06:27 Character Development Insights

15:58 Interview for Insight Tool

28:09 Final Thoughts and Resources

Guest Bio

Michele Regenold is an Author Accelerator-certified book coach, specializing in middle grade and young adult fiction. She has an MFA in writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, as well as master’s degrees in journalism and English from Iowa State University.

For 20 years she honed her coaching and editing skills, first as a teacher of college English and later as the alumni magazine editor at Grinnell College, her undergraduate alma mater.

Michele is a writer herself, mainly of middle grade fiction that often includes an animal character’s point of view.

bookcoach@micheleregenold.com

website: https://www.micheleregenold.com/

blog/newsletter: https://www.micheleregenold.com/blog

More about Interview for Insight: https://www.micheleregenold.com/interivew-for-insight

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Knowing what a character wants or desires helps the writer understand what drives that character. And that drive propels the plot. What they need is usually more of an internal issue, and that's something that the character doesn't necessarily know. But you, the author, to know, or at least have to be able to figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formally repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories: the one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, writer. Welcome back to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacy, and I am so thrilled to be back with you for another season. Today we're going to jump into our first interview of season two of the podcast, and we will be talking to Michelle Reginald about how to interview your characters to gain insight for your story and move through creative blocks. It's a fantastic conversation, and I'm going to give Michelle a bio in just a moment. But before we jump in, I have a question for you. Would you like to plan and write your next novel or your first one with more confidence and less guesswork? Of course, right? Writing is hard. So let's make it easier. I have a free tool to help you do exactly that. First Draft Confidence is a free workbook and introductory guide to all the foundation work that my clients complete before they begin drafting. And it helps to prevent false starts and abandoned drafts. First Draft Confidence has seven simple exercises designed to help you overcome mindset wobbles, learn how to organize your thoughts so that you can start to see the story, help you set up realistic writing expectations and a schedule that fits your life, test drive your story concept to see if it will support a full-length novel, and develop your cast of characters as well as a high-level outline that will work whether you're a pantzer or a plotter or somewhere in between. So let's take as much guesswork out of this drafting business as we can to avoid the first draft flail. To download first draft confidence, go to write it'scared.co forward slash novel planning guide. Or check the link in the show notes. Okay, writer, now let's go on to our interview. Here is Michelle's bio. Michelle Reginald is a writer and an author accelerator certified book coach specializing in middle grade and young adult fiction. She holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, as well as a master's degree in journalism and English from Iowa State University. Hi, Michelle. Thank you for coming on the show today. How are you? And I'm Barry Reb. Thank you. Oh, it's great to have you here. So I gave you a bit of a bio, but would you please share more about your journey to becoming a writer and a writing mentor with our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Sure. So way back in the 70s when I was a little kid, my grandmother gave me Little House in the Prairie for Christmas. I'd been watching it on TV and didn't know it was based on a book. And so I realized, oh, the author's name's on the cover and it's in the book. She's writing by herself. I could write a book like that. So I'm eight, nine years old, study write everything that's happening in the snowbook. And I asked my mom in the car one day, you can get this published? And she said, No. I was that was her first critique right there. I'm sure, you know, there are two, at least two other little kids in the car at the same time, and she probably had no idea what I was really asking her. So that's where I got started. And I I tried over and over again to finish a novel as a kid, because I would always start just like you do when you read, you know, start at the beginning and try to work your way to the end. But then just in a great work way. I didn't finish um a novel until I wrote fan fiction. I wrote a complete Star Trek novel when I was in grad school. Wow. That was so fun. Because I knew all those characters really well. And I think that's why it worked. But then I got involved in a critique group. And they were mostly children's writers, and I rediscovered my own love of kids' books and started working on a fantasy novel, which also hasn't seen the light of day. Then I got an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, in part because of a woman who was in my critique group. I paid the bills by doing technical writing, webmasterwork, writing for private college, their magazine, their website, and also by teaching writing. So writing has been part of my world forever, writing and reading. And then in 2021, I got certified as an author accelerator book coach. And that just opened things up in a different way, where it all makes way more sense to me now. That sounds I can see the strategy and the branding and why that can be so helpful because I was such a dedicated pantzer, and that's why I was flailing for so long. Doing both is the way that works best for me.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah. I found that to be true for myself too. If I plot too much, not good. It's not even just plotting. It's like thinking about the different layers of character development and stuff like that, which is what we are gonna get into today. It's not good either. Because I was like, you I just used to start at the beginning once upon a time, then try to vote at the end. And those never worked out. Yeah. So, um, or they were incredibly painful to fix. Right. Okay. So we're gonna talk about character development and how to do that really well because you have a really cool tool that you're gonna fill us in on in a little bit. So, from a perspective as a writing coach and an experienced novelist, what is vital for writers to know about their characters and what is the danger if they don't?

SPEAKER_01 6:50

I I think there are really three core things for the main character and the major supporting characters that it's really helpful to know what they want, what they need, which is not necessarily the same thing, and what they fear. So knowing what a character wants or desires helps the writer understand what drives that character. And that drive propels the plot. It's character-oriented fiction. So what decisions does a character make because of what they want? What actions do they take because of what they want? What they need is usually more of an internal issue, and that's something that the character doesn't necessarily know. But you, the author, to know, or at least have to be able to figure it out. You might not know at the beginning, but and that can be harder to figure out, but you do need to figure it out at some point to make it really compelling character-driven fiction. And the fears, this is something that I uncovered more recently. Knowing your what your character fears can help you create interesting obstacles for them.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Well, that's really good. I I agree with those three things, you know, being like the top of the list. The want. If you know what your characters want and what they value about what they want, it will help you understand what they're willing to risk to get it. And that will help you kind of calculate stakes and amp up your conflict. Just like you said, you know, you can figure out what kind of obstacles are like get in the way. And and the need. I had such a hard time with this until someone finally told me what you just said is that it's not something the character is aware of. I just could not wrap my head around that for the longest time. And it's like either something they're not aware of at all, or it's something they pay lip service to. Like, wouldn't it be nice if I could? It's so nice that you have that, but I'll never have that kind of thing. And I like to think of this way. The need is kind of like the thing they have to learn. If they're gonna go from not very fulfilled to a more fulfilled place by the end of the book, or it's the thing they don't learn creates their demise.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

If it's not a happy book. Yeah, that's good. I think for kidlet writers, that's probably most appropriate, but the negative spin on that for the antagonist. Good point.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yes. And so you said, like, who are the kids, like what characters do you need do you need to think about these things for? Your your main character, your protagonist, two main side characters, and whoever the antagonistic force is in your story, too. Right?

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

We always think about it's our protagonist driving the story bus, but it's not always that way.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

No, definitely not. And and mysteries, it's often the antagonist who is driving it because of the crime that they commit.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, there's a plot underneath the plot. Yes, yes. Yes. So our my hat is off to anyone writing a mystery. I'm writing a mystery right now, and sometimes it feels like I'm just trying to pull out my fingernails. Oh, faithful sometimes. To think about all these different layers, so which is why I think books are made in layers, because there is no way that you can nail all mess up in the first go. No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

You have to know what what's going to be on the page and what's not. There's lots of stuff that's going on that your readers are never going to see, but you need to know.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah, it's like the iceberg theory, right? Yeah. So, recap was vital for writers to know about their characters and why the want, the need, and what they fear. How much of these aspects do you think a writer needs to know before they start writing their book?

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I think it's really helpful to know the bare minimum of the wants and the fears for your protagonist and your antagonist. But you know, everybody's different. So if people just want to discover that in a pantsing kind of way, they can. But I think plotters probably have an advantage if they're gonna spend the time to figure that out and use that to help them drive the plot instead of just discovering it all on the way.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, and it's really hard to know in your first couple of books, like what's gonna work for you. It's kind of a process of driving and air and lark from your mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

And I think it varies from book to book, too, because the novel that I'm revising right now is I think of it as contemporary realistic, but it's actually probably speculative because it's about a dead dog who goes back to Earth and you know, because he wants to return to his girl and blah, blah, blah. But that's the other series that I'm trying to find an agent for is actually a mystery series. So completely different kinds of stories. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Well, coming from a place of writing a mystery or suspense. Knowing what happened and who caused it to begin with is I could not write without that. Yeah, I don't believe I could. So maybe there are people out there who can't. So I think personality factors into it a little bit as far as how you discover characters, but what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Oh, absolutely. Because there are writers who like to think through before they ever put anything on paper or on a computer. They spend a lot of time thinking things through. I have to actually write it out either on paper or on a computer and see those words. That helps me with that process. So that's partly process, partly personality, I suppose. I'm not somebody who likes to talk things out with other people like in advance. I don't know. But I think probably some writers, maybe more extroverted writers, do like to do that sort of thing. So yeah, you have to find what's most comfortable for you. Use that to your advantage. I mean, hard enough as it is, don't want to stop at a disadvantage.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

So, what would you say are some common struggles that writers have when getting to know their characters?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

I think there is a lot of advice in writing books and online and you know, writing conferences and stuff like that, about like little character sheets where they ask you to fill in your character's name and what they look like and their socioeconomic level, whatever. All that external stuff, like you might use for a dating ad, loves puppies, you know, lost a flyfish. All that stuff is, I think, fairly easy. Doesn't take a lot of emotional energy to come up with, especially if you're just, you know, stealing bits and pieces from people you know. It's the internal stuff, the characters' feelings, their emotions, especially when they are very different from your own, that can be both harder to understand and to convey.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Oh, true, especially when you're trying to craft a villain and you don't think like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Um, yes. So one of my book coaching clients is writing a dark YA fantasy with a naive girl as the main character, and it's first person present tense. Pretty straightforward. But her antagonist is a supernatural character who can move through time, and he doesn't really have physical presence in the world we would consider real. So when we first started working together, it was clear to me that the supernatural character was pretty one-dimensional, pretty flat. He was stalking the girl, the main character. He was clearly a predator of some type. But why did he choose her? How does his predatory behavior work? How does he kidnap girls if he doesn't actually have a form, a body? Where does he keep them? I got all sorts of questions reports. And my client who is a pantser hadn't thought through that stuff yet before we started. So I encouraged her to interview him. And this was some of the creepiest shit I've ever read in my life.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

So yes. That's awesome. Yeah. That a cop, it sounds like Addie LaRue, which is not which is not young adult, but has a villain that is very similar. No, the V. E. Schwab is the author's name. The book is The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Well, phenomenal book. It's a historical fantasy with a very strong contemporary story present. Yeah. Uh dual timeline and all and the the past timeline is all is historical. It's a beautiful book. Anyway, so that would be that would be an interesting thing for her to read to wrap her head around her villain, maybe. Very cool. Well, I love how you said I had her interview them. So that would bring us right into uh us talking about this really cool tool that you have to help writers get to know their characters on that intimate level, internal level. And it's called Interview for Insight. And I used it to interview all four of my main characters. And I had been stuck, Michelle. So I had platted a novel and then I had drafted, and I was about halfway, a little more than halfway through the draft. And then I took a novel intensive workshop because I knew there were some things that were not gelling, and I got a little stuck as far as how to get back on track and how to fix it. And using your insight for interview really helped me unlock these people. So tell me about this tool. I'll shut up about it, but you tell me about less about it and yeah, and how it works.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

So basically, interview for insight is a digital download. It's a PDF document and short audio clips if you prefer to listen. And it includes specific instructions and tips about how to interview your characters. Because it sounds a little wacko. You know, you sitting there talking to yourself. But I lay out the basics of interviewing, what kinds of questions to ask, how to get your characters talking to you, what to do if they won't speak to you. Like I said, it sounds weird, especially if you talked about this to people who don't write. My husband who does write, he doesn't write fiction, but he even he gave me this kind of look and said, You're just sitting there talking to yourself, right? But no, it's not actually that. Not actually that. It's a way for writers to get inside their characters' parts and minds, which is where you want your right your readers to be. So it's also a different way to tap into your creativity. It's more of that pantsing, go with the flow kind of feel, I think, when it really gets going. And you get to interact with your characters and ask them questions outside of your actual story itself and get answers to basically anything you want to know. So this tool brings together all my tips plus some sample interviews so that writers can get started fast. I mean, I'm saying five minutes, did it take you longer than that?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

I think it took me 20. I because I just took my time and kind of meandered through it. And what wound up happening is I got kind of this character who went, well, let me tell you. And that turned into actually writing scenes from the past, which was really informative. I'd have no idea if those pieces or bets will be used in the novel, probably not, but it was incredibly informative just to know this person's lived experience.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yes. You get access to backstory. Yeah. And whether or not that actually shows up on the page, that it does impact what you choose to put on the page.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Oh, it 100% actually did now that I'm thinking about it, it became a breadcrumb, a clue that one of the other characters finds. There was something in there that it that they revealed to me that I didn't later it planted in as a clue. So it was quite handy.

unknown 19:11

Good.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Good. So you recommend not only interviewing your protagonist, but other characters. And I'd love to know why you make that recommendation.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

So one reason to interview other characters is just to get out of that headspace, get out of that particular eye that you're always occupying as you're writing your story. So it's a great way to get another character's point of view about things. As you mentioned earlier about writing some, discovering things from a character about their backstory. Other characters you probably haven't spent a lot of time thinking about compared to your main character. And yet, it seems like our subconsciousness are working on these things even without our direct overt attention. So interviewing these other characters can give you access to that information.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Absolutely. Everybody in your story is going to have an agenda, whether or not they have a point of view. And your protagonist's agenda and the other characters' agendas can collide, and that gives you beautiful conflict. And so I found it very helpful interviewing, you know, my antagonist, a couple of my side characters for that purpose, because it's not always the protagonist driving the story bus. Right. Yeah. It may look like that, but it's not always the case. Right. So when is the best time for a writer to use this tool? Story development, drafting, revising, anytime.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Anytime you're stuck. I think being stuck is a great time, but depending on what kind of writer you are, you know, you can use it at the beginning if you want to, if you want to just explore. In fact, that's how I used it when I was working on my mystery novel. I started interviewing my antagonist who perpetrates the main crime. And that was really enlightening. I didn't know most of what she told me. So that was early on. I knew just the basics, like her age. This is an older person, not a kid character in the story. Yeah, so it's good for development. It's good for when you're stuck. Or if you want to just feel productive, can she get the report on the actual manuscript itself? Take 10 minutes and talk to one of your characters and see what they're up to today. And be creative without the stress.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

I love that. Great recommendations. Are there any myths about character building that you want to bust?

SPEAKER_01 21:51

I don't think you need to know everything about your characters to write compelling fiction, but you do need to know the important things. And I can't judge. You what those are, you have to find those out for yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

But if you start by understanding what they want as best you can, yeah. What they might be lacking as a human and what they are afraid of, and why you have a good jumping off point.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

And characters are not necessarily all human. You know, so I work in Kidbut, so there are plenty of characters who are aliens or dragons or dogs or ghosts or whatever. I recently read a novel, I'm just looking at it here. Olivetti. It's a middle grade novel. Olivetti is the brand name of a typewriter. And so the main character, well, one of the main characters, is actually a talking typewriter. Oh my gosh, I love it. This this week I was talking to one of my clients. She's trying to figure out the core mystery of a proposed thing at all science fiction series, and she's just having a tough time. She's interviewed lots of different characters, and I said, What about the objects at this place? What kind of objects are there that might have knowledge about what was going on that she could tap into because they've been around and seen it all?

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Yeah. And it's funny because it can be just like one question that you never thought of that unlocks so much. Yeah. That's the that is the beauty and benefit of um working in collaboration with a coach who coming at you with questions that make think and you go, oh. Yeah, I didn't consider that angle. Right on. Cool. Yeah. So you don't need to know everything. You do need to know some important things. Um, that's gonna vary depending on the type of character that you're exploring. Which basically sounds like, well, nothing's for sure, and it all it's I mean at all. I'll know what it's such a dissatisfying answer, but it's full. I would say that you know, if you're we're creating people or or or entities, this is hard, right? So we have the psychology, we have the physiology, and we have the sociology, right? And if all we do is is lean on the physical for our character development and don't think too much about the other pieces, the risk for me, what I have done in the past is I have borrowed from other books and other mediums and have created characters without a lot of thought. And so then made stereotypical characters without realizing I did it. So it's not easy. And I think those are the three things that we have to think about on some level, right? Or we risk having just cliche type cardboard characters that write readers can't relate to. Right. Yeah.

unknown 24:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

We're gonna wrap up here in just a few. A couple more questions. What is the best piece of writing advice you've ever received?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

I was told the answers to my story questions can usually be found in my story already. So often we want to maybe pull something else in. Add a new character, add a new subblot, add whatever, when instead maybe we're not using what's there to its fullest potential. Or there's too much there. I interviewed a published novelist named Sally J. Baugh, a middle-grade writer, a couple of years ago, about her approach Aaron. And she realized for one of her novels, she started with a quite a large family. Her main character had like, I don't know, five or six siblings. And she realized she didn't need all those, she only needed one to contrast with Stanley. It's often yeah, about taking things out. So answers are probably in your story already.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah, it sounds like wide versus deep kind of thing. You know, for so much ambiguity in writing. You just gotta get in there and play in the mud for so much of it. Okay, what wish would you like to impart to your fellow writers who might be out there who are struggling to get to know their characters?

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Take your time back to your characters as you get to know them. I did interviews early on for my middle grade mystery. It's set at a fictional version of the Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth, Minnesota. And then after I finished the draft and was going back to revision, I went back and did some more interviewing and I learned new things. Like you mentioned earlier, it's always layers. You can't get everything in one pass. And that's that's true with interviewing characters and getting to know your characters too. There's it's just like human beings now. You and I know each other a little bit, but if we actually live close to each other, it could interact in you know, real life. That would probably add some really fun dimension. It's the same with characters. I love that. That's such a great answer.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Well, where can we find your tool? Interview for insight. It is on my website, MichelleReganal.com. Okay, I will make sure I drop the link in the show notes. So where can listeners find you?

SPEAKER_01 27:37

They can find me at michellereconal.com. Interview for insight is right at the top. Can you spell your last name for us? Well, I'll spell it bold because Michelle is is a woman. I think that's M-I-C-H-E-L-E. R-E-G-E-N-O-L-D.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Beautiful. Okay, Michelle, thank you so much for your time today. And listeners, please do yourself a favor and get a hold of the interview for insight from Michelle because it was a very helpful tool. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Michelle. I will make sure to post uh the links to the resources that we talked about today, including interview for insight into the show notes. And while you're there, don't forget to download the first draft confidence, the free workbook and introductory guide to all the foundation work that my clients complete before they begin drafting. So it helps you prevent the false starts and the abandoned drafts and say goodbye to the first draft flail. So, again, if you want to download that, you can go to the link in the show notes or go to writeitscared.co forward slash novel planning guide. And I will see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Right It's Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.