Basics: Characters (Character profiles)

The thing about creating characters is that everyone does it differently. One common and useful way are Character Profiles. A character profile is a document which profiles a character, just like a criminal might have a profile. They include the physical, the intangible and the characters history (or back-story). Character profiles, for some, are quite easy and are the first thing they make up. Those people often have pages upon pages of background information on their character. Others, like myself, work best by writing to discover their character. Obviously then what might work well for me won’t work for you. Either way being familiar, at least, with the general themes and question for a character profile can be very helpful while writing.

However, I feel the need to note, there can be a danger in creating character profiles first or too detailed. You can become blocked in by the desire not to contradict the information you've written in your character profile (if that happens don't be afraid to ignore your profile). Furthermore, sometimes it’s fun to let the character reveal their history to you as you write. However, if you prefer more specific and detail questions, there are other places online to find much more comprehensive questionnaires.

Anyway, in an attempt to avoid pigeonholing (and because I generally dislike character profiles longer then a paragraph), I’m just going to address some basic considerations to keep in mind before, during and after you start writing.

1. Personality: What is their general personality like? Introverted? Extroverted? Happy? Sad? Is the way they act outwardly the same as how they feel inside? Just a feel for the character's general demeanor is often good enough to begin with.

2. Background info: What socio-economic class and/or culture does this character come from? What is their job? Religious beliefs? Age group? Do they have any physical or mental disabilities or abnormalities? Are any of their lifestyle choices different from the norm? (Do they live in a commune? Are they vegetarian? A drag queen?) How do these answers affect their worldview?

3. Relationships: What are the most important relationships in their lives? Are these relationships negative or positive? Are they any relationships that were important but have fallen apart? How did they fall apart and what was the impact of that on the characters? This includes friends and family.

4. Life Events: What are a few life-shifting events that have happened to the character? How where they affected? (These events don’t have to be traumatic or unusual, they just have to have had a great impact on their lives, mentally and/or physically).

5. Morals: What do they consider right? What do they consider wrong? What would cause them to cross that line? (More on this in a later post).

5. Fears/Needs/Wants: What does the character truly want? What do they think they want? What do they need? What do they think they need? What are they afraid of? Not fears like being afraid of spiders, but inner fears. (This will be covered more thoroughly in the next post)

These questions don’t need complete answers before you write. They are just meant to help guide you to think three dimensionally. Keep in mind you can also build conflict from your answers. It can be a sideline plot (Does the atheist in catholic family run into any trouble?) or the major plot (The character's quest for a promotion at work and how that changes their life). Of course there are more questions to ask, questions like: What is their middle name? What are their hobbies? What’s their favorite color? What are they afraid of (on a superficial level)? Etc. Though these are fun details to make up, most of these questions don’t have to be answered before hand, just discovered as needed. In fact in can be very freeing while you write.