Readers love it when you add dimension to your characters. A great story allows your readers to watch your characters struggle through conflicts with external forces, internal beliefs, and usually with other characters. Novelists, screenwriters, short story authors, and journalists (to a lesser extent) develop a character through the story itself, but writers know more about the characters than you ever will. They develop these characters outside the story typically through the use of character sheets.
Character sheets are summaries of characters details and features. Each author has their own style and needs – and the amount of detail changes depending on the type of story.
Sometimes, the character sheets can not contain all the detail of each character, and the interactions between them and the others in the story, and someone close to the author or the author must write a guide to organize it all. A famous example of this is Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance by Robin Furth.
However, for us mere mortals, we must settle for a simpler solution. Across much of my research into how author’s record their characters’ traits, I’ve found these similarities:
1. Name
1a. Meaning of Name or notes on origins
1b. nickname
2. Birthplace and date
2a. How family came to that place
3. Close family
3a. list each sibling
3b. include meaning of names, notes
3c. birthplace
4. Parents
4a. name notes
4b. their parents
4c. birthplace
5. Physical Features
5a. Height
5b. weight, build
6. Skills
6a. current work
6b. education
6c. training
6d. important experiences
7. relationship(s)
7a. romantic
7b. employment
7c. casual, e.g. newspaper, store, repairs
7d. enemies
8. Current Living location
8a. Past living location(s)
9. Secrets
10. All the other soft stuff that develops the character
Spend a couple of days watching the news, reading the papers, interacting with others, and living your own life, and ask yourself the question, “what would my character do in this situation?” Take notes, and a persona will develop.
Here are some other resources:
Yahoo Associated Content – Character Sheets
Men with Pens character creation
Charlotte Dillon Character Chart
What do you do?
