If I created a profile sheet for my best friend whom I have known for fifteen years then that sheet does not render him any less substantial. I think chracter sheets are effecive. Yes, they deal with fundermental aspect of the character but everybody has a "favourite film" or "a most dispointing moment in life" or "place of birth" You need to get to know your characters and I think this is the best way to start to understand them and to learn about them. Initiailly the sheets ( in my opinion) are helpful but the characters quickly evolvle beyond the basics of any chracter sheet. I think characters need to grow witin defined and consistant chracteristics established by that character's nature. You do need boundaries. A character can grow out of these boundaries and limits but if they do not exist to begin wtih then the sense of development will be weaker. I meant to add... I use these sheets but not to fill in details in an almost indiffernt, mechanical way. I use the first person, imgaining myself as the charcter revealing infomration EG: "The most painful expericne" Instead of writing something like "His father died when he was ten" you can create the dynamics of the character, mood, dialouge etc by writing something like "I was ten when my dad. I found him at the botton of the stairs. I wanted to throw myself down after him...etc." That way you "become" the chracter. The trouble with writing "about" the character in the third person is that you always remain distaince from him. You need to make it more about "You becoming the character and reveling infomration about yourself" and less about "You writing abbout the character as an autor." This is the best way to use character sheets.
I use them, in the start of a story. For example, if I got a really good idea, I would describe the characters. They always change, though, because I look at it later and think, Well this won't work, so I change that, and then I wind up changing the whole character! Kind of funny...
I usually picture a character with a name [sometimes not], an approximate physical description, perhaps one interest (eg sports, collecting) and sometimes a core trait (outgoing, shy, etc). During the writing process, I find the true character tends to come out. If I limit it too much (as Cogito mentions), then the characters [for me] can seem a little boxed in with no room to move.
I totally agree with you DownUnder. I have a general idea about who my characters are and what they look like but I let the rest reveal itself while I'm writing. Planning out a character/s to the extent that some profiles are is crazy! They leave no room for the imagination to flow.
Character charts tell you the stuff that you'd put on a Facebook page or something. In literature, a character has almost nothing to do with the details of physical appearance, birthday, favorite food, etc. You need to imagine the character freely in your head, in terms of mentality and motives and goals; if you base your character on trivial little details, it's worthless.
I am kind of shocked to see so many people are down on character sheets. I use one to keep track of information that I might otherwise forget and it has been very helpful. Things like weight and height might not seem super important, but they can be when you want to keep things relevant to the characters appearance consistent. I use a pretty specialized sheet that I got off a site because I find that some are too long and too detailed in certain areas. But this one is vague enough that I can fill out some of the things as I see fit. Favorite food and color might not be the most important things. I think they can still have a bearing on your character. A favorite color could just be a small detail that the reader picks up through clothes and choice of things or that another character uses to give a gift to your character or something like that. I have one character who eats M&Ms by peeling them first and then eating the shells. Its just a minor seeming thing but there's actually a much bigger reason behind it. Ah well, here is the sheet I use in a nutshell: Title: Name: Nickname: Birth Date/Place: Character Role: Physical Descriptions: Age: Race: Eye Color: Hair Color/Style: Build (Height/Weight): Skin Tone: Style of Dress: Characteristics or Mannerisms: Personality Traits: Background: Internal Conflicts: External Conflicts: Occupation/Education: Miscellaneous Notes:
I have too many notes, several notebooks, a notepad file that's grown to be out of control in size and notes in the margins on word. I kind of wanted a quick, file-able system for the main few characters.
Hmm...character sheets. Never used one. Usually my characters come along the same time as the story, since there's little point having one without the other. They just pop into my head. Having looked at some character sheets, I would never waste time filling one in. I'll keep a basic image in my head, and then let them birth themselves. I'm not a midwife, or a mother; I don't want to have to raise these people before I write their stories. It might be useful to fill a sheet in before you start writing, but I would probably never look at it again after that - I want to actually write, not dick about with notes, and if in the course of writing I inadvertantly write a load of rubbish about my character, sooner or later I'll realise and knock it down, and chalk it up to the learning curve. Until your characters interact in terms of each other and the plot, ( or in your head while you're making a cuppa or weeding the garden - and yes, yes I do talk to my characters. No, I'm not 'touched' ) you can't truly know them, and the character sheet isn't going to help that much.
If I use any sort of character layout thingy it's mainly a short list of possible traits or ideas. This is one I wrote for a character I made for school, we had to write a "bio" so I kinda did: Name: Margaret (she hasn’t told me her street name yet) Sex: Female Age: Early to mid 20s Eyes: Green Hair: Curley red. Partially dreaded Religion: Agnostic Political Affiliation: Unknown • Ran away from home at an early age (15/16). • She is looking for something. Who or what it is she doesn’t know but believes/hopes that she will when she sees it. • Writes poetry and keeps a diary, which are among her few possessions. • When she talks about “You” she is referring to whatever it is that she seeks. • Her possessions include a canvass backpack, sleeping bag, few cloths, lighter, matches, cigarettes, bandana (rag), canteen, a few books, sewing needles and scrap material for patching holes, a flashlight with extra batteries and lots of socks. • Mostly wears frayed and patched brown carhearts, green wife-beater over which a long sleeve cotton button down plaid shirt and a black, floppy, wide brimmed hat. • She never hitchhikes or hopes freight trains, as she prefers to walk to her next destination, wherever that may be. • Spares for change, steals and prostitutes herself whenever the need arises for money. • Smokes Bugler or Midnight Special roll-your-own cigarettes but prefers the Black Death roll-your-own. • Rarely drinks. • Secretly she reads romance novels and poetry. Publicly reads philosophy (nihilism), Poe, and Marx (?). • Believes in “killing” her past and starting anew every time the road begins again (i.e. whenever she wakes up and starts walking). But really I let the characters tell me who they are as I write and they usually stay in character... And after reading this over again, almost none of it actually went into the character.
I find it much more important to keep track of characters' date of birth, socio-economic status and who they are related to/ friends with. I often sketch out a family tree. I mean, this all affects what influences they were exposed to and how they grew up, e.g. What music do they like? How do they dress? What was their schooling like? Perhaps the girl was born in the 70s to a feminist mother who was a bit of a rebel and named her daughter Hedvig, after Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, and didn't let her wear anything pretty. I usually sort of let the character run free for a bit, and mull over how he/she would develop, and what would happen if he/she was taken away from familiar surroundings, e.g. by living abroad, winning/losing lots of of money, falling in love with someone 'unsuitable' or of 'higher social status' etc. I find if I fill a character worksheet beforehand, there's the danger of forcing the character to conform to it, which is why it has been said that worksheets can make a character two-dimensional. I mean, questions like: What was the character's most painful experience? Well, I have good friends that I don't know that answer for. I don't like to play God all the time...
I have tried to write down character sheets, but it often seems too flat and methodical. So my main method is to keep around a notebook and scribble in a frenzied rush whenever there's a small tidbit I'd like to add. This way, the characters seem to develop over time and I can add the changes in during the second draft.
Profile sheets are more of a fun, trivial exercise for me than actual story canon. That said, I don't think they're too bad as long as you don't take em too seriously, especially if they become a crutch of some kind.
I do something like that but it's pretty organic. I don't outline all them like that. I write about a paragraph, for my use, about their personality and possibly a couple major life experiences. Those usually come to me later and spontaneously though. I just write the gist of it. I only write enough to give me an outline of how they may react in a given situation. I don't like getting too detailed because then you trap yourself into too much linear thinking and it kills the creativity. As for looks, it just comes to me. I close my eyes and envision what I see when I think of that character. It's pretty interesting what you come up with if you just let your mind wander and fill in the blanks without trying to force anything.
Character Creation Template??? I have created several characters over the past few years. I have worked on the details to their lives almost to the point of being a Bio. I have so much information developed that it is almost too much. Does anyone use a template or a set of guidelines as to the amount and type of information they develop prior to implementing a character into a story? I have also read that many writers develop on-the-fly and half the time don't even name the character until a relatively clear personality shows itself. What is your take? Please use simple words! I do not follow well when literary technical jargon is used. Thank you. Could I get some input and suggestions please? For some reason, Ididn't think to do a search for Profile sheet. Sorry for the deah horse. V/R BS76
Same here with the technical jargon thing so, don't worry. No, I don't use character bio templates, mainly because I write about characters I have thought about for a long time, so much so that I became very familiar with them. Recently I wrote about a character who belong to a rebel group fighting for independence. I have read newspaper articles/stories/report about such persons almost on a daily basis over the years (yes, the place where I live is very volatile) and have often wondered about them. The newspaper report itself may be simple like, X and his team tried to ambush an army team and in the process X was killed. But I often wondered what X will do in another situation... say, if he got a chance to save a dying army man. Another time when I read such reports I'll think about his family background. So, this accumulated knowledge/thoughts gave rise to my character. So, my point is: don't spend too much time creating a bio.... it can be easily done in your head..... concentrate more on the things(qualities/personality etc) of the character behind the bio. Also, my characters developed more and more as I write, re-write, and more re-write. You may be limiting your artistic freedom (for want of better word) if you just follow 'a set of guidelines' you have created long before you actually wrote the story.
I use the character sheets, with details such as "favorite food" or "favorite color" or "favorite gemstone" because I believe little things like that help me get to know my character, and the psychology behind their actions, better. There is a reason behind every action, every like and dislike. So I would do something like write down in a character sheet that my MC's favorite food is spaghetti. Then, ask myself why he/she likes spaghetti. Is it a comfort food? Is it a food that their significant other introduced them to, or a close friend? I go deeper into the reasoning behind it than you would see on the character sheet. If you just leave it as: Favorite Color: Blue. It reminds them of the sky. That's bland. If the entire character sheet was like that, it would lead to a two-dimensional character. I keep all of those details on my sheet because the sheets do vary with every character. Some characters might have a favorite gemstone because they are a deep thinker, and mythology behind gemstones interests them. For other characters, it could be completely irrelevant. It really depends on the character.
I don't use character sheets for my characters but I do write down all the facts I can think of about them. The differences between the two (to me, at least) is the character sheet tells you what your character is. Writing down facts about your character tells you why the character is that way.
I only use character sheets if I'm writing a main character as the narrator. The reason is, you should know every detail about them, beacause your writing as if your them. All the side characters details (major players in the narrator's life) should focus on the exterior and the dominate personality traits. You never know everything about the people in your life and the things you do know could easily be untrue.
If you write about a particular character, the things on character sheets won't affect you much; if they do, you're adding too many little details to the story. Good fiction should be about the interactions and characteristics that matter, not the little things that don't. This like "favorite food" and "favorite gemstone" may make a character more "real" in one sense, but a character that is defined by a few refined, deeper concepts is more powerful, more versatile, and, in the end, will appear more lifelike to the reader. When a character is lifelike, it doesn't mean that he/she has to reflect the little random details that don't affect the story. As for physical traits, they shouldn't be used as the primary means of characterization. If a man looks threatening because he looks powerful and cruel and disturbed, you should say only what needs to be said. If I describe him by saying, "His hollowed eyes shone with cold light, but only at the edges, as if his gaze were a vacuum; and his stance was one of unjust authority built on tears." This shows the reader everything he needs to know at that moment about the character; describing his build and skin tone, his hairstyle, or the color of his wedding ring would likely make this impression less powerful. Likewise, if your protagonist is drawn to a woman because she is beautiful, you do not need to describe her appearance exactly; you can simply say that the protagonist finds her beautiful. And if you do want to describe her, describe one or two qualities that he is drawn to, not every aspect of her appearance; when you see someone, you notice some things more than others.
When working on a novel, I do some work on my characters, working out certain details, but I rarely go into as much details as your character profile sheet. I like to give my characters the chance to develop. Certain things may change along the way. When I'm writing plays, however, I go into much more detail and make a list of everything I have to reveal.
I don't use a character profile sheet. I just come up with a name and start writing and I get to know the character over time and they start revealing their songs to me. But then I am very organic and intuitive and just kind of do things, lol. I'm not much of a planner or into lists and things. It's just a difference in personality.
The important thing is that you know the character's role in the story, how he/she affects it. Then let the character develop to fit that role, not the other way around. The role might change as the character changes, of course.
I find that, by their very nature, lists and the like are against the grain of the mind of most writers. We are a hectic type of people. To answer your question, I do not use character sheets and find that such things can be very constricting on creative flow. I think you will find that, once created, you will be going more to the character sheet to see how your character would deal with a given situation rather than to the character him/her/itself. Characters are essentially extensions particular facets or the writer's personality or psyche, or even facets of people the writer may have encountered in real life. You would not make a character sheet for yourself or your friends. Such things are the place of governments.
IMO you definitely need character sheets for a novel, to have consistency. For a short story I wouldn't imagine they would be necessary. Perhaps if you have a lot of characters in the short story, you may need sheets for memory aids. Writing a good MC is a lot like acting, the better actor you are the more convincing the MC will be. You really need to become the MC to write the part convincingly. That's why I don't buy all this talk of doing research for criminals or whatever. At root, we are all the same, we have all the same capacity for good and evil. You need to tap into this stuff to get the measure of someone else, or even yourself. Sorry, went off a bit there towards the end...
