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I am a big believer in character sheets. The more you know about your characters, the better your stories will be. When it comes to documenting your characters, find what works for you. Some people use D&D character sheets. They cover much of what is listed below.
I don’t like being constricted or leaving sections empty, so I don’t use a multi-page PDF. My character sheets start simple and are simple text files, like this:
Name: Nickname: n/a Dates ======================= Birthday: Physical Description ======================= Hair color: Skin color: Eye color: Weight: Height:
Of course, I add way more to a character sheet. It rarely stays that small.
I use Notepad++
Notepad++ is my go-to tool for character sheets and novel documentation. Why? Because it has tabs. I can have a lot of notepad documents open and accessible at all times. Here is the list of character sheets and other notes I can access with a simple click right now.
Every document is easily accessible. It doesn’t matter what kind of information the file stores; they can all be a mouse click away.
What else do I add?
Well, a lot. It is very custom, but many items are common to all characters. What I add is beneficial for my writing.
- Physical description and colors:
- Color of hair, eyes, skin
- Length of hair, hair-do, etc.
- Body type – tall, short, thin, fat, athletic, clumsy, muscular, dainty, young, old, or anything in between. Also, any injuries, permanent, nagging, etc. Long feet or hands, hair, etc.
- Relationships – Mom, dad, brothers, sisters, friends, loves, etc.
- Where are they from – city, state, country.
- Personality traits – humorous or serious, happy or melancholy, confident or timid, shy or outgoing, etc.
- Flaws – Every character needs some: too cocky, too shy, says things they shouldn’t, has anger issues, always chooses the bad boy or bad girl, bad with money, easily swayed by bad influences, problem with authority, power-hungry, or just always hungry, etc.
- Redeeming qualities: hard worker, loyal, driven, loves unconditionally, always lends a hand, a good listener, etc.
- Race and Culture – Real world: caucasian, black, Hispanic or Latino, Polynesian, Native American, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Persian, etc
Fantasy World: Whatever race you want with or without diversity that helps your story. - Physical behaviors – Has a twitch, shaking, nervous hands, happy dancing fingers, puts hands through hair, fiddles with braid, scratches nose, thinks with lips pressed and turns to the side, fiddles with their phone, always puts a thumb in a jean’s pocket, sighs a lot, etc.
- Physical Reactions to Emotions – Hint: This helps you show instead of tell. Each emotion has lots of options, and different characters will physically react different to different emotions:
- Happy – smiles and bounces, smiles with one corner of the mouth and brightens eyes, a cheek-raising smile, etc.
- Sad – Frowns. Slumps shoulders. Looks at feet.
- Anger – furrows brow. Widens raging eyes. Clenchs teeth.
- Surprised – wide eyes, dropped jaw, blinks three times, says “Woa!”, etc.
- Embarrassed – looks down at her feet, cringes and pinches the shoulders together.
- Economic status – rich, poor, upper middle class, lower middle class, etc.
- Religious beliefs – Real world: Christian (be specific to the denomination if you want), Jewish, Muslim, atheist, etc. Fantasy World: Whatever religion you invented.
- Outfits – how do they dress? I put this after economic status and religious beliefs for a reason. They will affect how someone dresses. Race and culture might, too.
- Common Phrases – Always starts a sentence with “well”, never uses contractions, drops foreign words in.
- Worries and concerns – what are they constantly thinking about.
- Groups they are members of – sports, clubs, dance teams, cheerleading, societies, jobs, etc.
- Life events – death of someone they knew, birth, major event, day they were paralyzed, day they graduated, day they first killed, day they left home, day they first met, day they found that artifact, etc.
- Languages they speak – most people speak one language but not everyone speaks the same language.
- Diet – what do they eat. What can’t they eat? Why can’t they eat it? Allergy? Religion? etc.
Now there might be other details in my character sheets that aren’t so common. Perhaps they are specific to one series’ characters.
- Abnormalities – how is this character different from the norm?
- Magical abilities – for stories with a magic system.
- Weapons – usually for action stories.
- Fighting styles – usually for action stories.
- Crushes/lovers – Especially for romance stories, but every story can have this.
There are so many more custom ones. In the Trinity of Mind series, Kendra and Lexy are constantly bickering. I know every character’s blood type.
Character Arc
There are entire books about writing a good character arc. A character arc, in short, describes how your character changes throughout a story. Where is the character at the start of the story? How have they changed by the end of the story? Or throughout a series?
Plotters plan the character’s arc (). Pantsers usually just document it as it happens. Either way, characters usually need an arc to make the story good.
A picture
I cast my characters. I pick an image (sometimes many images) that I find online, such as on Pinterest or DeviantArt. Notepad++ doesn’t add the image to the text doc, but I have the picture file(s) right next to the text file:
- Kendra.txt – my text character sheet.
- Kendra1.png – An image I found online.
- Kendra2.png – A second image I found online representing a character.
Key Paragraphs
As I write a series, I often have to return to a previous book to find something already written.
- What book/chapter/page do you first describe a character?
Add the text to the character sheet so you don’t have to open the previous book again. - What book/chapter/page affected the character physically, emotionally, or changed their arc?
Add the text to the character sheet so you don’t have to open the previous book again.
Knowing your unique characters
You should have most main characters thoroughly documented.
You should strive to make the characters unique. If you have 10 characters who all drop their mouths when astonished, that isn’t unique, and readers may struggle to tell your characters apart. I have a character named Luiz. He is funny and always throws Spanish words in his phrases. When he shows up, he is distinct, unique, impactful, and well-loved by my readers. He is so distinct that I could probably get away with removing all his dialog tags.
You don’t need to know everything above for every character. The more page time a character has, the more you should know. The less page time a character has, the less you will know.
Warning: Don’t catch character creation disease, where you spend more time creating characters than writing and finishing your stories. Write. It is better to have one finished novel with poor characters than to have a hundred great characters documented but no story completed.
Use the character sheet to edit
As you do revisions, read your character sheets. Do your characters match what is on the sheet? If not, change either the sheet or the story so they match. You can’t easily change the sheet in later books of a series.
A character vignette or backstory
I often have a small story or scene that doesn’t go into the novel but helps define the character. For example, I wrote a scene where two characters played together as children. After writing that scene, I knew much more about those two characters, which allowed me to better write them in the novel they appear in.
Conclusion
Most readers read for the characters. If you care enough to really, truly, deeply get to know your characters, your readers will feel that. They will more easily come to love your characters. The better your characters, the better your stories.
