Character profile is every bit of detail of a fictional character’s about its life and personality. A good character profile offers author and onlookers to get into the mind of the character to make them come alive in the story for the readers. While writing a story, every as well as main characters should have character profiles.
Start with the basics by defining character’s appearance, age, social class, job, and mannerisms. Try to work out the psychology and background. Develop a place in the story and experience the character throughout it.
With all this figured out, write characters seeming to be like real people for the readers.
- Envisioning the Appearance
- Developing the Background
- Defining the Role in the Story
Character Profile : Envisioning the Appearance
Start with a simple sentence to describe the character. Start off with a short description of a character while doing a full profile. The quick description describes a distinguishing feature to set the tone for the role in the story. Getting the introduction down, use the details provided to build more background and personality for the character. A great starting point gives a plenty to dive into for the background. Think about the looks if it had been older than they really are and struggles they faced to wore them down.
Write down the basic life statistics. General information about the character helps to create more detailed profile of the personality. Basic information has details of age, birthday, current residence, and job to get it more specific. Ne need to fill in every single aspect of the life. This exercise gets the creativity working and get inside the mind of the character getting planned.
Envision physical appearance. Physical descriptions are important for main characters. You may have already had an appearance in mind for your character before you started writing the profile, or you may have to develop one. Think about what the character’s appearance means for personality as you move further. Start with basic information of hair and eye color and also the clothes the character is going to normally wear. Get more detailed appearance. Decide for the character to get it well-groomed or unkempt. Think about what a well-groomed person can go hiding, or a messy person can be struggling with.
Develop mannerisms. Developing mannerisms like speech patterns visualize a character, and also help your audience connect with that character more. Develop speech pattern. Give an accent. Plan out the character has any other ticks or habits. Perhaps they tend to blink a lot if they lie.
Name the character. Depending on the preferences, the character’s name could be important or secondary. Put a lot of symbolism in names, then spend time thinking like character’s name to stand for. Focus more on the character description and pick a name. Unless symbolic meaning for the character’s name, don’t stress coming up with a great name. Focus more on description so readers connect with the character.
Character Profile : Developing the Background
Decide on a hometown for the character. If the character non-living in the hometown in the story, plan the character came from. Plan the rest of the profile using this information. Establish how long the character lived in their hometown and if they lived there long enough to have local accent.
Plan the childhood. The background of a character is usually very important for their overall personality. If the character is an adult, think about what their childhood would have been like. Use information to determine if character would view life as successful or not. Try to come up with best friend, hobbies, school, favorite teacher, career goals, and foods. Outline any trauma the character suffered as a child which is important for their personality.
Map out the personal relationships. How the character interacts with other people is crucial for role in the story. Decide if they are kind and caring, or manipulative. Figuring out how the character treats other characters helps plan the rest of the character arc. Start simple with the personal relationships. List parents, siblings, and close family members. Decide the character is married or single.
Build the psychological profile. With the physical and personal descriptions out of the way, get deeper into the psyche. Develop hopes, dreams, likes, fears, and dislikes for the character. Think about how the psychological profile influences the way they act throughout the story.
Work more into how the character reacts to the world and what makes angry and sad.
Character Profile : Defining the Role in the Story
Decide character with experience a life-changing event in the story. This is important because it determines character will change or remain the same throughout the story. They experience a fundamental personality change between the beginning and end of the story. Think about the character will experience a life-changing event change.
Plan it as a protagonist or antagonist. A protagonist is a “good guy” and an antagonist is a “bad guy.” With the character details figured out, define which of the characters falls into each category. Build up the cast for your story.
Write profile how the character will age. People change as they get older. The beliefs they held can change over time. Think about the timescale of the story. If it covers years, then the characters could change significantly in that time. If the change is only a few months, then new profiles aren’t necessary unless a character changes completely in that time.