Character biography template novel outlines

Unless they want to lose their income, they have no choice. Once the workday is over though, their time is their own. How do they fill this time? Do they have any hobbies or do they prefer to stay home and relax? Does your character have any hidden talents or anything they excel at other than their job? Your character will have a set of general goals, ambitions, and desires in life.

But, this particular story is going to be about one of them. What is their main goal in the context of this script? What drives them to complete it? Examples of motivation could be loverevenge, or pride they want to prove themselves. Some questions are simple, while others make you think deeply. Most of it is just for you, so you understand your character better.

Knowing all about your character helps you write their actions, reactions, decisions, opinions, and emotions more accurately. While every story is different and unique, there are a few other types of main characters in your novel and screenplay, in addition to your protagonist. Each of them will need a character profile. The antagonist is the character or group of characters who are in direct opposition to your protagonist.

They stand in the way of their main story goal and are deliberate in their efforts to stop the protagonist. And yet, they are still central and important to the story. This is someone who knows every single detail and true personality of the main character. To this person, they reveal all of their true thoughts, real intentions, deepest desires, and darkest secrets.

If your character is more isolated or introverted, this could even be some thing rather than someone — perhaps a journal. This is a character whose personality contrasts the protagonist in a significant way. They are the opposite of the protagonist in many areas. This can be a separate character, or the antagonist or anti-hero can double as the foil.

This character serves to highlight the qualities of your protagonist. Before writing the novel or book, know that you will need detailed, in-depth character profiles for each main character of your story. Most of the time, a novel will include just a single protagonist. But, they are not the only important player in the story. There are a handful of others.

Your protagonist and these other characters are your round characters and are character biography template novel outlines important. While these characters have a purpose, they do not need a character profile done up. As your story develops and you flesh out your outline, certain details of your characters may change or evolve. This is fine and normal — just make sure you keep your character building template updated.

In addition to the character template, there are always additional character development questions you can ask. When writing a novel, there is no such thing as knowing too much about your character. The Proust questionnaire was developed by Marcel Proust, with the original manuscript being found inafter his death. These questions are some of the most revealing.

Some people answer these questions for themselves. Some celebrities have answered them publicly as well. They are also used to dive deeper into your character. When interviewing for a potential job, employers sometimes ask odd questions that have nothing to do with the job itself. What they want is to get to know who you are as a person and if you will be a good fit, professionally and otherwise.

The intention is to get to know them better and get an idea of how they behave and operate. You can find a list of interview questions here. Some of them are not of any use to you as they are job-specific, but many will help you get an even deeper look into your character. With Squibler, you can not only write with the help of AI but also organize each section into a separate document and flip through them at your will.

Character biography template novel outlines

With Squibler you can research, ideate, outline, and write your book with the help of AI. Write commands to the AI Smart Writer, and it will generate content for you based on your instructions. You can also create a section for your character profiles to keep them organized and accessible at the same time. Writers use character development sheets to outline and detail various aspects of a fictional character.

A character profile worksheet aids writers in creating well-rounded and believable characters for their stories. You can start by copying and pasting this free template and filling in all the information for your character. Crafting the best possible character for your novel is going to take a decent investment of both time and effort.

Not only does every little detail need recognition but it all needs consistency to match up. Use these steps, templates, and questions to build the strongest, most detailed, and realistic characters you can. A character profile is a detailed description of a fictional character. It includes information like their appearance, personality traits, background, motivations, and role in the story.

Creating a character profile helps you understand your character better. It makes them feel real and consistent throughout your story. Start by thinking about who your characters are and what role they play in your story. Then, jot down details about their appearance, personality, and background. Consider what motivates them and what obstacles they might face.

To make your character profile more realistic, think about how real people behave and what influences them. Give your character strengths and weaknesses, quirks, and flaws. Consider how their past experiences have shaped who they are. Yes, you can change your character biography template novel outlines profile as you write your story. Published in What is Novel Writing?

Search for:. Writing Services. Technical Writing. Show Related Topics. Book Writing. Do You Underline Book Titles? Author Overview. Document Manager. Document Manager Overview. Screenplay Writer. Screenplay Writer Overview. Technical Writer. So you have an awesome story and want to bring it to life with some incredible characters, but organizing all those character ideas in your head can be tough!

To help, here is a very thorough list of more than different character traits you can use to understand more about your character than you do about your friends and family. You can even grab your fillable PDF at the bottom of this article. Readers will sniff out a half-baked character from a mile away, and you better pray they never find a poorly written character in your book.

Luckily, this template will help you avoid both of those pitfalls. Hopefully, this template is, for the most part, straightforward. But there are some options that might give you some pause. Demographics are your basics. This is the sort of information someone could likely glean from a short conversation with your character or what the government might gather from a census.

Physical appearance is what someone would notice about your character if they looked at them. This goes beyond just hair, eye, and skin color, though. More importantly, it allows you to understand how that past affects their actions in your story. You might have a few hiccups, you will very likely have to edit some things or pause to redraft parts of your outline if you use onebut once you start writing typically ideas start to flow and you're able to fill in more of the gaps that were empty before.

Brett S. One of the main drawbacks to detailing too much of your characters at the outset is that you'll feel like there's less room for them to act spontaneously when various situations that you don't yet know about! I'd generally recommend taking a more broad strokes approach to character detailing so that you've got more wiggle room, and don't feel so hemmed in by your original conception of who your characters are.

Let them breathe. Let them react more in the moment as you write. If a backstory shapes a dynamic character, this will define them. How strong is their moral compass? When, specifically, are they willing to compromise their morals? In other words: what does your character want in the story? And why do they want it? Every other answer in the character profile template builds up to this.

I tried to find such kind of list many times. Thank you so much! Creating character is always difficult for me. I imagine tutoriage character but it was not full. With this list Finally I will finish it. Nice I was gonna make one myself but this is great since normally I obsess to the point of procrastination. Hi Gwendolyn, could you drop us an email at service reedy.

With Gmail, our emails often can be found in the Promotions folder. This my be a crazy question, but I am writing a science fiction book, and I already made character profiles for my ow use. But, that being said, would it make sense to also include a section in the book that includes all the main characters profiles. It would serve as a reference in case someone wants to know the characters hair color, birth date, and other details.

It would be a somewhat unusual move — but it's not for me to say if it's wrong. Often, you see books provide family trees and brief histories of the 'world' of the story In almost all cases, readers won't really need to know things like hair color or date of birth. So, I'd think hard before putting a character stat sheet in your book. I don't see why not!

I don't think including one would be a bad move. Definitely not something that would kill your story. Keep in mind that I'm a beginner when it comes to books, so I may not know any better. I'm just saying that in my opinion, I don't think it's a bad move. Are they a college grad? What did they study? Did they leave school at 18 and take up an apprenticeship — that sort of thing.

Hi Sky, if you're still having trouble downloading the template, could you drop us a message at marketing reedsy. A look under the hood of the most popular AI-powered book-writing software for fiction authors. Your complete guide to falling action: what it is, how to use it, and of course plenty of examples. Discover the six essential elements that make up every great story, and learn how you can incorporate them in your writing.

What is man vs. Learn all about this very relatable conflict with examples from books and movies. Killer robots, sentient AI, and more: learn all about the man vs. Reedsy is more than just a blog. These character development questions are the surface-level facts that you can use to start building your character. These are the essential facts to fill out for your character, such as name, birthday, race, gender, etc.

This section should be particularly quick for you to fill out since you most likely know all of these details for your character character biography template novel outlines. These are external questions that will paint a physical description, so your reader can envision what your character looks like. The physical attributes for your character bio template are important because they will also help you write vivid descriptions and actions in your book.

These are the physical appearance questions for the character bio template:. For example, most people who are naturally introverts will always be introverts. But, maybe your introverted character has only recently developed a habit of talking to people on the subway as they commute to work every day. What is their MBTI personality type? It covers everything from mental and physical health, to major surgeries, to allergies.

Or, if anything needs to be added, do so. Make this section as relevant to your character as it needs to be. Is your character mentally tough? What are their mental strengths? In what aspects is your character mentally weak? Is your character making a living doing a job they hate, but attending night school to get their dream job? Everyone has their likes and dislikes, from books to activities to the time of day.

These are the personal preference questions for your character bio template:. The same is true about your character. Is their family close-knit or distant? How has family life shaped the character?