When it comes to making character profiles, did your insides curdle? Did you rage, in all your pantsing glory, raging that the writing gods have no call to demand such order to your life?
Yeah. Same.
So I have no battle to pick with pantsers because in many ways that is how I start a story. Sometimes I go full lack-of-pants and wing it and it seems brilliant. Other times I fizzle. I forget all about who did what and where and when. It is so frustrating.
In a previous blog, we talked about outlines. Now let’s get into the nitty gritty: character profiles.
So what is a character profile?
If you work in marketing/UX/sales, you’ll know about personas. Imagining your perfect customer. In some ways you can do it for your books too with character profiles. So for this lesson, let’s imagine a persona as a profile. You get to be the FBI agent, like in Criminal Minds, and you profile the hell out of your character till you can get in their head.
Surprisingly, it can be pretty fun to do. It takes some work and you’ll likely go over each character profile a million times or two, but you’ll learn more about your characters. Now I don’t think you should know everything, because characters can and will surprise you (in that mystical process they have within your mind), but if you know at least where they are coming from, it gets easier to develop them in a well-rounded way.
Look at building a character profile as taking the bare bones of a skeleton, and being Frankenstein and building your creature out of parts. You can create characters people believe in, emphasize with, love or hate, and above all, they believe they are real to them in the course of your story.
Build Your Character Profiles Step by Step
Shall we build a character profile? I’ll explain them as we go to show you what I mean.
Let’s start with the basics:
- Name. Do not get all fancy here, especially if you aren’t a philologist. Looking at you, fantasy writers. We all have a tendency to overdo it with names, to make them special. Start simple and don’t worry if it isn’t ‘right’ yet. Let’s call your character Jeff or Leia. Either way. Simple. Fast. If gender is important, this is your way of defining it in your mind. If gender isn’t important, go for gender-neutral.
- Age. Special note about Things I am oOver: sixteen-year-olds who are world-weary and smarter than everyone else. Okay? But back to your story. Let’s just settle for an age you want to write. If you can’t decide, go for a range. Give yourself some wiggle room.
- Appearance. Now this can be fun and infuriating. Do not get stuck on semantics, on identity. Make sure if you are writing their appearance you don’t make them perfect (unless that’s the point). The world has seen enough perfect people. Add quirks to their looks. How do they dress? Carry themselves? Do they slump because they feel too tall and are conscious of it? Do they limp and why? Is their hair cut a way for a reason? What of their background? Why do they look the way they do if they have defining characteristics; is it just birth or something else?
- Background. This is your brief history. Who are they before they came to your story? Start at their infancy and be brief. What is their profession, their training, their family life? Just be brief with this one. You’ll get into the backstory soon.
My Kingdom for Personality aka Make It Obvious in Your Character Profile
Seriously. My biggest peeve with many characters is if they are a wet blanket. Yes, they lay on the story. They can be moved and do things, but they drag. A major issue I have had with some books has been characters who have no personality as an excuse for first person POV (which for me is annoying). Or their traits are too irritating to ignore.
Build your character profiles to have your characters having emotions, beliefs, rigid boundaries and flexible ones, lusts, desires, fears.
Write down:
- What do they fear?
- What do they desire?
- What do they believe?
- What is one thing they will never do?
- What is one thing they always do?
Personality is often built in actions but in quirks too. Yes, they are a big tough vampire, but gosh, they are an amazing seamstress too with an acid tongue about fashion choices of mortals. And they don’t know when to shut up about it. See? Simple things. You won’t know 100% what your character’s personality is like until you write them out in more detail, when you weave them into a story, but you can give yourself some hints early on.
What motivates your character?
Motivations and goals move your story. So get them clear for each character and store them in your character profile. Your villain’s motivation will often be in opposition to your hero (if you are writing that sort of arc), and your lead character can change as they go along. You can decide if you want to follow classic themes when you decide on what is motivating your character.
Very basic examples of motivation: money, love, sex, domination, power, family, peace
Your characters’ ambitions will be telling and will help carry your story along because they can come into endless obstacles. By getting an idea of what those are, your story can build itself better and stronger.
Relationships are Important
I’ve only read a handful of books where a character has no relationships that matter and man. Boring.
We are a social species, even when we don’t want to be. Our relationships influence us in strange ways that can be simple and complex all at once. Think about your own life. Even if you dislike people and are a hermit, you have had relationships with people and creatures of all kinds. Even a tree can be a relationship.
Relationships you can outline are:
- Family: Who is their family? This doesn’t mean blood relatives but who do they consider their family? Why? How do they feel about those they feel are family? What is something that brings conflict between them?
- Friends: How tight is their circle? How many friends do they have and who are they? How important are they to the character and your story? How do they feel about them? What is something that brings conflict between them?
- Allies: Political, war, business, casual meetings. Allies can appear in tiny spaces for heartbeats but they have a chance to make a change to your story. How could an ally your character meets change the trajectory of your story?
- Enemies: Arguably the most fun to decide on. Does this character have enemies? It doesn’t matter how big or small their feud is, it can be important and define your character. Is your character even aware of their enemies yet? There is something to be said for your character being in the dark while others plan for their demise.
Backstory is Blessing and you can start it in the Character Profiles
I love a good backstory. You should build one for every major character you have. I alluded to it before but in backstory you can find your best pieces of a character.
You don’t have to go into huge Tolkien levels of detail (but do so if you want). You can write a brief backstory or if you like you can write a short story about your character. This can get some nitty gritty details out.
Write defining moments for them. Did they have parents or not? Who raised them and who was there for them? Did they get embarrassed in school at five years? Did they wet themselves facing down a dragon at age sixteen? Why did they end up here, where you are beginning?
Think of significant events in your life and realize that you can have your characters have similar experiences. Their traumas, experiences, big events… all of those will define your character. Be as detailed as you want but do not get tied up in backstory. That can lead to endless exposition and let’s not do that. That’s dull.
Build Your Character Arc
Regardless of which character you are building a character profile for, you should build an arc. In much of modern literature, all characters take a personal journey. You can build it for every level of character but keep most of your focus on your main and secondary characters. You don’t want to build a huge arc for the waiter they meet for two paragraphs and never again. That can be for another story. In every compelling story, characters undergo a journey of growth, change, or transformation known as a character arc.
Here’s an example of an arc:
- Introduction: introduce your character and who they ar e, how they are living, and what they want.
- Call to Adventure: have the inciting incident happen where it calls them to action. What is it? How does this mark the beginning of their journey, what path does it set them on?
- The Ordeal: The character meets obstacles and challenges that force them to confront their own internal struggles, their fears, their insecurities. The challenges will force them to confront who they are and where they are going, who they are to become.
- The Transformation: The character undergoes an transformation, both internally and externally. This will be caused by the struggles they are undergoing. They must overcome their past, the insecurity and fear, and move past it. This can show in hidden talents, unexpected friendships and relationships, all to show an emerging hero/ine.
- The Return: Your character returns to a starting point having learned lessons and grown. They may be so changed that they no longer fear the unknown or they have become someone who vastly outclasses their situation.
Do I have to build character profiles?
Well, no. You don’t. What you need is entirely up to you and your process, which is independent of anyone else’s. What I do doesn’t mean it works for you. The joy of writing is that no one can tell you what to do and the agony of writing is that no one can tell you what to do.
Fret not, dear writer. If you read all this and went “oh good heavens I think not” then just write how you always write. Your process might even look different than this. This is rudimentary and is a lesson I give most people who ask how to start writing.
The important point here is that, when all is said and done, it is your characters who are living and breathing life into your story. Their actions, reactions, and missteps keep your plot going. It isn’t the end goal you have set or the big theme you think should be attached. Your characters are what will move people.
Profiles just help you get a feel for them and set in some concrete details. There is nothing worse than writing a full novel out, editing and publishing proudly, only for a reader to point out that you, and your editor/agent, missed completely that their eyes are green, not brown, because that is what you wrote in the beginning. Yikes. Hands up if that’s happened to you.
Try it Out
Try writing out some character profiles. Keep them as short or long as you need, and then start working on your story. If all you have are three lines of dialogue that encompass who your character is, you go with that. Your character profile doesn’t have to be written before a story though; you can jot down those notes as you create the aspects of your character. That’s how sometimes I do it myself, because I often don’t know who is coming down the line until I’m knee deep in a story.
So, your action items from all this? Write down 2 character profiles: your protagonist and your antagonist. Do this before you write, just to try it out, or if you have written something out, do it now. Either way, see if you can find the details you really didn’t see coming and which ones you know you need. Let me know how it goes!