If you’re starting to develop characters for your novel, creating character profiles can be extremely helpful.
Character profiles contain background information about characters and can help you develop a clear picture of who your characters are.
In this article, we look deeper into how to write a character profile.
1. Start with their role in the story
To avoid falling into the trap of creating too many characters in a story, start by determining what role the character will have in the story. They can have an indirect role in the plot or a direct role in it.
Indirect role is when the character has a certain connection with the protagonist (familial relationship, a friend, or a significant other/love interest). In this case, their role is going to be involved more with the protagonist’s character’s arc or emotional wellbeing. They can put obstacles in the path of the protagonist while they are trying to resolve the main plot, or they can also help them.
Direct role is when the plot is also directly related to the character in some way. For example, the protagonist is given a job project that is very difficult, and their coworker, who is meant to help them and work together with them, is causing more problems instead. The characters with a direct role in the plot are able to have an impact on the outcome. For example, in a mystery whodunit novel, all of the suspects are characters with a direct role.
It goes without saying that the characters with a direct role in the plot are always major characters. The characters with an indirect role in the plot are most often minor characters, but depending on their relationship with the protagonist, they can also be major characters.
2. Continue with physical appearance
In the writing process, it’s going to be very easy to get a character’s physical trait wrong (i.e. like hair color and eye color, height, weight, etc.). This includes the protagonist as well. So, having most characters’ physical characteristics on hand will be helpful.
You can create this in two ways. First way is to write these out before you start the story (even if you do not remember all of the details during the writing process, you can use them in the editing process to double-check that each character’s physical traits are correct). The other way to do it is to make a sheet for each character as you introduce them while writing the story, and annotate in the sheet each time you introduce some bits of information for the character’s physical appearance.
3. Add their most notable personality traits
In order to give each character a voice (including the protagonist), you need to know their personalities really well to be able to make each character sound unique. For example, if you are writing a dual or multiple point of view story (where the narration is from two or more character’s perspectives), there needs to be a difference in the narrative voice. And it doesn’t really matter whether you are using first or third person point of view, even in third person point of view, the narration should sound differently for each character.
So, make sure that you have a few basic personality traits noted down (introverted, extroverted, quiet, loud, speaks too much, speaks too little, loses track of time and their thoughts, etc.). One character might be easy to get riled up, another character might not. One character is sweet and kind to everyone, while another one is abrasive and arrogant.
4. Add a short or long backstory
It’s worth noting that personality and backstory of the characters go hand in hand. For example, if a person is loud and talks too much, why are they that way? Did they grow up in a house full of kids and they felt they needed to be loud and talk too much to get their parents to notice them?
If a person is quiet and subdued, why is that so? Are they a teenager suffering through first heartbreak? Did the character lose a person they loved (recently or a long time ago)?
What was their childhood like, and how did it affect them? Why do they have those personality traits?
Additionally, the protagonist (and the major characters) have history and backstory that will dictate their motivation during the course of the story. For example, a detective who failed to solve an important case and save the life of a little girl (who was kidnapped and subsequently killed because the detective did not catch the killer in time), will be motivated to solve the current murder and find the murderer before the murderer has time to kill or harm another victim.
Or, in a romantic comedy, one character always has heartbreak in their (recent or far) past that makes them unwilling to fall in love again.
5. Likes, needs, wants, dislikes, skills, and weaknesses
To round up the characters well, you need to know things that they like or dislike – about themselves, about the world in general, about their job, about their relationships. You also should keep in mind what food they like, what they like to wear and use (and why), and how they like to go about their day.
Moving on to wants and needs: How happy are the characters with the life they are currently living? How do they feel about their job and relationship? Are they married with kids and happy/unhappy about it? How far are they willing to go to change things? What does the character need (that they are not aware of) to be truly happy?
Skills and weaknesses: each character should have a strength – a skill that they are really good at, and some other skills with various degrees of being good at. Then they should have weaknesses. These can often be done in such a way that will make the character intriguing or ironic. For example, a person that can fly (has a superpower) is unable to swim (unable to do a regular thing most humans can). Or, a person who is picky about their food, doesn’t know how to cook.
6. Determine their character’s arc
A character’s arc is determining where the character is at the beginning of the story, emotionally speaking, and where they end up at the end of the novel.
It goes without saying that minor characters rarely get to have enough page-time in the story or novel to get a character’s arc. The character’s arcs are reserved for the protagonist and the major characters. The major characters (both those that have a direct and indirect role in the plot) will be affected by what happens in the course of the story.
The characters with a direct role in the plot are directly impacted, while the characters that are indirectly involved in the plot are impacted through the protagonist and the way their relationship with the protagonist changes and develops over the course of the story.
To determine the character’s (emotional) arc, try the following process:
1) Write where the character is emotionally in the beginning of the story.
2) Determine what happens that challenges them emotionally and how it challenges them.
3) Have the character emotionally resist the challenge.
4) Present them further challenges that cause conflict (inner conflict or conflict with other characters).
5) Determine what happens that leads them to a moment of an epiphany that perpetually changes where they stand emotionally.
Knowing this beforehand will help you to write a tighter first draft of the story. Keep in mind that as you write the story and as it unfolds, the nature of the character’s arc might change, especially if you change the backstory/personality or any other character traits during the writing process.
The following articles might also be useful:
How to Write a Three-Dimensional Character
How to Describe a Shocked Character