Knowing Your Character

Using a Character Worksheet

 

            Nearly every book or course on writing fiction will tell you that you need to create realistic characters.  But what actually makes a character realistic?  Is it the vivid description, the quirky little habit that makes the character unique?  

 

            Making Friends

            Think about how you make a new friend.  What is it that makes you want to spend more time with this particular person, rather than that one over there?  Usually, you find similarities between this new person and yourself.  You both like football.  You both like to hike.  You hate phony people.  You’re easy going.   Your character becomes real to your readers through the same process.  You discover that this person is similar to you in some small way.  You are both stamp collectors.  You love cantaloupe and hate brussel sprouts.  Each of these very human attributes makes your character seem like a familiar and real person.   

 

            Consistency Counts

          In addition, every reader is an expert on human behavior.  We have studied it since birth and even if we can’t explain it, we know instantly when a character behaves inconsistently.   Real people are consistent.  Each of us has a unique world view, history of past experience, childhood, and expectation of life.  Those unique experiences shape us into us.  If your character is to be real, he or she must behave with the consistency of a real person.  If she grew up on the streets and has had a very hard life, she is not likely to trust strangers easily and believe whatever she is told.  If he had a middle class childhood and loving parents, a betrayal by a close friend may really shatter him, where our young woman who had grown up rough might simply shrug it off. 

 

            Know Your Character

            Before you start writing, take the time to ‘grow’ your character.  Think about his or her childhood.  What were her parents like?  Supportive?  Demanding?  Abusive?  Involved?  Distanced?  What was his childhood like?  Was he a nerd at school or a sports star?  A quiet bookworm, picked on by the bullies?  A cheerleader?  A mousy girl with glasses who got picked last for everything?  Every single action, thought, and line of dialogue comes straight from your character’s history, so know it before you start.  A character worksheet can really help with this.  Take a look at the one below.  You can copy it to make up your own character worksheet template and use it for all your characters.   The more three dimensional your minor characters are, the stronger your story or novel will be. 

 

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Character Worksheet

 

Gender:

 

Age: 

 

Physical Description:

 

 

Education:

 

 

Religion:

 

Parents:

 

 

Childhood:

 

 

Family life:  

 

 

Love Interest:

 

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Employment:  

 

 

Most influential person in your character’s life and why:

 

 

Favorite relaxing pastime:

 

 

Greatest embarrassment:

 

 

Greatest fear:   

 

 

Favorite food:

 

One thing your character won’t eat:

 

Most important person in the character’s life now and why;

 

 

Favorite color:

 

 

Hidden motivator:

 

 

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            Some of these questions offer trivial information…your character’s favorite color and the one thing he/she won’t eat, for example.  They simply add those ‘velcro’ connections to your readers who share those likes and dislikes.  But knowing what you character fears, be it snakes, spiders, or being crippled, can help you create a person whose responses to situations have depth and consistency. 

 

            Always know your character’s hidden motivator.  This is the deep need that drives each of us, even if we can’t identify it by name.  It may be a need for success, a fear of failure, a need for control, a need for approval.  It underlies your character’s every choice in your story, even if your character is (like most of us) unaware of the nature of that motivator. 

 

            Review your character worksheet before you begin writing and during that first draft, to help you keep your character consistent all the way through your piece.  Yes, characters grow and change during a story and certainly during a novel length story, but this is where they began.  You need to know them well before you put them out on your stage. 

 

            Remember…readers are experts.  If you don’t know your character well, they’ll see someone made out of cardboard, not someone to care about.