One of the foundational elements of story is the character arc. A character arc is the transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story. The character transforms from one sort of person and gradually becomes a different sort of person in response to the developments in the story. The character arc is important because this change will form the spine of your story – the thread that reveals what your book is truly about. But tracking all the information needed to make dynamic fully formed characters is tough without a resource like a character profile planner?
When beginning a new story, I give special importance to establishing my main characters, both the protagonist and antagonist, early on. This allows their unique character roles and personalities to be intricately woven into the story elements. As the narrative unfolds, I slowly bring in other main characters, the ones with supporting roles and most important to the story, adding depth to the plot. And I do this with a tracker to keep all my characters in line, ready to be called upon when needed.
Tracking All those Characters
To make fictional characters more dynamic and engaging, it’s important to explore their traits, personality, and motivations, revealing their true essence, but keeping track of that information can be a real hassle. Managing a single character is a piece of cake. But assuming you’re writing a novel and have 12 to 20 characters to track, that’s another story. Like, for example, I totally used three different names for the same character in my first draft. Trying to recall all the details like age, eye color, hair color, backstory, and the various obstacles they’ll face is daunting. Personally, I’ve made so many revisions to my novel I can’t recall if the protagonist wants her ex-boyfriend or despises him. Hmm.
Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, said, “A character has to be ignorant of the future, unsure about the past, and not at all sure what he’s supposed to be doing.” So, someone must know it all, and that someone is you.
Juggling multiple characters in a novel can be tough, especially for newbies. As a book coach and developmental editor, I’ve seen how a good character profile can really help the writer.
The director who adapted the book Caste into the movie Origin, Ava DuVernay, relies on an emotional map to ensure clarity about “where the characters are, where they’re going and where they’ve been.” I love this idea of a map to help keep track of your characters.
Creating Dynamic, Memorable Characters with a Character Profile Planner
The rest of this article is dedicated to the things we should know about our characters as we write, and some questions to ask to make them the most memorable characters for your readers. To make characters more dynamic and engaging, it’s important to explore their traits, personality, and motivations, revealing their true essence. Need to figure out how your main character will respond to a new obstacle? The tracker will have the answer. You can think of it as a graphic organizer or a character arc blueprint.
I created a downloadable character profile template to plan and then track your characters’ roles and personalities. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the link.
First things first: Let’s jump in and make characters that will totally hook your readers. There are three sections below, each broken into subcategories and listed in the accompanying PDF Character Template. The sections are labeled Character Traits, character personalities, character motivations. For purposes of this article, I’ve created two characters as examples (Seraphina and Lucien) – you’ll see that I alternate their use from section to section below.
Section 1: Character Traits
When we talk about character traits, we’re referring to the fundamental building blocks that make up who they are. These traits encompass both physical, family, and life-event attributes, providing a high-level overview of your characters. While it’s tempting to dive deep into every nuance, high-level traits should be enough to form a solid foundation. We’ll explore their depth later through personality and motivations.
- Basic Information
Your character profile needs some basic info to get started. It includes essential details that are often referenced throughout your story.
Tip: Include basic information such as name, age (alt: birth date), gender, occupation, and relationship status (alt: marital status). This helps in keeping track of your characters’ essential details.
Example: Character #1 – Lucien Blackwood, age 35, male, full head of black curls, detective who must prove his worth.
- Physical Appearance
While I’m not a fan of a lot of physical traits in a book (I prefer to empower the reader to envision what the characters look like on their own), some is certainly needed and preferred. The way your characters look is what your readers will “see” first. It’s super important to be consistent and clear about these traits so your readers don’t get confused down the line.
Tip: Note down detailed descriptions of each character’s physical traits, such as height, hair color, eye color, and distinguishing features. Note that physical traits are just the tip of the ice-burg and should never substitute for who they truly are and how they think.
Example: Use a character profile template that includes fields for these details to ensure consistency throughout your novel. For instance, character #2 – Seraphina Evergreen might be described as an abnormally tall woman with soft green eyes and fiery red hair, often wearing emerald earrings her grandmother had given her on her 21st birthday. The bit about the earrings would be considered a significant life event if, for instance, the doctors gave her a slim chance to live that long.
- Relationships
Understanding the dynamics and interactions within your story becomes easier when you take the time to map out your character’s relationships. A supporting character could fall into several categories, the most important being an ally (a friend, supportive character), opponent (a foe, working against the protagonist), false ally (appears to be supportive but is not), or false opponent (appears to be working against the protagonist but is actually supportive).
Tip: Map out your character’s relationships with other characters, noting any familial ties, marital status, friendships, or conflicts.
Example: Lucien Blackwood might have a complicated relationship with his partner, who is also his love interest (maybe a false ally?), and a strained relationship with his estranged brother (maybe a false opponent?).
- Background and History
The background and history of your characters provide context and depth. This is where you start to flesh out who they are and why they behave the way they do.
Tip: Write a brief backstory for each character, including their place of birth, family background, and significant life events.
Example: Seraphina Evergreen might have grown up in a small town, faced early loss with her parents’ death, and moved to the city to pursue a career in law.
Section 2: Character Personality
Once you’ve got the basics down for your characters, it’s time to dig into their personalities. This part considers who your characters really are, their thoughts, emotions, and actions. It’s super important to make relatable, unforgettable, while believable characters. How do you do that? Through their unforgettable personalities.
- Core Character Personality Traits
Understanding your character’s core personality traits helps to predict how they will react in different situations. These traits define who they are at their core. Think Walter White (Breaking Bad) who’s own pride gets in his way of making good decisions or Hannibal Lechter’s (The Silence of the Lambs) quiet intellectualism and his understanding of psychological pain.
Tip: Use personality frameworks like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to help define core traits, such as whether they are introverted or extroverted, optimistic or pessimistic, etc.
Example: Seraphina Evergreen might be an INTJ, indicating she is imaginative yet decisive, ambitious but private, curious yet focused.
- Strengths and Weaknesses
Realistic Characters have both strengths and weaknesses. These qualities make characters more relatable and human.
Tip: List each character’s strengths and weaknesses to create a balanced and realistic profile. These may include skills or lack thereof.
Example: For every strength, identify a corresponding weakness. For instance, Lucien Blackwood’s strength might be his dedication and strong moral compass, but his weakness could be his tendency to be overly stubborn and inflexible – meaning he could be missing out on important information.
- Likes and Dislikes
Adding your character’s preferences makes them more interesting and relatable. I don’t mean to repeat myself, but it’ll take some digging to find the one thing that sets each character apart from all the others – that make them memorable thing.
Tip: Remember to include your character’s preferences, like their go-to foods, hobbies, and pet peeves. Adding pet peeves to your characters is a great way to make them more relatable, as these annoyances can unexpectedly disrupt their lives and throw them off balance – making them more interesting.
Example: Seraphina Evergreen might love rock music and reading detective novels, but she dislikes listening to rock music with others and she wants to keep her novel passion a secret. Integrate these preferences into scenes to make characters more vivid and lifelike.
- Behavioral Quirks
Quirks are the little habits or idiosyncrasies that make your characters unique and memorable.
Tip: Use these quirks consistently to reinforce character identity and make your character stand out, such as biting their nails when nervous (although that is an overused one) or always performing some ritual before they eat.
Example: Lucien Blackwood might have a habit of tapping his pen when deep in thought, or Seraphina Evergreen might always carry a small notebook for jotting down her ideas. She might take it out at all the wrong times giving her a bad rep with her friends.
- Character Development Questions
If you google “character development questions” or “character interviews,” you’ll come across many lists of 100’s of questions. Do you need to answer 100’s of personal questions to uncover compelling characters? Absolutely not. But you do need to answer somewhere between a dozen or two to get to know them better. At that point your writerly juices should be flowing, and you may find your character telling you some interesting stuff about themselves.
One of my clients turned me on to the Marcel Proust Questionnaire (MPQ). (Thanks Buddy!) What I like about the questionnaire is that it has some variations of the usual questions like, what do you fear? Or what do you regret? Here are some examples from the MPQ:
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
How would you like to die?
What is your motto?
See what I mean. They are not your usual questions. As a little bonus I attached the MPQ here.
Section 3: Motivations
Your characters’ actions are driven by their motivations. Knowing what your characters want and why is key to making a good story. This section gets into your characters’ goals, conflicts, fears, and the motivations that come from their backstory.
- Goals and Aspirations
Figuring out what your character wants is the first step in understanding what makes them tick. These goals guide and give meaning to our characters’ actions.
Tip: Clearly define each character’s short-term and long-term goals. Knowing what drives them will shape their actions and decisions.
Example: Don’t forget to include these goals in your character profiles and use them when plotting scenes and character arcs. Let’s say Lucien Blackwood’s short-term goal is to crack the case (and external goal), and his long-term goal is to redeem himself as a detective (internal goal). This makes cracking the case more important.
- Internal and External Conflicts
Without conflicts, the plot would be dull, and your characters wouldn’t grow. Whether internal, residing within the character’s mind and heart, or external, involving interactions between characters or with outside forces, these details contribute to the overall narrative.
Tip: Take note of the internal struggles (leading to character growth) and external obstacles your characters encounter (moving the plot forward).
Example: Write a concise summary for each conflict in your character tracker to guarantee their inclusion in the story. For instance, Seraphina Evergreen might struggle with her fear of failure (internal conflict) while facing opposition from a corrupt colleague (external conflict) who may blame her for their failing company exacerbating her fear of failure.
- Fears and Insecurities
By understanding your character’s fears and insecurities, you can bring more depth to their personality and make their actions more significant.
Tip: Incorporating these fears into key scenes will effectively showcase character growth and vulnerability.
Example: Consider Lucien Blackwood, who may harbor a deep-seated fear of betrayal as a result of something that happened in his past, which profoundly impacts his interactions with people now.
- Motivational Backstory
A well-crafted backstory provides insight into your character’s motivations and goals, helping to explain their actions and decisions. By adding depth and consistency, their actions become more meaningful and believable.
Tip: Create a detailed backstory that sheds light on your character’s unique motivations and goals.
Example: Establish a link between their past and present motivations to craft a cohesive and captivating narrative. One possible reason for Seraphina Evergreen’s determination to become a top lawyer could be a childhood incident where she witnessed an injustice and felt helpless to fix it.
Bringing It All Together: The Character Profile Template
It’s time to combine all the important aspects of creating a character profile into a comprehensive template. The Character Profile Template is designed as a one-page fillable PDF, simplifying the organization and referencing of character information. Get your free Character Profile Template here. When you do, you’ll be signing up for my biweekly newsletter with articles like this. If you’re already signed up for my newsletter and still want the character profile template, drop me an email at nancy@secondactbookcoaching.com and I’ll send it to you.
Billy Wilder (writer and director) said “Just have good characters and good scenes and something that plays.” Easier said than done. By creating a well-organized character profile, you can elevate your writing process, ensuring that your characters are both consistent and memorable. Utilize these tips and tools to breathe life into your characters and maintain their trajectory throughout your novel.
As you develop your characters, remember that their backstory and motivations form the foundation of every well-told story. Ensure that your character traits are broad yet significant, and consistently link their actions and choices to their fundamental motivations and thus to your plot.
Want help with your next novel? Check out my WRITE A BOOK page to review my process or ask a question about your work in progress.
If you missed it, grab the free Character Profile Template and start building your character arc blueprint today!
For more insights on character development, check out Lisa Cron’s books, Wired for Story and Story Genius. Two of my favorite books that dive deep into the character/reader connection.
Nancy is a book coach and developmental editor working with writers of fiction, narrative memoir, and transformational business nonfiction.