#9 For the Story Writer: Character Profiles

In my last post I briefly mentioned about 'Character Profiles', (in the past) I was a writer that didn't bother to do this. I just wrote the story, and as I went along I created more and more stuff about the character(s), but I quickly realized that no one could relate to my character because they seemed a little two dimensional.. or there was an 'uncanny' likeness to me, (which is what I DON'T want!)

But something that I came to learn at my Creative Writing course at Uni (Yep.. I'm cool like that!) is a very useful tool called a 'Character Profile' and it looks something like this:

I believe we all have come into contact with something like this in our lives-- it's just something to make up the parts of a character that can make them seem 'real' so to speak. So their:

 -Name

-Age

-Gender

-dislikes

-Likes

 -nationality

-Their appearance

-Any other specifics like if they have children or a job, siblings etc

Some writers go as far as even attaching a picture that is closely related to their description.

Because in creating this, it determines how much a reader can relate to them, how likeable they will be etc, and it makes it easier for you as the author to be able to specify particular aspects of your story in accordance to one or more of your characters.

Character profiles are more associated with Novels, seeing as you have enough room to expand and allow for your character to be known by the reader.

It's a good tool none the less, though. See how you like it, test it out.

:)