PLEASE, IF YOU USE THIS, POST A REVIEW! I WOULD APPRECIATE IT.
Writers block. We all have it. This is just one of my methods of dealing with it. This full, detailed character profile template that I've put together here asks plenty of those questions that you just don't think of sometimes. It's full of details that may just spark that piece of creativity in your mind that you've been looking for. It has helped me MANY times, and I hope that it does the same for you. Enjoy :)
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1.) Character's Full Name:
Nickname:
Reason:
2.) Character's Physical Appearance:
Age:
Eye Color:
Hair Color:
Fur Colors (if any):
Bodily attributes/peculiarities (scales, spikes, tail, any disfigurement):
Hair Type:
Weight:
Height:
Type of body/build:
Skin Tone:
Shape of Face:
Predominate feature:
Is he/she healthy?
3.) Character's Favorites:
Color:
Music:
Food:
Literature:
Leisure actiivity:
4.) Character's Background:
Birthday:
Sign:
Hometown:
Type of Childhood:
First Memory:
Most important childhood event that still effects him/her:
Education:
Finances:
Bad Habits:
Good Habits:
Hobbies:
Does s/he Drink? If so, how much?
Does s/he Smoke? If so, how much?
Does s/he Gamble? If so, how much?
Past/Secrets on the character:
Secrets that could be important in the future:
5.) Character's Family:
Mother:
Relationship with her:
Father:
Relationship with him:
Siblings:
How many:
Relationship with him/her/them:
Birth Order:
Your Character's Children:
How many:
Birth Order:
Children of your character's siblings:
6.) Character's Attitude:
General mood type:
Most at ease when:
Ill at ease when:
Priorities:
Philosophy:
7.) Character's Personality:
Greatest source of strength in the character's personality (whether s/he sees it as such or not):
Greatest source of weakness in the character's personality (whether s/he sees it as such or not):
Character's soft spot:
Is this soft spot obvious to others?
If not, how does s/he hide it?
Biggest Vulnerability:
8.) Character Traits:
Optimist or Pessimist:
Why?
Introvert or extrovert:
Why?
Drives and Motivations:
Talents:
Special powers/abilities:
Extremely skilled at:
Extremely unskilled at:
Good Characteristics:
Character Flaws:
Mannerisms:
Peculiarities:
Biggest Regret:
Minor Regrets:
Biggest Accomplishment:
Minor Accomplishments:
Character's Darkest secret:
Does anyone else know?
If yes, did this character tell them? Or did they figure it out for themselves, and if so, how?
9.) Character's Self-Perception:
One word CHARACTER would use do describe him/herself:
One paragraph description of how CHARACTER would describe him/herself:
What does CHARACTER consider his/her BEST physical characteristics:
What does CHARACTER consider his/her WORST physical characteristics:
Are these realistic assessments?
How CHARACTER thinks others perceive him/her:
What four things does CHARACTER most like to change about him/herself:
(#1 being most important, #2 being second most, etc;)
1.)
2.)
3.)
4.)
Why?
If change #1 was made, would the character be happy as s/he thinks?
If not, why not?
10.) Character's Interrelation with others:
How does character relate to others:
How is s/he perceived by...
Strangers:
Friends (if any):
Wife/Husband/Lover (if any):
What does your character think about...
Stranger:
Friends (if any):
Wife/Husband/Lover (if any):
What do family/friends like most about character?
What do family/friends like least about character?
11.) Character's Goals:
Immediate goals:
Long Range goals:
How does character plan to accomplish these goals:
How will character be affected:
12.) Character's reaction to Problems/Crisis:
How character reacts in a crisis:
How character faces problems:
Kinds of problems character usually runs into:
How character reacts to NEW problems:
How character reacts to change:
13.) General Information:
Favorite Clothing:
Least Favorite Clothing:
Why?
Character's Jewlery (if any):
Other accessories:
Where does character live:
Where does character WANT to live:
Spending habits (frugal, spendthrift, etc):
Why?
What does s/he do too much of?
What does s/he do too little of?
Most prized possessions:
Why?
14.) Character's Feelings:
Person that character secretly admires:
Why?
Person that character is most influenced by:
Why?
Most important person in the character's life before the story starts:
Why?
15.) Plot Devices:
How does this character spend the week before the story starts:
How does this character feel/interact about the main plot device of your story (ex: murder, romance, mystery, war, magic):
What do you believe would be the perfect ending to your story:
Main conflict in your character's life that they should overcome before the end of your story:
Life changing decisions that your character may encounter along the way:
How does he/she react to those decisions?
I may use this in the future! It's really good, very detailed, but not exhaustingly long. The only problem is, how can I review something like this? (One thing: You use he/she, which is fine, but 'they' is becoming an acceptable singular/neutral pronoun. Just putting that out there). 
I love this character profile! I use profiles with every character I come up with, and when I first saw this, I was just starting to get into character profiling.
It is a bit lengthy, though. Did you know that when you copied and pasted it, it ended up being about 14 pages long?
Of course, I did end up cutting a few of the questions to fit my needs.
My favorite question was "Reason for Nickname." I never found a profile that asked that. Why is the character's nickname his/her nickname? Nobody ever wonders that.
I would include gender, though. You could have a person with the name Leslie or Riley or something, and it could be a girl or a boy.
I really love this, like REALLY love it. Thank you for posting it!
Hey Enigma!
Thanks for posting the request. This is an usual kind of a thing I've got to review so this should be fun. I just hope I'm of some help.
First of all when you mentioned Sign in Background what kind of a sign you meant? Was it sign as in signature or sign as in zodiac sign? Because if it's zodiac sign then only it makes sense to keep it under Background. Another thing is that some people don't use the word sign for their zodiac sign and more familiar with just the term zodiac. So you should mention zodiac.
Recently, I had started with a novel and it was a bit complicated one. I didn't have much idea about the characters other than the important ones and I really believe that developing the minor characters is also really imported in edition to the major ones. So I started Googling u[ character questionnaires and they were really helpful. Some of the questions were similar like yours but certain questions are really different from those questionnaires and in addition they are really simple and important. For example, I didn't find many questionnaires asking the character's relationship with his/her family which, I think, really important. So this is one question bank I really liked. It's easy and would let me understand my character completely.
Besides that I also liked character's traits and goals. These were also some important questions but many of the questionnaires mostly miss them out.From the questionnaires I've mostly read some of them have really absurd questions with which I can't really associate my characters. I mean, they sound totally useless to me.
My main critique to you would actually be that you can cut down on some questions. They are all logical but I still feel that without some this questionnaire would do just fine. Those questions are just making it lengthy. And that brings me to another point-it is too long. Some questionnaires are really long, but I'd suggest you to cut down on some questions to make it normal size wise so it's more user friendly. For example, I don't think we really need to know 'the person that the character really admires'. You see? It's maybe important but not every person would admire someone so this is not really an important question, at least not to me. But it's up to you and the users. They can definitely leave out a question if they want to, right?
The most amazing thing in this questionnaire was your Character Devices. Not many people think of such questions when they should. Like these questions didn't crop into my mind also when they are so important to my characters-even though I had planned but I didn't really get down to writing them. Answering them really gives me a clearer perspective of my characters so thanks for that.
Maybe you could divide the questionnaire into two parts. Like one for personal details and the other for general details? Sorry I don't know what kind of division should you use but I really think it's a good idea to group it into two. It might help the writers even more.
Right now I've put my novel on hold and I won't be coming back to it for at least another three months, but when I will I'll make sure to use this questionnaire instead of using the ones I Googled up. Somehow I find these questions much more useful. And if I have to rate this on the scale of 10, I'll give it full because I really have a feeling that whoever uses this will reap benefits.
Good work done! Sorry for blabbering!
Hrmm, this is a very, very detailed character template. I think some of it is very valuable, and other parts of it are merely ways to procrastinate the actual writing.
Physical description, for example, is only valuable if it impacts the character's personality in a meaningful way. In this case, you can fit the physical descriptions in the all important "why" question that you included in the template.
3,4, and 5 could be derived in the very important 6,7,8,9,10, and 14. I think that those are all essential to think about and very helpful in telling your story. I would focus my effort on those.
Anyhow, great job on the comprehensiveness of the template. I think it could do with a little streamlining, but anyone who actually can answer all of these questions, will have a very well thought out character.
At the same time, character building is about more than merely knowing your character well, it's about having a character worth knowing about. I have always wanted to see a character template that kind of forces a reader to create character quirks and interestingness.
This was really good. It helped me alot. Thanks! : ) I've had writers block for a week now.
Wow, this is wonderful! Haha. Thank you so much for this. I've always loved the idea of getting to know your characters and creating a whole background for them, even if it isn't mentioned in the actual story. I will definitely try this tomorrow.
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