Character Work Sheet

· by · in Character Development. ·

Section A :: The First Impressions

  • Name:
  • Age:
  • Occupation:
  • Living Arrangements:
  • Who does this character look like?
  • Height:
  • Eye Color:
  • Hair Color:
  • Distinguishing Features:

Section B :: The Person Inside

  • His/Her Talents and Good Qualities:
  • His/Her Flaws:
  • What Does S/he Want?

Section C :: The Reason They’re Here

  • His/Her Role in the Story:
  • Where was the character before the events of the story? What was s/he doing?
  • In the character’s own words, how do they feel about the main conflict in the story?
  • In the character’s own words, what is their opinion about (character)?

Important Notes

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Section A: Pretty self-explanatory. Having an actor/actress/real-life person in mind really helps me to see the character as a person instead of words on a page.Sometimes, I’ll add an astrology sign in there, but oftentimes I find it too restricting, so I haven’t added it here.

Section B: A basic rundown of their important personality traits. Going a little more in depth here. As far as their flaws go, I tend to pick and choose from the Seven Deadly Sins. Everyone has a vice! And likewise, I choose one or two of the Seven Heavenly Virtues for their good quality traits. Try to find one trait to accentuate above the others.

Section C: The character’s relationship to your story and the other characters. This should be the section you spend the most time on, since it will directly affect the story you’re writing. The answers you put in here are subject to change depending on how organic your writing process is, but I find these particular questions essential to knowing my character. Their role in the story can be as simple as “MC” or “Main Bad Guy” to a detailed answer in paragraph form.

And your notes. Sometimes this sections runs a few pages as the story progresses and exposes more of the character’s quirks, tastes, other back story, feelings, street address, etc.

I’ve provided a downloadable version of this that you can edit and print out to your heart’s content.

Download the Character Worksheet

2 responses to “Character Work Sheet”

    • Hope it’s useful! There’s a million other character worksheets out there but I always found them to contain so many irrelevant questions that are hardly pertinent to the character’s role in the story. Hopefully this one isn’t too overwhelming. I see characters as a WIP even until the very last page of the story, and the worksheet should be as equally dynamic!

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