In-depth character sheet template.
Some people create characters on the fly, they add life and passion to their characters with no help but their imagination. Sadly not all of us are like that. I personally need some help, I need to plan and I need inspiration.
When you start on a character it can be hard to come up with the first idea, for this, I would use a theme, a color, a word, perhaps even a trait or hobby and I base my characters around this one thing, slowly fleshing them out into something more real, more relatable.
The character sheet I'll be sharing is one I compiled over a period of time, it's not remotely complete and I'll jump back in here every now and then just to add more or change up a few things.
a tip: don't just fill in, flesh out.
what I mean by this is try not to simply fill in the sheet, but also give reasons for your answer, instead of simply writing down what nickname your character may have, explain it, who gave it to them, do they remember the memory of when they got it? what is the memory? what does the nickname mean? who uses it? why only them?.
What a lot of people fail to realize is that your character isn't just there a plot tool. A lot of the details you will fill out on the character sheet are useless to the plot, and it's not information you will ever 'tell' your readers, but then what use is it? say your characters are all having lunch, they're chatting and eating and having the time of their lives. now your MC nibbles on her minimal food, she covers her mouth when she talks, she finishes every crumb on her plate while the others have plenty leftover from their big meals, and she cleans up and packs her side neatly before leaving. all this is useless information but it gives your character depth, you won't write this in excruciating detail. it will more than likely just be small comments throughout the main dialogue or scene. then another scene pops up, MC and friend walk past a vendor, MC buys a small snack, something cheap compared to friends, once again she nibbles, she covers her mouth and she throws the packaging in the trash. This shows habits and leaves your readers to speculate. it's not a notable amount of words. just small actions that barely make a dent in a chapter but it allows readers to figure out your character for themselves by nothing of these things. Readers are more likely to love a character they figure out themselves than one they are told about.
Back when I first started making characters, I had a lot of trouble fleshing them out and making them feel real. I went from character sheet to character sheet and I never really could get it right, but eventually, I realized my biggest mistake was that I’m filling out the sheet but not my character, I was being too flat and my characters had no life. So, I started doing more than just filling in the empty spaces in a sheet and started adding more than the ‘needed’ information
Below you will find my own creation sheet I use when making a new character as well as what extra details I add to give life to them.
The easiest names to come up with are the normal ones you find on our planet, if your comic or world takes place on normal earth you can mostly just google things like ‘baby names’ ‘Japanese names’ ‘Norse names’ ‘medieval names’ ‘Zulu names’ ‘French names’ and you will find tons of them if you want names with specific meanings simply search ‘names that mean...’
Now when coming up with unique names for a fantasy/sci-fi plot it can be a bit harder. There are two methods I personally use when looking for unique names.
The first method, I generally use when naming anything and not just my characters, I use it for races, animals, creatures, cultures, abilities, buildings, planets, foods...
Pick a few words, a phrase or a sentence that describes the thing you are trying to name ‘loud and aggressive but loyal’
Combine different parts of these words or this sentence to make one single word ‘loud and aggressive but loyal’ = ‘oundagsiloy’
Play around with adding and removing letters until it sounds right to you.
‘Zorasilo’ as you can see, I added ‘Z’ & ‘R’ but removed ‘U’ ‘D’ ‘G’ 'N' and ‘Y’
This method is by far my favorite to use when I name characters, I use Pinterest for this myself but google works just fine.
Look through names and what their meanings are.
Pick the names with meanings that fit your character well, I normally pick two but sometimes I might go for three
Combine these names into one, like with method one you can choose to add or remove a letter or two, I rarely do as the combinations usually give me a nice fantasy feel.
Zuko ‘rage’ + Ragnar ‘warrior from the gods’ = Zugnar, Agnuk, Rako, Nako, Naruk, Gnakozu
My final step would be combining the meanings of the names I used into a new one for my new name
Zugnar ‘warrior from the gods of rage’
I used method 2 for the naming of my characters Brarea ‘gaurdian’; Zatian ‘defender of the people’; Seretan ‘Fiery beauty ‘; Chira ‘home of comfort’ and finally Takamira ‘a song of treasure’
Even if the meaning of their names isn’t used in the story it tells me a bit about my character as I prefer having the meaning actually reflect an aspect of the personality of my character.
Most people when they decide on a nickname for their character tend to use a shortened version of the character's name, this is all well and good but you are trying to make your character seem more real so adding a bit more depth to a nickname is a good idea. Just do not do this for every character, every person in a story having some weird nickname with a backstory is not realistic at all.
Ex. My own character Zatian will be called ‘boomy’ by Brarea as a joke when they first meet, she does not get the best first impression and it is made in reference to his rather explosive personality, it comes from the loud ‘boom’ that an explosive makes when it goes off. Though they eventually will have a better relationship the name sticks due to the fact that it fits his personality, it annoys him and Rea lives for annoying the guy as well as the fact that though his ability is fire, he likes to release the fire in bursts from his body which causes explosions.
As seen above, instead of simply filling out what the nickname for my character is I gave it a story, this adds more life to the character and makes him less flat. When you fill out a character sheet always try to give as much detail as possible and make things up as you go. You can also write down a memory that ties with why this person has this nickname or a memory of when they got it, add their feelings about the nickname, do they hate it? Love it? Why? who gave it to them? when was it given to them? how often is it used?
Most people both real and fictional can be squashed into a character alignment, this reflects a general moral or personal attitude, which will help shape the expected personality of your character. Do note, that though two characters can have the same alignment, this does not mean they will share a similar personality. Alignments are not a prison cell for your character, characters can vary in personality, ideals, and choices even if they have a similar alignment.
lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, or chaotic evil.
Chaotic Good: These are characters who are good people but do not stand by law and order, often they even hate these two things.
Lawful Neutral: These are characters who obey the law more than caring about good vs evil. They often hold not a care whether laws are good or bad, though they can have enough morals to see when laws are being abused or are downright unfair.
True Neutral: These characters tend to keep a balance or simply don't care. You will often find that they return the treatment they receive.
Chaotic Neutral: These are characters that are not necessarily good or evil, they act based on what is best for themselves. They don't truly have a side and are basically just a bunch of pricks.
Lawful Evil: These characters tend to follow certain rules and often force them on others. These would be characters such as tyrants or corrupted officials, they usually have some powerful position that can be used to their benefit.
Neutral Evil: These are the most common type of evil characters and usually the type of ones you run into. They are simply selfish and see nothing wrong with killing or hurting others for their own gains.
Chaotic Evil: These babies are your psychopaths. They're crazy buggers who don't have nor care about morals. They commit crimes without care and it doesn't bother them one bit. or they see others as tools to use and exploit.
Does your world have super powers or unique abilities? What is the power of your character? How do they use it? How did they get it? What do they call it? Is there something about their power that scares them? How has their power affected them in their life?
Does your character need a weapon in your story? What weapon is it? What is its function? How did they get it? What is it called? How do they use it? Do they have a signature move with it? where do they carry it? is there a memory tied to when or how they got it?
Age is an important aspect of your character. When you work on their age consider the experience your character will have already needed or that they will have throughout your story, a 30-year-old has far too much experience to fit in the role of someone who is going through that blissful and sometimes naive first love, a 12-year-old doesn’t have the experience or emotional control that a 70-year-old war veteran has when it comes to watching their friends die, consider how much your character will learn or how much they already know, consider how you want the people to feel about your character, a 12-year-old watching their friends die will be more emotional and their reaction will be more of a heartbreaking mess bigger tears, screaming, denials, they don’t have the experience to handle it better, whereas a war veteran will be a more controlled, sad acceptance, more expecting and possibly more silently broken.
Next, you need to think about your story's timeline, how long will we be following your character? What needs to happen and will the age you chose reflect well with what you have planned? Say you choose to write a 12-year-old main character and three years down the timeline your character needs to get pregnant, unless your goal was teen pregnancy then you’ll need to change the age.
You will also need to consider the background of your character, for instance, your character has this dramatic background, they were kidnapped and experimented on, but they rebelled and fought against their captors, they escape and stay on the run, and your character led the rebellion, then they went back to take over the place that they were a prisoner in. This is their background, now they are doing whatever for your story but they are ten years old. That is not believable, it doesn’t matter how cool you want your character to be, it needs to be realistic, maybe 17 or 18 I can see but 10?
Due to all the specifics needed when coming up with the age, I usually leave it for last and only decide when I have my character's background and the basic plot line planned out.
Is the date of birth important? For the fans of your story, yes for the plot that’s a solid maybe. A lot of people would say it holds no significance but I can argue against that, what if birthdays are important to your character? What if some major plot point happens on your character's birthday? It could be a romance and the main couple kiss for the first time on one of their birthdays, it could be horror with your characters going to a haunted place on their birthday. Birthdays can also simply be important to the world you made or the culture in your world.
Ex. The culture Zatian belongs to and which Brarea and Seretan slowly join holds the date of birth in high regard and it is always a big celebration planned by the family and friends, this has an important role in the friendship between the three as Zatian’s birthday is during a school day and his family is too far to hold the usual celebration, Rea and Tanny though realize this and secretly plan a birthday party with their entire class, and they do it in the traditional style that his culture normally does it. This is the first big moment in the story where Zat realizes and accepts the friendship of the two girls. Zat in return arranges the surprise birthday party for the girls, along with Chira and Takamira. Birthdays become an important event to the group of friends.
Like the DOB the importance of this counts on your own world, for my own story with Brarea and her friends, I don’t use astrology as this is something ‘earth’ and not used on the planets and galaxies in my own world.
You can also use Astrology to perhaps help you decide on when your DOB will be by matching the sign that best fits with your character and picking a date from there, or you can use it to start your character building if you don’t know where to begin and what to do with their personality.
Note: you don’t have to do their physical looks right now, if you want you can skip over this and come back to it later, I normally leave how they look for last
Picking an eye color can be easy just match it to the hair, but other times it’s not so easy, as people love reading into things and breaking apart your character's visuals and connecting said visuals to their personality. It is done quite often by avid fans of a story, especially when it comes to drawing comics. You can go with a stereotype or break away it’s your choice.
Ex. Red is usually associated with Dangerous, Rage, Anger, aggressive, fierce, strong, has a connection to fire, demonic characters often have this color, and dark characters or villains also often have red eyes. Vampires are often seen with red eyes. Characters that fit this would be Flare Corona from Fairy Tail or Bakugo Katsuki from My Hero Academia
Now the eye shape can tell us a lot about a character, the bigger the eyes the more innocent, soft, sweet, or kind the character is, and the narrower it goes the more mature, realistic, and serious the character seems.
similar to the color though, you don't have to work with stereotypes at all.
What is the body of your character like? Are they lean and fit, do they have a bodybuilder-like physique? or are they small with softer features? How meaty are they? Do they have a rectangle build? A circular one? Oval? Hourglass? Triangle? Inverted triangle? Are their shoulders wide, do they have wide or small hips? What about their waist? Are their legs long or short? Do they have wings? A tail? Horns? Explain the physical features of the body and the muscles.
Make sure that the body of your character meets the physical conditions that they would need to fit in with their back story.
What is the color? Why this specific one? Do they have scales? Hair? Feathers? Birthmarks? Where did the skin type come from if it’s more unique?
What is the shape of their face? Is it circular? heart-shaped? box-shaped? Rectangle? Diamond? Oval?
Counting on your preferred style of work the color of the hair can play an important part in the image of your character, in most cases, the lead characters usually have the most interesting color and/or style of hair, this is to set them apart from the rest of the background cast. Though this is not a rule and if you prefer a plainer style for your own main character that is perfectly fine.
If you prefer a more Anime like style then I would suggest looking up the stereotypical view on the various colors of hair they use, as it tends to reflect the personality of the character, this is not a set rule of course and you can easily just use whichever color you prefer.
Is it worn in a specific style? Is it long or short? Do they have bangs?
Hair can play a rather important role in the image a character presents, once again this is related to stereotypes. Wilder hair tends to represent wilder, brash, or energetic characters, for female's hair tied in a pony can represent sporty characters, or counting on where it’s tied it can show a sophisticated/ elegant character instead, for men long tied hair usually comes off more elegant, short boy cut on woman are tomboyish and shows a tough character, buns can give a more mature look, twin buns can seem more innocent and sometimes childish. Spiked all over the place or otherwise called ‘Shonen’ hair tends to fit with brash and loud/rude characters, for instance, Ichigo from Bleach, Naruto from Naruto, Soul from Soul eater, Bakugou from My hero Academia, Natsu from fairy tail.
Does your character resemble anyone?:
Is there anyone who your character takes after in looks? Who is it? How do they look similar? Is it just family or do they mysteriously resemble some other person and it might later become important to the plot? Or maybe it’s just a coincidence? Why do they resemble this person? How do they resemble this person?
Ex. Brarea looks extremely identical to two people that will both become important to the story at a far later time, she has no actual relation to either of them. There is also a perfectly good reason for the resemblance which will be important to the plot.
Do they have problems with health?:
Asthma? Low blood pressure? Diabetes? Missing organs? Damaged bones? Bad eyesight? How do these problems affect your character? Does it interfere with the plot? How does it affect the story and/or the character write a small example?
What does your character wear? Think up a work/school outfit, a casual outfit for day-to-day, a fitness outfit for if they exercise, a date outfit, and a fancy outfit for events. Why do they prefer this style of an outfit? Remember clothes say a lot about a person.
What does their room or house look like? What style of furniture do they prefer? Is it arty? Are there a lot of patterns? Is it neat? Is it messy? Is it minimalistic? What do they have in there? Skateboards? Posters of bands/celebs? Posters of movies? Posters of anime? Books? Music instruments? Paintings? An easel for painting? how is it orginased?
What habits does your character have? Do they rub their neck when embarrassed? Bite their lip when sad? Do they toss their hair? Tilt their head when they are in thought? grind their teeth? Scratch their head? Flare their nostrils?
when you pick mannerisms remember to reflect them in the story, if your character bites their lip when nervous, make them bite their lip when you write a scene where they're nervous. and when another similar scene pops up, do it again. don't put attention to it, just write it and move on. your readers will pick up on it. Do not! do not tell the readers why they do it! do not make an entire passage explaining that the MC bites their lip when nervous. let the readers figure it out for themselves. It makes a character more real and hooks readers better when they have to actually pay attention to figure a character out instead of just being told everything about the character.
Tell me about what they do, do they have a job or are they in school?
If they have a job what work do, they do? where do they work? What is their relationship with their boss? What is their relationship with their co-workers? Is there one worker or a few they really don’t like? Why? Is it the worker's personality or did something happen between them? Make a scenario. Do they have friends amongst the workers? Do the workers sometimes go out together? what do they do together? do they have any good or bad memories from when they went out with their workers?
If they go to school, what classes do they have? Is it a specialized school? A school for heroes? Mechanics? What are their favorite classes, and what are their worst classes? Who do they hang out with during lunch breaks? Tell me about the relationship they have with their different teachers, they hate a certain teacher why? They love a different one why?
Do they like their occupation? Why? Why not?
If their occupation was school ignore this, if not tell me about what their education was like, where did they go to school, what did they study, what were their best classes, what was their worst, and who was their friends in school, are they still friends or did they drift apart? Who were their favorite teachers, and who did they hate? Do they still keep in contact with any of their old teachers?
Tell me a bit about your character's religion and culture, what beliefs do they have, and what day-to-day things do they do because of this? What habits do they have because of this? What do they avoid because of their religion and culture? Don't explain an entire religion just how it affects your character and their lives as well as the plot.
Give me three of your character's best traits, are they active? Affectionate? Brave? Loyal? Confident? Considerate?
Now give me their three worst, are they rude? Aggressive? Obnoxious? Lazy? Gullible?
Every person has flaws, and flaws can affect the story, now that you have the main traits, give me a few scenarios where the traits come into play.
Your character is aggressive but considerate, a person bumps into them, they turn around and yell at the idiot that didn’t watch where they were going, they start to walk away but notice that the idiot is rubbing at their ankle, the person who ran into your character twisted their ankle when they fell, your character grumbles and picks them up, they carry them to the nurse while glaring and complaining all the way.
Also, remember that sometimes even their positive traits can be bad for them, they can be brave but sometimes too brave and run into situations that they might not come out of the same, or their friends run in after them and get hurt because your character might be brave but they weren’t strong enough for the enemy at that point.
What does your character fear? Give them one big defining fear, loneliness, being hated, being left behind, it doesn’t need to be a fear they know they have; it can be an unconscious one, not everyone knows what their biggest fears are, your character might just discover it over the course of your story or never realize it at all, but your readers might pick up on it if you write it well.
Now give your character some small fears, spiders, the dark, a bee, needles... or maybe your character just doesn’t have any, maybe your character starts off with none but they get traumatized and end up with fears.
Now finally give me a reason as to why your character fears what they do, they drown so they end up with a fear of water, their family dies of poisoning so they only eat food they make themselves.
How does your character cope with everything that happens to them? The stress, the worry, the pain, how do they deal? what habits have they picked up as a coping mechanism?
Your character's dreams and goals can and probably will affect the story you make, so list them out and tell me why do they have these dreams and goals? What made it so they chose to walk the path they do?
It's okay not to have dreams and goals for all of your characters, but I would suggest making sure most do, it will help people feel relatable but having a character that’s just there and going with whatever because they don’t have any big goals or dreams is fine, not every person has big dreams and aspirations in life.
I mean I can relate to a character that has no dreams or goals and is simply there because they're just hanging with their friends who get into all sorts of weird stuff.
What is their family like? Do they have siblings? How are they treated in the family? How were they raised? What traits and what pieces of their personality or hobbies came from their family? Are they rich? Middle class? Poor? Are they dead? How did they die? What effect does the family have on your main character? what relationship do they have with each member? is it blood family or chosen?
Your character grows with your story, they learn new things, and their personality and the way they handle things adapt over time as they learn the lessons life throws at them.
Tell me what lessons has your character already learned and/or what lessons will they be learning; how do these lessons affect them and change them? What does this mean for your plot?
Ex. Though Seretan is a very confident, loud, and bold girl she is not a leader and follows Brarea, she does not have confidence as a leader and usually stays out or keeps herself busy when the other ‘leaders’ plan, but eventually in the story she will be forced to take up a position as a leader, this will happen several times and over time her confidence in her leading ability and herself grows.
‘I can’t do it, I’m not good enough, I’ll lead us into defeat’ -- ‘I can’t do it but I have to, we will win I can’t let us loose’ -- ‘I won’t accept defeat, we will walk away as the winners, there is no if, in this situation, we will do it’
Optimistic or pessimistic:
Which one is your character? Is it obvious or less so? How does it affect your character? How does it affect your plot? Are there scenes where this can positively or negatively affect your story? Why are they optimistic or pessimistic and not the other? What life experience made them think this way?
What one thing would they change about themselves?:
Why would they change this thing? Pretend you are arguing about it with them and that it’s not such a bad thing, what are their responses to your arguments? Write it out.
Do they have high self-esteem? A low one? A relatively normal one? Is it obvious? Do they hide it behind a mask? How does it affect them and the people around them, how does it affect your story? do they have a superiority complex and inferiority one?
Give your character some hobbies that they like, do they dance? Draw? Write? Walk? Play the drums? Stalk celebrities? Photography? Game? Cook? Karate? Do they train?
Who are their important people?:
Who are the people most important to them and their lives? The good ones, the bad ones, and the horrifying ones?
How do they see themselves?:
What is the image they have of themselves and how does it compare to the way the people that surround them, see them?
What is their relationship with food?:
How do they eat? Do they scarf it down or savor it? Home-cooked meals or takeaway? Waste or make only the minimal?
How are they with Money?:
How do they spend their money? Do they spend every dime they earn? Or do they save up? Do they buy stocks? Has it in savings accounts or is it finished even before they get it? Do they gamble it? Hoard it? Spend it freely on their friends/family?
How do they deal with an argument? Do they believe in things like serenity? Do they use their heart or mind when making plans?
What is their voice like?:
Is it soft and light? Deep? Is it chipper? Filled with disdain? Cold? Mocking?
In short clipped sentences? Long sentences? Big words? Proper? Do they shuffle between short sentences and longer ones? Do they use slang? Do they swear? Sarcasm?
The next step to making your character real, would be to write about them, take story prompts and write how your character would be in those prompts, look up embarrassing scenarios, cute scenarios, and scary scenarios... and write how your character would respond in these situations.
take those 20 questions or get to know you questions and hold an 'interview' with your characters, write how they respond to these questions, what their answer is, and if they're with other characters how these characters react to the answers given. It's also a good way to figure out how all your characters see each other, by figuring out how they'd respond to the answers being given, or how hesitant they are to answer in front of the other characters.
A bonus step would be to write a character sheet for your own characters' family, mainly the parents and siblings but if any other family shows up in the story make one for them too. If the family doesn’t play a big role, the sheet doesn’t have to be as in detail, for me though I would rather take it that extra mile just to make my characters feel more real. Remember if your character doesn’t feel real to you, they certainly don’t feel real to your readers.
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