"The purpose of a character profile is twofold: to asset the writer in creating a character that is as lifelike as possible and to help with continuity issues in the story."Character profiles are simply a tool for organising your thoughts about characters and keeping tracks of particular characteristics and relationships between different characters. They are also useful for keeping track of motivations the character may have - hurts and disappointments in the past that may not be included in the dialogue, but have had an effect on how the character thinks and feels.
This is an example, that I will be roughly following, of a character profile worksheet:
Before starting on the points, I will be adding a little character description to introduce the characters and their main traits.
Basic Statistics
Name: Instead of Name, this will be 'Nickname' as their name will be the heading of the page.
I will be adding two extra points - 'Character Type' & 'DOB' to give the character a clear identity in terms of writing the script.
Age:
Nationality:
Socioeconomic Level as a child: This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Socioeconomic Level as an adult: This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Hometown:
Current Residence:
Occupation:
Income: This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Talents/Skills:
Salary: This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Birth order: This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Siblings (describe relationship):
Spouse (describe relationship):
Children (describe relationship):
Grandparents (describe relationship): This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Grandchildren (describe relationship):
Significant Others (describe relationship): This will be changed to 'Friends' to create a sense of who the character's friends are.
Relationship skills: This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Physical Characteristics:
Height:
Weight:
Race: This will be changed to ethnicity to broaden the choices.
Eye Colour:
Hair Colour:
Glasses or contact lenses? This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Skin colour: This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Shape of Face: This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Distinguishing features:
How does he/she dress?
Mannerisms:
Habits (smoking, drinking etc):
Health:
Hobbies:
Favourite Sayings:
Speech patterns:
Disabilities:
Style (elegant, shabby etc):
Greatest flaw:
Best quality:
Intellectual/Mental/Personality Attributes and Attitudes
Educational Background:
Intelligence Level:
Any Mental Illnesses?
Learning Experiences:
Character's short-term goals in life:
Character's long-term goals in life:
How does Character see himself/herself?
How does Character believe he/she is perceived by others?
How self-confident is the character?
I will be adding 'Notable Personality Traits' to sum up the characters main traits in an effective way
Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof? This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
What would most embarrass this character? This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
Emotional Characteristics
Strengths/Weaknesses:
Introvert or Extrovert?
How does the character deal with anger?
With sadness?
With conflict?
With change?
With loss?
What does the character want out of life?
What would the character like to change in his/her life?
What motivates this character? This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed.
What frightens this character?
What makes this character happy?
I will be adding 'Sense of Humour' due to the comedy genre of the show.
Is the character judgemental of others?
Is the character generous or stingy?
Is the character generally polite or rude?
Spiritual Characteristics
This will not be in our character profiles as it is not needed within our storyline.
Does the character believe in God?
What are the character's spiritual beliefs?
Is religion or spirituality a part of this character's life?
If so, what role does it play?
How the Character is Involved in the Story
Character's role in the novel (main character? hero? heroine? Romantic interest? etc):
Scene where character first appears:
Relationships with other characters:
1. Character's Name: -- (Describe relationship with this character and changes to relationship over the course of the novel).
2. Repeat 1.
Having this example of what is usually within a character profile is really useful, as I am able to get a lot of detail in for my characters, and this could possibly develop the story even further. My goal now is to create character profiles for all of the characters within the pilot episode, and then create more for the characters that will be seen within other episodes, after the pilot.
https://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jun98/how-to-create-a-character-profile-6986
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