Pebblepup's Writing Den

To write believable fiction, you need believable characters. You need characters readers can identify with. That’s the key. A character chart or sketch will help you do that. It will also help you keep your characters straight in your mind as you write them.

While there are dozens of character charts available on the web, you don’t need them. They are helpful in that they ask questions about the character.

Some websites tell you to start with an archetype. These are types, like hero, sidekick, adviser, villain and other types but you don’t need to do that. All you need is an idea of a character. When I create characters, I have an idea of their ages and genders.

I use the character chart from https://www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html . It’s a basic questionnaire that you complete. I use it to write my character sketches. In that chart, the first section has fields for the character’s name. There are other fields for nicknames, birth dates and astrological signs. These are details that help make the character. The chart has questions on the character’s physical characteristics. That section expands on what the character looks like. There’s a section on attitude, what does your character think?

You can record things such as where the character lives or where they want to live. Do they have children? Things like that. If you can put it down on paper or an electronic document, do so. It will be easier to refer to that later when you are writing the character’s story.

The chart I use is one of many. If you want to be quite detailed in your character chart. You combine character charts from different sites into one you can use. It’s up to you as the writer.

I find it handy to have a list of characters that I will have in my stories. I often link the names in the list to the character’s chart as I work on my computer. That’s what works for me. Find what works for you and run with it.
If you create character who aren’t human, you can still use these types of charts. All you have to do is ignore the parts of the chart that don’t fit the species you have created. Then answer the sections or questions that do fit. It’s not perfect, but all you want here is a general idea of who the character is and what they can do.

The chart has a section on personality traits. This is the place where you record your character’s likes and dislikes. How they might react in certain situations. This is invaluable.

Character charts are the tools to use to create believable characters. It’s background to the story. Often you will not use all the information you recorded in the chart or sketch when you write the story. That’s OK. You don’t have to. The chart or sketch will hold the information you need to make the character come alive. That’s its purpose. That’s why we do it. You need to know your characters from the start. Otherwise, you will find them behaving in strange ways when you try to fit them into the action of your story.