The Best Character Template You Will Ever Need

We have all been there, having a storyline in mind and can’t wait to unfold it. While breathing life into your favorite protagonists feels like magic, nothing beats your story up more than some ill-developed characters. Before you know it, your perfect plot becomes lifeless and dull.

What’s worse, organizing those intricate character traits and relationships in your head can be tough. That is why we have created a thorough character template helping all the writers to develop vivid and consistent characters. Grab this failproof template to create the most compelling characters today.

How this template is structured

It should be straightforward, but some sections might not be the most intuitive at first glance. Let’s briefly go through the template so everyone can make the best use of it.

The Basics and History

This section contains factual information, including the demographics and history of your character, which might be obtained from a short conversation. While covering the basics might seem obvious, this step is often overlooked, leading to inconsistent character settings. Additionally, a character's past always affects their behavior today. Completing this section allows for the creation of a true-to-life and dynamic character profile.

Appearance and communication

It describes the impression of your character as if they were alive and standing right in front of us. Note that this is not limited to physical appearance, but also includes the character’s mannerisms, composure, and gait—details that one might observe without engaging in conversation."

Personality traits, Love, hate, and Habits

Similar to the characters’ past, their personality, love and fear aren’t apparent at first glance, it is critical to comprehend how the character reacts and handles certain situations, the flaws, emotions, desires, and traits. These are what make a character a person. It can be as simple as a daily coffee, or a life-long dedication to helping others in need, or as complex as you want. With proper planning on the character’s inner-self, readers can easily resemble your lively character and dive deep into your story.

Relationship

Similar to relationships in real life, it can go a lot further than just friends, enemies and lovers. It is worth taking some time to thoroughly design character relationships to achieve a rich complex interpersonal network in your story.

Strengths, weaknesses, and abilities

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and no one is perfect. By revealing your character’s abilities and limits, you help readers put themselves in their shoes and deepen the character profile.

Goals and growth

­This section somehow aligns with the overall story planning, as the story goes on, the characters will grow and reach their goals. It is essential to plan the characters’ goals and growth together with the main storyline to give a logical development.

Additional questionnaire

Treat it as if you are talking to your character, what questions would you ask? You can use this section to uncover anything crucial that the above sections fail to cover. Ask away!

Here you go, the best character template you will ever need

The Basics and demographics

1. Name (First, Middle, Last)

2. Age

3. Date of birth (include astrological sign if necessary)

4. Place of birth

5. Ethnicity

6. Nationality

7. Country of residence

8. Education level

9. Occupation and career history

10. Socioeconomic Status: (Past and present)

11. Family members

12. Notable events/experience

13. Criminal record

14. Affiliations

15. Others

Appearance and communication

1. Height

2. Weight

3. Body Type: (E.g., muscular, slender, stocky)

4. Eye color

5. Skin color

6. Hair color

7. Health and physical abilities

8. Distinguishing marks/scars

9. Tattoo

10. Usual attire (clothing style)

11. Cleanliness

12. Posture

13. Style and pacing of speech (Formal, casual, accents)

14. Common slang used

15. Pitch

16. Accent

17. Gestures

18. Facial expression

19. Verbal expression

20. Listening habits

21. Persuasion skills

22. How they express anger and displeasure

23. Smile/Laughter

24. Others

Personality traits

1. Personality type

2. Temperament

3. Mental health

4. Fears

5. Hate

6. Love

7. Hobbies

8. Bad habits

9. Motivations

10. Self-esteem

11. Sense of humor

12. Great joy

13. Priorities in life

14. Soft spot

15. Darkest secret

16. Accomplishments

17. Routine

18. Regrets

19. Wishes and desires

20. Morals/Virtues

Relationship

1. Partners

2. Lovers

3. Parents

4. Children

5. Grandparents

6. Grandchildren

7. Other members in the family tree

8. Dependents

9. Friends and best friends

10. Rivals and arch-enemies

11. Colleague

12. Mentors

13. Idol

14. Believers/followers

15. Importance of close group

16. Any notable influence

17. Digital presence

18. Pets

Strengths, weaknesses, and abilities

1. Physical strength/weakness

2. Intelligence level

3. Mental strength/weakness

4. Interpersonal strength/weakness

5. Illnesses

6. Magical abilities (if applicable)

7. Physic abilities (if applicable)

8. Talents

Goals and growth

1. Evolution over time (for the categories above)

2. Significant points/pivots in life with regard to the story

3. Milestone

4. Resistance to change

5. Goals and motivation

6. Conflict encountered

7. Hinderance encountered

8. Encourage received

9. Life goals (in 1 year)

10. Life goals (in 5 years)

11. Life goals (in 25 years)

Additional questionnaire (Feel free to add your own)

1. What is your earliest memory and what makes it special?

2. If you could change one decision in your life so far, what would it be and why?

3. What are you most afraid of losing?

4. Who do you look up to the most and how do they influence your belief in life?

5. Name one of your qualities that you like the most; and one that you want to get rid of the most. Why?

6. When would you most likely get overwhelmed and how would you deal with it?

7. Tell me about your family and how you grow up in it.

8. What is your most treasured possession, and what is the story behind it?

9. If you could solve one problem in your world, what would it be and why?

10. What secrets are you keeping?

11. If today was your last day, what would you do and why?

12. Who, or what, would you sacrifice your life for?

There you go. In no time you will craft vivid, memorable characters with our detailed template. You can copy and paste the above points into the note section of Novelize, or click here to grab a downloadable version of our template.

But wait, there's more! After your character has come to life, why don’t you check out Novelize – the best novel writing app if you haven’t? It is a specialized yet easy-to-use web app that specifically helps writers like you to focus and write better novels. Give it a try!