Character Checklist
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See also: 15 Days to a Stronger Character
Latest post on Characters: 3 Types of Character Arcs: Choosing the Best for your Novel
- Name or Nickname: Does the character’s name evoke something about him or her? Does it resonate in the story?
- Character Roles and Jobs. Have you fully explored the possibilities of family and community roles? Are they working at cliche jobs or fascinating jobs?
- Inner Character. How’s your characters’ intelligence, intuition, curiosity, honesty and spirituality?
- Character Desires Answer the all-important question: What does s/he want?
- Characters Flaws and Paradoxes. Perfect characters are boring: mix it up!
- This I Believe . Write an essay in the character’s voice about what s/he believes.
- Why? Character motivation. Characters don’t act randomly. Why is your character doing this right now?
- Characters’ Backstory Interesting characters have back story. What’s your character hiding
- Character Descriptions. Bland descriptions are out. Go for memorable.
- Setting Details that Reveal Character. OK – what kind of junk does this character have it his/her house or apartment?
- Body Language. 55% of communication is body language. Get him or her moving to help communication.
- Characters’ Voices Voices can enhance our image of a character.
- Likeable, Sympathetic Characters. Is this a character I want to spend time with? Do I care what happens to him/her?
- Consistent Characters . Have you given the same reader (with all his/her complexity) page after page?
- Villains Don’t Always Wear Black
- Supporting Characters. Who is walking around with your main character?
- Sports Novels. Are your characters cliche jocks? Why?
EXTERNALS
INTERNALS
The Writing: PUTTING THEM ON THE PAGE
SPECIAL CHARACTERS
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This is a great checklist. I’ve used variations on this character dossier for my characters and find it very helpful. But I’m going to apply some of what you have here, too!
thanks for making this. I got some characters that are floating in development right now and this helped immensely in organizing my thoughts.
Wow. Great post. I appreciate the way you’ve dissected the characters based on the way they fit into the story. This is an ingenious tool!
Hi Darcy.
Neat post. Really like the complexity. It’s one of my favorites from Twitter this week & I’ll be sharing a link on my http://www.writer-in-progress.com blog tomorrow. Thanks for sharing!