What Should You Include In Your Character Profiles Part II

We are slowly moving away from archetype characters that represent stereotypes, and into realistic characters that are relatable to the reader. This is why writers are recommending creating detailed character profiles that will help you be able to flesh out your characters the best way possible. Character profiles are tools you can use to your advantage when writing your story since you can always refer to it when doubting if something you’re writing is realistic or believable. In the first part of this article, we focused on the physical characteristics and personality traits you should define in your profiles. Here we will focus on the emotional side of characters and how you can write their interactions with other characters:

• Emotional characteristics. Determining what your character’s emotional characteristics are will allow you to understand how they would react to situations realistically. What is their dominant emotion? How well do they deal with conflict? If you know this information by heart, you will be able to write their actions more naturally.
• Character Interaction. Once you’ve answered all of the important questions about who your characters are, you have the next step, answering how will they interact with each other. Try to establish the starting point for their relationships in the book. Define who they are to each other and how the act whenever they’re together. How do they perceive each other? That way when the conflict in your story takes place, you can develop their relationships with whatever you want in a more organic way.
• Additional traits. Depending on what your story is, you might want to write out other traits. For example, if it’s a fantasy story you will want to define what magical traits they possess. Perhaps it’s relevant to your story their spiritual beliefs. In general, it’s more about answering all the questions possible to get to know your character before jumping into the story.

There are several templates you can look at to help you create complete character profiles. The truth is that the more time you spend developing your characters until you feel that you know them as people, the easier it will be for you to write your actual story. If you haven’t read the first part of our article we encourage you to do that as well as visit our online library www.stelahub.com and check out our selection of books.