Building your characters

I have read of other authors who say that they develop their characters with a dossier sheet that requires them to make up and list a bunch of different attributes. 

I have a hard time with this personally.  (Of course, I am only on my first novel, so my opinion may change over time. I will revisit the topic after writing a few more novels.)

Filling out an attribute sheet all at once can get burdensome simply with the huge amount of detail.  At the beginning I’m not really sure what attributes are going to make my story work better.  Just how is it going to help to know that my character loves cheesecake?   Only if another character finds this out somehow and surprises them with it.  These details are useless to know unless they are used in the book for description or for plot points.

The more significant characters you have in your book or series, the more character profiles you’ll need to create. 

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Age  

How old does s/he appear?

Eye Color:
      Glasses or contacts?

Hair color:
       Distinguishable hair feature (bald, receding hairline, etc.):
       Type of hair (coarse, fine, thick, etc?)

Typical hairstyle:

Height:

Weight:
       Type of body/build:

Nationality:
Skin tone:

Skin type:

Shape of face:
Distinguishing Marks?
       Scars?

Most predominant feature:
       Resembles (famous or not):

Accent?

Is s/he healthy?                                                 
       If not, why not:
Physical disabilities:

Physical abilities (what is character good at? sports, etc.):

FAVORITES

Color:

Music:

Food:

Literature:

Expressions:

Book:

Quote:

Expletive(s) (swears):

Mode of transportation:

HABITS

Smokes:
       What?
       How often?

Drinks:
       What?
       How often?

Worst bad habit?
Quirks:

BACKGROUND

Hometown:

Type of childhood:

First memory:

Most important childhood event that still affects him/her:
       Why?

Lower education:

Higher education:

Booksmart or streetsmart?

Religion and/or religious views and/or tendencies?

Firsts:

Job?

Kiss?

Sexual experience?

FAMILY

Mother (name):
        Relationship with her:

Father (name):
       Relationship with him:

Siblings:
       Birth order:
       Relationship with each:

Children of Siblings:

Extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.):

Close to family?  Yes/No

CHILDREN

Does character have child(ren)?
       How many?

Are all children with the same partner?
       If no, why not? If no, what is the custody arrangement?

How does character relate to his/her child(ren)?

Which child is character's favorite?
       Why?

Character's most favorite memory of his/her child(ren)?

Character's least favorite memory of his/her child(ren)?

Is relationship with children good?

Is relatioinship with children important to character?

OCCUPATION

Where does character work?
        How many years?

Relationship with co-workers?

Like his/her job?
       Why or why not?

Dream job:

ATTITUDE

Greatest fear:

Worst thing that could happen to him/her?

What single event would most throw character's life in complete turmoil?

Character is most at ease when:

Most ill at ease when:

Priorities:

Philosophy:

How s/he feels about self:

Past failure s/he would be embarrassed to have people know about:

If granted one wish, what would it be?
       Why?

Daredevil or cautious?
       Same when alone?

Biggest regret?

Biggest accomplishment:

Minor accomplishments:

Character's darkest secret:
       Does anyone else know?
              If yes, did character tell them?
              If no, how did they find out?

PERSONALITY

Greatest source of strength in character's personality (whether s/he sees it as such or not):

Greatest source of weakness in character's personality (whether s/he sees it as such or not):

Character's soft spot:
       Is this soft spot obvious to others?
       If not, how does character hide it?

Biggest vulnerability:

Which of the 7 deadly sins does character fight (or give into, willingly or not)?
       (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride)

Which of the 7 virtues does your character have (or fight against)?
       (chastity, abstinence, liberality, diligence, patience, kindness, humility)

TRAITS

Optimist or pessimist?

Introvert or extrovert?

Drives and motivations?

Talents (hidden or not)?

Extremely skilled at:

Extremely unskilled at:

Good characteristics:

Character flaws:

Mannerisms:

Peculiarities:

SELF-PERCEPTION

One word character would use to describe self:

One paragraph description of how character would describe self:

What does character consider best physical characteristic?

What does character consider worst physical characteristic?
       Are these realistic assessments?
              If not, why not?

How CHARACTER thinks others perceive him/her?

What four things would CHARACTER most like to change about self? (#1 most important, #2 second most important, etc.)

If change #1 was made, would character be as happy as s/he thinks?
       If not, why not?

INTERRELATION WITH OTHERS

Is character divorced? Why?
       If yes, how many times?

Has character ever cheated on any signficant other?

How does character relate to others?

How is s/he perceived by...

Strangers?

Friends?

Wife/Husband/Lover?

Children

Co-workers?

Protagonist?

Antagonist?

First impression character makes is:
       What happens to change this perception?

What do family/friends like most about character?

What do family/friends like least about character?

GOALS

Immediate goal(s):

Long range goal(s):

How does character plan to accomplish goal(s)?

How will other people around character be affected?

PROBLEMS/CRISIS

How character react in a crisis (calm/panic/etc.)?

How does character face problems?
       Kinds of problems character usually runs into:

How does character react to NEW problems?

How does character react to change?

GENERAL

Jewelry?

Other accessories?

Drives a ... :

Where does character live?
       With anyone?  Yes/No

Where does character want to live?

Spending habits (frugal, spendthrift, etc)?

What does s/he do too much of?

Too little of?

Most prized possession: Why?

Play musical instrument?
       Which one(s)?
       How did s/he learn?

Does character like animals?

Any pets?

Likes music?
       What kind?

TECHNICAL

Owns a computer? Yes/No
       If not, why not?

Email address(es):
       If more than one, each used for...?

"Handle":
        Meaning to character:

Uses computer for business, pleasure, both?

Play computer games?
       If yes, which game(s)? If yes, how many hours per day?
       If so, are they/it multiplayere game/s?

Name used on each game & meaning to character?

List 4 online site(s) (URLs) visited daily?
       1.
       2.
       3.
       4.

UNCATEGORIZED

Person character secretly admires:

Person character was most influenced by:

Most important person in character's life before story starts:
       Why?

To me, an easy way to start a character is first with appearance, then by trying to describe their common attitudes about things they usually have to do or deal with.  This goes a long way toward helping me write a character realistically.  Then, I try to create situations that display their attitudes.

One of the ways characters grow is by a change of attitude about something.  I try to write situations that lead to a character changing their attitude, usually through major personal struggles or interactions with other characters. 

Either they come to dislike something bad, or they come to love or admire something good. Or, if they are turning to the "dahk side of the force", the opposite will be true.

In my first novel, I have some characters who are highly cynical about religion.  Their attitude was created by certain negative experiences in their backstory.    I have other characters who are highly optimistic about religion.  They have different experiences, positive ones, that created that attitude.  When these two different types of characters get together, there is dramatic conflict.

From attitudes, the next very good thing to put together is goals and motivations. Those are going to make a character active instead of passive.  Then, a lot of stuff can be imagined about the person from knowing those things.  Throwing in a little weirdness in there makes a character fascinating. 

I think other attributes can be made up as I write as I require plot points and description about them, but a character profile sheet does a good job of keeping track of that information as I make it up.  I wouldn’t want to have to search through my text to track down eye color or hair color.