Writing How to character sheets? (not for LitRPG)

[BetterNickPending]

Hi I have a question for experienced writers.

In what form do you create character sheets for characters in your story?
Do you have different forms for different importance of characters?
MC has the most complicated and most detailed form while one time characters have the most simple?

I need a way to track information about my MC and other characters.
I do not mean it in a LitRPG way.
This character sheet is meant for me (writer) not for readers.

Name, age, sex, appearance, those are obvious and can be managed my simple bullet point list.
But there is so much more to MC of any other character, than this.
If your MC has any super powers as a writer there should be a way to write them down. But write them down from backed point of view so that I as an author am consistent about how they work. Readers mostly get only descriptions of effects of those.

And now the most difficult things:
1. Backstory of MC or character. The part that made him what he is. The source of character perks and flaws. The source of motivations. How to write it down so it is not a wall of text, but a structured trove of information.

2. Time line of events both before story and during the story. So that I do not have to re read whole story again and again to find a specific event. How to write it down so it is not a wall of text, but a structured trove of information.

3. Relationships with other characters. That portion has potential to be most voluminous and is most important. How to write it down so it is not a wall of text, but a structured trove of information.

4. How to make changes in all above as character experiences new things. Meets new people (or other creatures). Learns new things. Looses and gains equipment. Their powers evolve. Appearance gradually changes due to passage of time or battle scars. Copy pasting the whole character sheet of every character, after each chapter or in story day, just to do few minor changes so that I can compare with previous versions of character sheet defies purpose of all of that.


I made few attempts on creating structure to store all that information but I'm not happy with my results.
I feel like the guy in conspiracy board meme.

Then I thought that someone before me might already solved this problem.
I'm not asking about what to write. I am capable of inventing my own characters.
I'm asking how to write it. In what form to write it. How to structure it in consistent and accessible way. Do you use tables? Or point lists? Or something other? Do you borrow a character sheet from one of ttRPGs? Do yo do it in notebook or in text editor or maybe use an online tool for that? What information must be written down and for which it is sufficient to just have annotation "first half of chapter 34".

And please do not tell me that I can just remember all that.
Firstly if that was a solution (for me) I would not start a thread.
Secondly by having all of this written down, I can read it back and see potential plot holes, flaws or imperfections in my design, without having to re read the whole story (again).


Please share your experience in the matter and ways you solve this problem.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Here's the thing: I write a long running series (around 18 volumes and 400+ chapters up), and to keep track of my characters, I just write an short description of who they are, their relationship to major characters, traits and abilities.

Example:

CHARACTER NAME

1). Short description, usually their role in the story.
2). Background, especially their family past.
3). Skills and abilities.
4). You may opt to add likes and dislikes.

Too much detail can lead to planning unnecessary stuff you might not be using on your story at all. Also to keep consistency while maintaining flexibility, I don't release my chapters once I finish writing those. I save it all up in a volume, then edit, before release.

Also, a recommendation, plan your characters but be open for sudden developments (ideas that appear mid-story). Your character profile should serve only as a guide, and not a bible for absolutes.

 

[LilRora]

I would just write down the most important information about a character in a couple of sections (past, story events, appearance, personality, skills/abilities where relevant). I also sometimes included quotes from my story, especially in regards to first encounters or some things where wording matters.

One thing I found is that those should be as simple and concise as possible. Even if I have a lot of complex ideas about something, it's generally much better for me to leave them simple and add details as they become relevant. I usually use a form of list to make things clearer and shorter, kind of like folders on a computer, or like a tree put graphically. That one's important, because structuring your information both visually and in other ways is also extremely helpful. I usually used Trello for that, though I never had a lot of data. I heard Obsidian is really good, though I also heard it's not beginner-friendly.

1. This might be different for various people, but I found trying to come up with detailed events and storylines is too much of a hassle. I just give an outline of what happened, as objectively as possible, and expand on some more complex areas by making another sub-list. I often used tags to assign levels of importance to each point.

2. Basically the same thing.

3. For me, relationships are not a reliable way of putting this. From my experience, it's much better to outline thoughts and sentiments about another character, and thoughts and sentiments in general since most side characters won't have enough presence to be treated differently.

4. An ideal way of doing this would be a dedicated program that would allow you to slide along a timeline and see what changes in the character. Not sure if anything of the sort is available online. Otherwise, I think the best way is to do a copy paste each few to few tens of chapters so that you have individual sheets for each period of a character's life. Write down the state at a crucial moment in life, add important changes gradually without erasing the old information, note when they happen, and once they accumulate to the point that a significant part of the character has changed, copy it, get rid of all previous changes, and make that a new base for some further changes - ideally also at some important point in the character's life.

One thing I'm gonna say, I really don't like standard character sheets. They feel very limiting to me, and it's fine for a TRPG with strict rules, but not for a story. Whatever I needed for my stories up to now, I just... wrote them down, plainly.

Tables can be useful if something repeats really often, otherwise they're bad because they're large and waste a lot of space. You need either a ton of them, or some really clever arrangement that lets you fit a lot of information in a small table.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I don't bother coming up with convoluted powers since they are not importtant, so I write down basic thing. Name, age, appearance, personality, backstory.

 

[Kalliel]

I write down too little, or, sometimes, nothing at all, so I can get my future self confused.

 

[Deleted member 165212]

Hi I have a question for experienced writers.

I don't qualify but here I am.

Since other people before me has already posted about detailed helpful tips. I'll just mention using reedsy blog's character sheet. It doesn't cover everything (like you might want to write a whole autobiography for the characters), but it's pretty good for starting somewhere.
https://blog.reedsy.com/character-profile/

 

[Nevafrost]

I write down too little, or, sometimes, nothing at all, so I can get my future self confused.

Wow! You just like me fr.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

In what form do you create character sheets for characters in your story?

This is the basic form of all my character sheets. Feel free to copy-paste into a document then fold, spindle, and mutilate as you please.

I begin with 3 Questions:

• Who am I?
• What do I want?
• The absolute worst thing that could happen to me?

Then I map out the character's Personality.

• Motive:
• Negative Trait:
• Positive Trait:
• Inner struggle: (The LIE they believe.)
• Secret: (TRUTH they may not know.)
  
• Fatal Flaw: (Their Greatest Strength/Greatest Weakness)
• Greatest Fear:
• Appearance:

Sample of a Character Outline: ​

David from The Lost Boys​

• Who am I? "David and I am a Vampire."
• What do I want? “To live.”
• The absolute worst thing that could happen to me? “Having to choose between two people I care about.”

• Motive: Loneliness & desperation to escape his master’s control.
• Negative Trait: Extreme practicality. Embracing his death-dealing inhumanity. “I am a killer.”
• Positive Trait: Loyalty and protectiveness toward his small brood.
• Inner struggle: (The LIE) Once you're a vampire, you care for No One.
• Secret: (The TRUTH) Being a vampire doesn't mean you Stop Caring. In fact, it makes it harder to watch them become Monsters.
• Fatal Flaw: (Their Greatest Strength/Greatest Weakness) He's a Vampire, an unstoppable all-powerful, immortal creature -- but only after sunset.
• Greatest Fear: He will become the true monster his master is.
• Appearance: Maybe 21, fair and small in stature. His absolute confidence makes him larger than life.

Enjoy!

 

[melchi]

If you are lazy you can get AI to create a character summary too.