Character Profiles

I agree with Robert and Laura.

Malorie Blackman writes a 3 or 4 page synopsis on all her characters.

Once you know the function of your characters and what defines him or her from each of your characters, there is less chance of them acting out of character.

I posted this in the "flat characters question...

"This makes for a huge pile of continuity work. It is, however, worth it - to me at least. I have at least a solid twenty "character files" which include dates of birth, death (where appropriate), Place of birth and death, height, weight, hair colour, eye colour, previous job(s), favourite food and drink, "Desert Island Discs" and much more. Everything is set out on a standard format.

The "Discs" I find most useful: they can add a quirk of character that wouldn't usually show up. This helps me to remember to just mention something about this in passing. I think that, even with a fairly background character, this can add just a touch that increases fullness - and hopefully realism. Just as two weird examples I have a young, chubby blonde environmentally fanatical young lady who is into Shock Rock... What does this tell us about her? (Apart from the fact that she's probably half deaf and has lousy taste in music). Another, pretty quiet / suppressed young man who is absorbed by on-line wargames is extremely knowledgeable about Classical Music".

I usually start with some idea of who the primary character(s) will be but until I have progressed a little I don't know a lot - possibly only a few lines of scribble in preliminary notes. Then the characters develop themselves to a large extent.

Subsequently I will reach a point at which I need to start to keep more specific track of each person for continuity.

Also I may need to cross reference. This applies to both character to character and to characters against events - both in the story and in the real world that they are supposed to have lived in. It can be necessary to know how old someone was for them to have been aware of or experienced any historical event - but, for something like World War 2, they can also have numerous reference points - such as TV and film... which points can of course be questionable...

I have one character who makes claims to have done things but the events occurred before he was born - so he comes unstuck and gets laughed at.

I very much find that characters can grow. For this reason I use a standard table (for which there is a master copy). This can start with just a name filled in and then get the boxes filled out - or, sometimes, I will set the whole character up in advance (because sometimes I do know - or have a clue - in advance and want to establish this).

The big things to keep in mind are:-

1. Different methods work for different people.

2. Continuity is essential - if a pain to maintain.

3. It's important to not let the continuity swamp over the actual writing - but using a format for this rather than just un-ordered notes does help.

I hope this is useful.

David

PS Is there a way of pasting the master table into here?