Character Profile Template for Writers: A Character Sheet That Changes With Your Story

A character profile is a single page that collects one character's name, personality, wants, and relationships. While you draft, it's what you check when you need to know what this person would say right here.

This template is for writers of novels and web novels. You get a blank sheet to copy, what each field is for and why, and a way to record the fields that change as the story goes on. The example is Clay Rowen, the lead of They Say I'm a Dark Mage, but All I'm Good At Is Digging Dirt, the web novel from TypeTak's Write a Web Novel, Step by Step course.

At a glance

1. Use the full template for your lead and the short one for side characters
2. Fill each field with one question in mind: what does this create in a scene?
3. Keep the fields that stay fixed apart from the fields that change with the story
4. Don't overwrite a changing field. Add the new value and note when each one starts and ends

Character profile template to copy

Copy the boxes below as they are. There's no sign-up and no email. Use the full template for your lead and anyone who drives the plot, and the short one for characters who show up in only a few scenes.

[Fixed fields: set once, they stay]
Name:
Name origin / nickname:
In one line:
First appearance:
Age / gender:
Where they're from / where they grew up:
What stands out about how they look:
Voice (formality, what they call people, verbal habits):
Core of their personality:
Want (the goal they chase on the surface):
Need (what they want underneath):
Fear:
Secret:
Why they don't give up:
What they would never do:

[Fields that change with the story: give each value a from/until]
Affiliation / status:
Relationships:
How others see them:
What they know / don't know:
Abilities / what they have:

Name:
In one line:
First appearance:
Relationship to the lead:
Voice (formality, what they call people):
What they do in the story:

Start a side character on the short template and move them to the full one once they appear more often. If you try to fill every field for every character before you start, you'll be worn out before chapter 1.

What goes in each field, and why

Each field is there to give you something to use when you write a scene, so the table lists what each one creates on the page.

The template leaves out fields like favorite food on purpose. Add them when the story uses them, since more fields alone won't make a character feel more alive.

Fixed fields and fields that change with the story

Sooner or later, some field on the sheet needs updating. A friend turns into an enemy, or a commoner lead gains a noble title. There are three ways to handle it.

This template uses the third. Long novels and serials send you back to earlier chapters often. To check “I'm revising chapter 12. Had these two even met yet?”, the old value has to still be on the sheet.

Recording it is simple. In a changing field, put the period in parentheses after each value.

Affiliation / status:
- Applicant (chapter 1)
- Special-admission dark magic student at Belkadia Royal Academy of Magic (from chapter 2)

You don't need a period on every field. Fields like name or where they're from stay the same for the whole story, so you write them once. That's why the template is split into two groups.

Example: Clay Rowen's character profile

They Say I'm a Dark Mage, but All I'm Good At Is Digging Dirt is about a commoner boy who can only do earth magic. An old judging stone garbles “earth magic” into “dark magic,” and he enters the Royal Academy of Magic as a suspected dark mage. (In Korean, the two sound alike. That's the whole joke.) Here's Clay on the full template.

The changing fields get their own table. The story moves through three arcs, and their values shift from one arc to the next.

With the fields split this way, one row tells you that Lucian is still scared of Clay when you revise a middle chapter. You can leave a value blank, like the last arc's relationship cell, until you've decided it.

12 questions to fill in the fields

When a field won't come, ask the character a question. Once an answer shows up, move it into the field.

What shows on the outside

1. What impression do they give someone meeting them for the first time?
2. How does their voice change when they're angry or flustered?
3. What do they do when no one is watching?

Wants and fears

4. In the first scene, what do they want right now?
5. What do they believe will change if they get it?
6. What would they least want to lose?
7. What have they never told anyone?

Relationships

8. Who misunderstands them the most?
9. Who do they lean on, and does that person know it?

Inside the story

10. What's the one thing readers must learn about them in their first appearance?
11. What won't change by the end of the story?
12. What do you want to be different by the end?

Your answers to 11 and 12 decide which fields go in the fixed group and which go in the changing group.

Filling in fields doesn't bring a character to life

Sometimes the sheet is complete and the character on the page is still flat. Often it's because what's on the sheet went straight into narration.

Instead of writing “Clay is the kind of person who fixes problems with his hands,” write him absent-mindedly pressing a cracked stone in the exam hall floor back into place. Show the Fear field as a moment where he hesitates in front of that thing, and the How others see them field through another character's dialogue.

Once the sheet is filled in, go through each field and ask whether at least one scene shows it. A field with no scene can go, or you can keep it as material for a scene you haven't written yet.

Extra fields by genre

Add one or two fields that fit your genre to the base template.

Using it as an OC character sheet

This template also works as a sheet for your OC (original character). Keep the likes and dislikes fields most OC sheets already have, and add one line to each. Write down why they like something and you'll find their want. Write down why they dislike something and you'll find their fear. When you feel like putting your OC in a story, those two lines give you material for the first scene.

From the relationship field to a relationship chart

Once you have more than five characters, the relationship fields alone don't show the whole picture. That's the point to gather them into a character relationship chart. The same rules from the sheet apply there: give each relationship a name (“rival,” “older brother”), add an arrow when only one side knows about it, and when a relationship changes, keep the old one and give it a period instead of erasing it.

Writing character profiles in TypeTak

TypeTak is an AI writing editor where you write alongside an agent. Your lore lives in your World, your own lore dictionary that doubles as a graph. Here's how this template works once it's in a World.

• The type sets the fields. Define the fields once on a node type such as Character, and every character of that type gets the same fields. Short values go in properties, and longer writing goes in sections. Open all characters of one type as a table to compare them field by field.

• Changing fields aren't overwritten. For values that change partway through, like affiliation or relationships, set a start and end on the property using a manuscript page or a board card. Changes you'd rather record in sentences, like what a character has found out, go into a section's Progression in story order.
• Bring in the sheets you already have. Use Import to upload a character profile file you wrote elsewhere, and it becomes a document page. Press Organize World on that document, and the agent finds lore that isn't in your World yet, tells you about it, and organizes it into character nodes.

The agent reads your World before it drafts or answers. With your character profiles in the World, when you ask “What would Clay say here?”, it answers from those fields. How the fields in this template were chosen is in the devlog post A Story Bible Template, and What a Wiki Taught Me.

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