OC Template and 50 OC Questions to Build Your Original Character

An OC (original character) is a character you made yourself instead of taking one from another work. An OC template, or OC sheet, puts that character's name, personality, likes and dislikes, and relationships on one page.

This post is about building who your OC is. If you're looking for a character maker to design your OC's appearance, a different post will suit you better. Here you'll find an OC template to copy, a checklist for finding the fields you skipped, and 50 OC questions that work well for OC asks.

At a glance

1. Decide what your character wants before you decide how they look, and the rest follows more easily
2. Start with the short template, and move only the characters you love most to the long one
3. Add one line of “why” to every like and dislike
4. When you want to write a story with your OC, look at the want and relationship fields first

How to make an OC, step by step

You can start an OC anywhere. Plenty of people start from a sketch, a name, or one line of a song. If you get stuck, though, this order makes the fields easier to fill.

1. Introduce them in one line. Something like “the kid who laughs a lot but never invites anyone home.” It's the sentence you'd say to someone meeting this character for the first time.
2. Decide what they want and what they fear. That's the thing they want most and the thing they most want to avoid. Their personality grows out of these two fields.
3. Decide their relationships. Family, friends, a rival, other people's OCs. A character shows the most when they run into another character.
4. Decide how they look and how they talk. Pick things that tie back to what you've already decided, and the whole sheet comes together as one person. A timid character might always tug their sleeves down over their hands.
5. Fill the gaps with questions. Pick only the ones you like from the 50 OC questions below and answer them.

OC template to copy

Copy the boxes below as they are. There's no sign-up and no email. Paste them into Tumblr, Toyhouse, or a Google Doc and the fields stay put. Start with the short version, and move a character to the long one once you want to know more about them.

Name:
In one line:
Age / birthday:
Want:
Fear:
Weakness:
Most important relationship:
One thing that happens to them:

[Basics]
Name (nickname / what the name means):
In one line:
Age / birthday / height:
Where they live / where they belong:
What stands out about how they look:
Voice (how they talk, what they call people, catchphrases):

[Inside]
Personality (one thing they do that shows it):
Want:
Fear:
Weakness:
Secret:
Likes (why):
Dislikes (why):

[Past]
Where they grew up / family:
What made them who they are now:

[Relationships]
Family:
Friends:
Rivals / people they don't get along with:
Relationships with other OCs:

[Story]
One thing that happens to them:
What they choose when it does:

Some fields are left out of the long version on purpose. MBTI, star sign, and favorite food show up on a lot of OC profiles, and you can add them one line at a time whenever you want them. The more fields a sheet has, the easier it is to run out of steam before you finish.

OC checklist

Once the sheet is filled in, run down this list. Any line you answer “no” to is the next field to fill.

1. Can you introduce this character in one sentence?
2. Is there something they want most right now?
3. Is something in the way (a person, their own personality, or the situation)?
4. Is there at least one thing they would never do?
5. Is their weakness a real one, and not a compliment like “cares too much”?
6. Do their likes and dislikes have reasons?
7. Do they have at least one relationship with another character?
8. Do they talk in a way you'd recognize from a single line of dialogue?
9. Does something about how they look tie back to their personality or past?
10. Can you think of one thing that could happen to them?

If you got a “yes” all the way to 10, you have enough to write a short story with this character.

50 OC questions

Use these for OC asks or for building out your character. You don't have to answer all of them. The questions that don't get an answer right away are often the ones that teach you something new about your OC.

Basics

1. Who named them, and what does the name mean?
2. If they have a nickname, who calls them that?
3. What's the first thing people notice about them?
4. What do they like most about their own looks?
5. What do they always carry with them?
6. What's their favorite time of day?
7. What matters most to them when they pick out clothes?
8. What does their room or their spot look like?

Personality

9. What do they do when they're angry?
10. When they're happy, does it show, or do they hide it?
11. Are they good at lying?
12. Do they ask others for help easily, or handle things alone?
13. How do they react to a compliment?
14. What would this character never do?
15. How is the way they see themselves different from the way others see them?
16. Which of their own habits would they like to change?

Past

17. What's their earliest memory?
18. What did they want to be as a kid, and do they still want it?
19. Was there something that made them the way they are now?
20. What do they regret most?
21. Is there anyone they still haven't forgiven?
22. When was the first time they really cried?
23. Have they ever left home, and why?
24. What's something from their past they've never told anyone?

Relationships

25. Who do they trust most?
26. Does that person trust them back?
27. Who misunderstands them the most?
28. Is there anyone they're jealous of?
29. After a fight, are they the one who apologizes first?
30. Whose first impression of them changed the most?
31. What do they call the people around them?
32. What do they most want to hear from someone?

Everyday life

33. What's the first thing they do when they wake up?
34. What do they do when they can't sleep?
35. What's their favorite food, and why?
36. What do they spend money on when they have some?
37. How do they spend a day off?
38. What are they scared of (bugs, heights, and silence count too)?
39. What are they good at, and what are they bad at?
40. What's the oldest thing in their room?

Story

41. What do they want most right now?
42. How far would they go to get it?
43. What do they believe will change if they get it?
44. What would they least want to lose?
45. If it came to losing it, what would they choose?
46. What situation puts them in the toughest spot?
47. If they were to change, what would set it off?
48. Where will they be a year from now, and what will they be doing?
49. If you could draw just one scene from their story, which would it be?
50. What would you like to say to this character?

Questions 41 through 47 hand you material for an opening scene when you write a story with your OC.

Example: Mia Toren's OC sheet

Here's Mia Toren from 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, on the short template. Mia is a friend of the lead, Clay, who is an earth mage everyone takes for a dark mage. She knows the truth and plays along. Fields the course hasn't decided yet are left blank.

Most of the fields are empty, but you can already see what Mia does in the story: she carries the secret with him. Ask one question, “Why does Mia play along?”, and the Want and Fear fields start to fill in together. Leave the other blanks for the next questions you ask.

Lots of lore, but no story

Sometimes you've been building an OC for a while, and the sheet keeps getting longer, but no story comes to mind. Usually the want and relationship fields are empty or vague.

A story starts when a character wants something and someone or something stands in the way. Go back to the sheet and look at just those two fields.

• If the want is broad, like “to live happily,” narrow it to something they'd want this week. “Top score on the next exam,” or “make up with their little brother.”
• If a relationship only says “close friend,” decide on one thing those two could clash over. Maybe they want the same thing, or each is hiding something different.

When those two fields lock together, you get a first scene. If you want to develop your OC into a character in a novel, the character profile template goes deeper into the fields you use in a story.

OCs in someone else's world

Lots of people write their OC into the world of a story they love. If your OC is paired with a canon character, as in x Reader or self-insert fics, write down the canon character's voice and personality on their own and keep it next to your OC's sheet. Bending the canon character to fit your OC is an easy way for them to end up OOC. For making the OC side, see How to Write x Reader and Self-Insert Fanfiction. For keeping notes on the canon character, see What Does OOC Mean in Fanfiction?

Keeping your OCs in TypeTak

TypeTak is an AI writing editor where you write alongside an agent. Use Import to upload your OC sheet, and it becomes a document page. Press Organize World, and the agent organizes it into character nodes in your World, your own lore dictionary that doubles as a graph. With several OCs, a node type sets the fields so every OC has the same ones, and the relationships between your OCs show up in the graph. When you write a story with your OCs, the agent finds and reads that character's lore in your World before it drafts or answers.

FAQ