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Character Profile Template

Congratulations you’ve decided to write a book, novel, short story, play, screenplay, or anything that involves creating detailed and compelling personas. Making realistic characters is hard work, and essential for engaging your audience. We are here to assist! We’ve created a simple and editable character sheet for you to use. 

Developing detailed character profiles helps make them believable. This exercise will assist as you polish your storyline and your readers will notice and appreciate your attention to detail! Addicted readers need an emotional connection to your characters.

Create a character-driven story with our easy to use character design template. Have you ever read a story that provides amazing insight into the internal conflict and thought process of the protagonist? You feel like you understand them and find them relatable because the character seems lifelike in their flawed but realistic portrayal. Don’t you want your readers to feel that same emotional connection to your story?

With three different design options within our free character design template, you’re sure to find one that works for your own original protagonist designs.

Details Make the Difference

Writing down details in a character bio template can make all the difference for quality writing. 

Writing a novel or screenplay takes time! Even if you can perfectly imagine a character’s physical appearance in your mind at the beginning, writing could take months or even years, you need a consistent point of reference for each of your main characters. Don’t let something as simple as a change in eye color or other features throw your reader’s interest out of balance halfway through. 

Details make description possible! If you truly want your readers to be able to imagine your characters the way you imagine them, then you need to get the minor features right. The devil is in the details as they say, and it is true. These are a great way to make characters memorable and imaginable. Start writing the small ways they speak with a slight accent, the flavor of gum that they chew to hide their smoking habit, their tendency to doodle if they are stuck on a boring call. All of these details set a clear picture that breathes life into your protagonist. Details may also help define a character’s motives. 

All of the questions in our character profile template help you determine how your characters act. They define motivations which are essential to determine protagonist actions. These questions are a great way for you to start writing exactly how they will respond to each situation that they encounter. Do they have a fear or a regret that they are working towards conquering? Are there significant past events that impact how this specific persona will react to different situations? Are they organized or do they procrastinate? Is there a secret that they are hiding that gets exposed once you start writing? 

Character Bio Template Elements

Character Background

Character Routine

Family and Origins

Knowing the basic background information about your character is a good starting point to building an imaginary person. This section helps fill out some additional specifics that weren’t already covered by the general information section.

Can you describe a character’s daily routine? Your story might disrupt their common routine but it is essential to understand how routines show how things change as a story progresses.

Who is the character’s family? How did they grow up? Are they still close with their parents and siblings? You should know all of these things! If this major character has something important happen would they call and tell their mom? What’s the character backstory?

Favorite Things

Relationships with Others

Character Traits

Do you know your protagonist’s favorite things? What does the character like? Can you name their comfort food after a bad day? Do they suck on lemons from their water? What song is the soundtrack to their life? These details aren’t all necessary but they can add small bits of color to someone’s personality

Do you know your character’s relationship with others? Friendships and romantic relationships all impact a persona’s motivations and focus. Do they have enemies or people that they compete with? How do others perceive them? Is there anyone that they can turn to for help during difficult times? How people interact with those around them gives some of the most important insights into their personalities.

Discover their mannerisms and speech patterns. Find small quirks or common phrases that the protagonist says that will help write out its persona and help you remain consistent as you write. Does the character prefer to give or take?

Blast Through Writer's Block

Have you ever been stuck part way through writing? Needed story help? Your mind goes blank and no matter how often you stare at the screen or pick up your pen and paper nothing comes out. Your fingers can’t move, your thoughts don’t flow. And if you do manage to get anything on paper you are never satisfied? As awful as it is, that experience is completely normal! Everyone working in a creative field experiences some sort of writer’s block from time to time, especially if writing a book or lengthy story.  While there are many methods you can use to kick your creativity back into gear, I strongly recommend working on a character profile template. Creating OCs using a good character reference template can and will help jump-start your writing out of writer’s block. 

 

Even if a detail like a protagonist’s bedtime routine may seem insignificant it might be exactly what you need to kick off a new scene. You can use it to dig deeper into what worries might keep the protagonist up at night. Personality traits can show a persona developing as the story progresses, a grumpy persona might fall asleep with a small smile as they think about a perfect date, or a happy persona might be up all night pacing in concern over a careless argument. 

 

While I prefer to use OC character sheet templates at the beginning to help create a new story, every writer has a different process. Also it is important to note that character templates can and should be living documents. They are meant to help write your story in the best way. They can be updated and changed as you continue your writing journey. They can reflect new details that you choose to include and they can be a fantastic reference point to make sure you aren’t contradicting yourself. When you first start writing your story, if the profile design template isn’t fully fleshed out and you are blocked, try filling in a few more sections and see if that helps get those creative juices flowing. 

Character Outline Template Samples

Creating a Good Character Profile

The stage is set but is your protagonist ready for prime time? 

You want to build a holistic overview of your character persona that you can rely on for context and consistency while you write, whether it’s a book or a hero for a D&D campaign. To do that you want to flush out a lot of specifics that will provide realistic details to help your audience build a connection. Things such as a  job title will help create an image that lets your readers make assumptions about what they can expect based on the character backstory. These details can help hint at or specify skill sets that the OC (original character) has. If you describe your protagonist’s physical world through enough relevant details then your readers can imagine entire scenes in crystal clear ways.

Details are meant to appeal to our senses. They provide context and specificity that can take a bulletin-style description and turn it into a memorable and vivid imagination. Blue eyes and blonde hair might be correct but they don’t provide the minutia that lets your readers imagine a character. Are their eyes a deep blue like the clearest sapphire and deepest ocean or are they a pale blue that borders on gray that stares at you with a glacial iciness reminding you of hard steel, immovable and unyielding? If eyes are the windows to the soul, details are the windows to the imagination. With the right level of character design, you can show emotions, amp of tensions, and make your readers fall in love with your characters.

Testimonials For Our Free Character Sheet Template

What a marvelous profile template thank you so much. I have used several but none as complete or in one place as this... Sell on your blog or Etsy because it is worth it.
Annie H
Thank you for sharing your oc bio template, the designs are really nice and easy to use.
Casey R
I absolutely LOVE the template that I downloaded! It was incredibly helpful for a character sheet that I wanted to create. Thank you so much for making it a free download and edit-able! It is very well made and I love the design thought you put into it as well. I can’t wait to use it again for another OC’s character sheet.
Ashley W
The Character Profile Template is amazing and very helpful! In fact, it's the best design template I've seen so far, I love how much information it holds!
Lilly B

I do love the layout and the selection of backgrounds, etc. it’s going to make building my original characters so much easier.

The character design template was amazing, thank you so much. It was extremely detailed, and it helped me during a tight deadline. Again, thank you!

I enjoy it, quite a lot, can't wait to use it for more character designs, keep up with the good job.

I would like to say that I’m completely in love with the bio template. It has been very helpful for me and my story.So far, I’ve been able to make very good characters with it. I’m super grateful for your template!

First of all, let me just say that your character description template has made my writing process much easier and I’m not stressing over the creation of my characters.I love it sweetheart and I’m thankful for your character profile template. Please keep up the good work!!

It’s great! It definitely makes my first OCs feel more real to me. Thank you for the story help.

I applaud your bio template creations. They're magnificent and will not only help me with my work, but I'm sure they will be beneficial to many others. Thank you for sharing the fruits of your incredible creative talent with us. Your generosity will be appreciated by everyone.

Start Building Your Character Bios Now

Are you ready to get started building your protagonist profiles using this fantastic and free character bio template? It is simple, just click below to add your name and email address. You will automatically receive an email linking you to your very own copy of the printable google docs character sheet template in google sheets. Hit save and you are ready to get started!


Remember you can build your character writing template at your own pace any time inspiration strikes! There are also plenty of optional spaces for you to fill in your own questions and details that matter to your story line and protagonist, antagonist, or any minor characters that live within your story.


If you want more tips and tricks for improving your writing head over to our blog section and learn more best practices!



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