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Here was some brainstorming I did on one of my character ideas!
Name (full, nickname, anything relevant to the story): Isabelle Merrida Cortess. She’s named after her ancestors (maybe an Isabelle who came on the original ship to colonize the planet).
Race/description: Unruly/frizzy dark reddish-brown hair, hazel brown eyes. Sort of tall for her age, but it runs in her family.
Myers-Briggs type: INFP Composer
Are they confident or insecure? She acts confident, but she’s really not. She struggles with insecurity and feeling like she doesn’t fit in.What/who do they love? Her family.
What’s their relationship like with their family? Depends on which member. She gets along with Cassian and Lukas (at least, as much as siblings get along) but not really with Freya. Her parents, sort of. She doesn’t have a great relationship with either of them, since they’re both very invested in their jobs.
Who else is in their life? She has a tutor and probably a few friends, too, but no one she knows very well.
Strengths: Her compassion and bravery. She always protect who she loves and stand up for what she believes is right (even if she struggles with it at first).
Weaknesses: impulsiveness, insecurity. She can have a bit of a temper at times, too.
Who do they relate to and why? Freya, more than she realizes. They both have insecurities and struggle with standing up for what they believe is right, because they want to fit in.
What do they fear? Being abandoned/outcast and others’ disapproval.
What do they want? She wants to be accepted and loved. She joins the military in hopes that her family will approve of her, and questions whether to dive deeper into the mystery surrounding her family and their colony because she’s afraid of what she might find – and if that would change the way her family thinks of her.
What do they need? To know the truth, and stand up for what she believes is right instead of trying to please others and ignore injustice.
Are they impulsive? Practical? Yeah, impulsive. She can be practical, but she relies mostly on instinct/impulse, so not always.
What are their hobbies?
What’s their job? A cadet in the planetary defense force. . . ?
Who do they trust? Mostly her family, but she might not trust Freya much.
Do they trust easily? Why or why not? Usually, but it might take her longer to open up to someone. She hasn’t had anyone betray her or anything like that, but she sometimes feels overlooked. She might also wonder if other people really care about her.
Who are they closest to? Who understands them? Cassian, mostly. Lukas too.
How do they change over the course of the story? She learns to stand up for the truth, and stops fearing others’ disapproval so much.There is always light behind the clouds.
- Little Women, Louisa May AlcottAnd I actually think that side characters are supposed to be fleshed out–that’s what makes them more realistic–but not too detailed to the point where they become too big in the story, unless that’s the point, if that makes sense.
I would actually say that it is more realistic for side characters to not be fleshed out. In real life, people you don’t know very well, (the “side characters”) will appear flatter to you, so even though in real life nobody is actually a “flat character,” some do appear so from your perspective, so I think it’s more realistic for side characters in a story to be developed as flat. As a rule of thumb, I would say the better the main character(s), and hence the reader, know the character the more fleshed out they should be.
For a character I need a little info on, but not a large amount, I would probably just ask myself:
Personality type —
Are they confident or insecure? —
Strengths—
Weaknesses—
Are they impulsive or practical? —
Do they trust easily? Why or why not? —
Who are they closest to?—And then depending on the role of the character,
What do they fear? —
What do they want? —
What do they need? —Okay, that seems like a good amount for most side characters. Now that I think about it, probably the traits you want to focus on for side characters are the highly visible ones that someone observing them would easily notice, while their inner traits aren’t really important.
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📚 Appreciator of BooksYou have a point, but I’ll say again that it depends on the character. The more I see of a character, the more I’ll get to know them, and that’s why I feel like it’s important to have developed side characters. But characters without a major role in the story, definitely.
And yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking, too. The way that they behave and talk plays a big role in that also, which is why I figured confidence/practicalness (lol, I don’t know if that’s a word) would be helpful.
There is always light behind the clouds.
- Little Women, Louisa May AlcottA week or so ago, in my creative writing class, we talked about characterization. The teacher showed us six methods of characterization, which can be remembered with the acronym NSTEAL: name, speech, thoughts, effect on others, actions, and looks. While these are mainly for characterization in actual writing, rather than for a questionnaire like this, I thought that effect on others might be something that would be good to put a question or two related to in.
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📚 Appreciator of BooksYeah, I’ve seen questions like that on personality questionnaires like this before. So something like “Makes others feel: intimidated” or sort of like that?
There is always light behind the clouds.
- Little Women, Louisa May AlcottYeah. There might be multiple that would work well. Perhaps something along the lines of emotions they inspire in others, and/or some general things people think about them.
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📚 Appreciator of BooksI thought of another thing that should be on the questionnaire: What do they hate/dislike?
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📚 Appreciator of BooksRight, so like the first impression they give others. That would be interesting. I think I’d prefer just to write a paragraph from the point of view of someone else, and see how the main character looks from their eyes.
Okay, yeah. That could definitely come in handy for some characters. For me, it’s kind of hard to think of things like that unless they’re completely random/are important to the plot.
There is always light behind the clouds.
- Little Women, Louisa May AlcottOkay, yeah. That could definitely come in handy for some characters. For me, it’s kind of hard to think of things like that unless they’re completely random/are important to the plot.
Are you referring to the “hate/dislikes” idea? I find that often a character might also hate something they fear, so there can be overlap there. I’m not necessarily talking about things like “hates heights” or something like that. A character might hate arguing or hate being bored, or they might hate a specific person. I find that hates are often very ingrained in my character’s’ personalities.
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📚 Appreciator of BooksSort of, lol. It’s usually hard for me to think of things my characters hate, unless it’s like really obvious lol.
There is always light behind the clouds.
- Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
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