How to Create a CHARACTER (The Best Character Profile)

what's up my friend Abby here and welcome back to writers life wednesdays where we come together to help you make your story matter it's prepped Ober and if you saw last week's video you know that I'm doing a new series in preparation for NaNoWriMo 2019 we are outlining our novels together which means you're going to look over my shoulder and watch my prepped over process real time this is the first official episode in the prep tober series and we're going to begin the right way by creating and developing our characters but first I'm going to give you a little run-through of my Scrivener and show you how I set everything up for success and how to nail down the theme of your story so that you have a clear focus going forward into your outlining and writing process let's go okay so first things first I'm going to show you how I set up my Scrivener now I did a whole video on this very in-depth last year so if you want to check that out for something more in-depth definitely watch that video but I'm going to run through it real quick just to refresh everybody's minds and get us all on the same page no pun intended so here is my Scrivener template set up by my pre write task list let's start there pre read task list is basically just all the things that come to mind all the random floating bits of ideas and things that I have to resolve before I sit down to write the first draft my manuscript I always break down into three different folders separate sections which are my acts and we're going to talk about the three act story structure later in this series so this is just a nice way to organize things and make sure that I always know what part of my book is where just makes things easier to locate later on then I have obviously my character folder so this is the template that we're going to be using today and dissecting so I know it looks like a lot right now but it's gonna make sense that's for the main character for the side characters these are the templates that I use and actually I put them in my Sheetz folder or just copy-paste them from another document and you can download these templates there in the description box below there also in the resource help on my patreon and next we have the most important folder the outlines so I begin every book outline with a brain dump which I obviously blacked out because I don't want even know what's in my brain come on my brain dump is basically everything that I all the ideas I have for a story before I start plotting it so all the just the random bits of information go into this brain dump so needless to say it is very messy next thing I'm going to outline is the three-act storage structure and we're gonna talk about the three out story structure next week so stay tuned for that the week after that is the long outline where I'm gonna go in depth in detail and just flush out everything like super crazy beginning to end and after that we have seen cards you're like can we get any more detail than this yes we can and we do with seeing cards seeing carts are amazing and if you haven't seen my video on seeing cards definitely check that out but we are going to go into it the last week of prep Tober we're gonna dig into SIM cards and what they look like why they work so amazingly well and what I've done here has changed little icons so that the manuscript acts will match the ones in the scene card outline and that just makes it easier for me to navigate later on I also have a folder for settings which is where I just write sketches of what a setting may feel like or maybe pictures okay so I have a research folder which has nothing in it because I don't really know what I'm gonna be researching for this book if anything it's mostly contemporary it takes place in the real world but if I have to research anything they will go in this folder and last but not least I have notes so anything that I'm not sure where to put it I put it in my notes folder because I know that I'll always find my random stuff in my notes folder so the first document I always make is a styles styles is the writing style okay so I like you know obviously my writing style is gonna be kind of the same over across the board of whatever I write but I like to give every book like a special Flair so things that will come to my my and I'm like oh that would be cool to have like this recurring theme or line or phrase or element that just happens throughout the book so I obviously blacked out most of it because this is surprise next up we have themes I'm going to talk about these in a minute so I'm not going to talk about them right now but that is very important and then I have subplots and I talked about subplots in my other Scrivener organization video so definitely check that out if you want to see what a subplot document actually looks like in my Scrivener what I do is I just figure out each side characters plot because that to me is what a subplot is I usually begin each subplot description with the side characters name so-and-so is going to do this have this impact on the main character learn this as a result of their journey details to remember this is also again just random stuff that I think of throughout the brainstorming process that I don't really know where to put I just know that I need to remember it rating is also something that I just I create like this little template at the beginning of my writing process and then I don't really touch it until after the book is done after the book is edited really and then I'm during the editing process I look at the content of the book and I decide what age bracket do I want this content to be appealing to and did I push it out of that age bracket because of some of the content so that helps me to just kind of look at it objectively and not in the context of the book and then I can figure out by looking at the isolated content what I want to remove or keep in or edit the blurb is something that you might want to write before you write the book or you might want to write it after you write the book I prefer to write mine before I read the book just because it keeps me focused on what is the actual point of the story and am i hitting it like the most important parts of the story I want to tell it's creating that little blueprint before you begin your journey so I'm gonna talk about blurbs in the future I know I've said that for a long time but I'm planning something really great really really great with book blurbs so keep an eye out for that and last but not least I have a soundtracks document which is something that brings me a lot of joy to do is just create a playlist that is what I imagine the soundtrack of the book to be and finally I have my template sheets and in my template sheets folder I really just have one template that I use and that is the scene card so we're gonna talk about the scene card in the weeks to come in the last week of prep Tober we're gonna talk about the scene card and it's gonna be great but these template sheets this template folder you can put anything in this template folder and when you go to add a document anywhere in your Scrivener click on this little plus sign in the drop down menu and your templates your template documents will be right there so that's what's really helpful about the template folder is that you can just go to the plus sign and create as many as you want wherever you want without having to do all this copying and pasting so it's really helpful so that is my Scrivener template you can actually download my Scrivener template plus all the templates and PDFs that we're gonna talk about today when you join my patreon at any level okay there's a resource hub with tons of helpful templates Plus this Scrivener setup exactly how I showed it to you just now so go grab that that's at patreon.com slash IBM ins okay so let's go back to the character folder and oh there's nice buttocks I'm so happy with them just you know stole them off of Pinterest but it's good to have put a face to the character in your head if you like that and yeah it's super fun to add these aesthetics to the cork board and just get like more of a visual for your story so character characters are where the outlining process begins for me okay because like I was saying story is not about what happens it's about how what happens effects and transforms the characters you remember a story not because of the stuff that happened you remember a story because of the journey that the characters went on internally and the truth that they learned about the world that's what story was originally invented to be not an entertainment device not something to just distract us for a few hours of our life no it was actually invented to mean something to impart truth to us to help us avoid pain in danger to enlighten us to better understand ourselves and others which brings us to the real step one finding your story's truth otherwise known as the theme or the message but I like to use the word truth because it just feels better in my mind what is your story's truth I know last week I said that we would begin with characters but nailing your theme is really the most important thing to do before you even touch your characters why because your characters are going to learn the truth as a result of their journey which means they're going to have an internal transformation which means they're going to begin the story believing a lie and knowing what that lie or misbelief is it's going to be the most important part of your character profile so let's begin there let's begin with your theme your story's truth and I'll show you how to reverse-engineer it into an irresistible internal conflict for your main character ask yourself what truth do you want to write a story about take that truth and reverse it to make it a lie this is your protagonists lie or miss belief and the truth is what they're going to realize as a result of their journey of course their journey is going to be external for the most part but the only thing that makes external events riveting is how they affect the internal state of the protagonist here's an example of what this looks like truth you are valuable lie you are worthless story character discovers their sense of self-worth as a result of their journeys so take a minute to ask yourself these questions and really hone in on the theme of your story if you want to go more in depth on story theme definitely check out this video here's my theme for my Nano novel I actually have several and you might have several too which is totally fine just make sure you have an overarching theme that is kind of the priority theme and gets the most attend that's where you're going to build your protagonist internal conflict on okay so my themes are don't judge a person based on their outward appearance always show kindness to the people around you even if they don't seem to need or deserve any family isn't just who you're married to and who you share house with it's who you truly value in your life the people you have a real connection and relationship with the people you couldn't live without so there's a couple there but the most important one is don't judge a person based on their outward appearance that's like the biggest overarching theme and what I actually do with my themes is take the vague idea and expound on it describing in detail how I'm going to show the reader this theme in the story itself I would totally recommend doing this as well but you don't have to do it first unless you want to the only thing that you really need before you dive into creating your characters is your story's overarching truth that you want to scream from the rooftops and what that truth looks like when you reverse it make it a lie and make your protagonist believe it with their whole heart okay so that being said let's dive in to the character profile my character profile my ultimate character profile template is basically made up of three parts no-nonsense questionnaire a character therapy session and backstory you can jump around within this character profile template but if this is your first time using it I would recommend going through it beginning to end because I actually designed it to be like a natural conversation that you might have with your characters starting shallow and ending up way down in the deep end that's why I call it a therapy session because we start off I'll chill like hi what's your name how old are you and we end like what's the childhood traumatic event that changed the way you see yourself and everyone else in the world but first let's begin with the basics the basics are obviously your character's name their role in the story so protagonist antagonist love interest side character physical description age MBTI personality type if you're not a fan of MBTI you can use something else like Enneagram I usually do both but it's good to know your characters personality type so that you can better shape how they'll react in certain situations and the internal questions what is his or her greatest fear you kind of already figured that out when we figured out what their misbelief was so if you figured out the theme and reverse engineered it to be a character lie then you pretty much can build off of that to know what your character is afraid of and then what is his or her Mis belief about the world that's where you're gonna put the reverse-engineered theme what is the best thing in his or her life what is the worst thing in his or her life what does he or she most often look down on people for you can usually find that in the personality type if you're at a loss for what this should be what makes his or her heart feel alive what makes him or her feel loved and who was the last person to make them feel that way top three things he or she values most in life any external and kind of fun questions are what his or her favorite book movie and band is there an object he or she can't bear to part with and why describe a typical outfit from hit for him or her from top to bottom that's just really handy to have for your mental image purposes what names or nicknames has he or she been called throughout their life what is his or her method of manipulation so this one is kind of fun because it can be lots of different things just google it how do people manipulate you pair it with your characters personality and create just a more dynamic social experience for them describe his or her daily routine this is also so helpful when you need to write some kind of transition or something that your character is doing and you realize what what do they do all day I don't even know so good to figure that out beforehand their go-to cure for a bad day I love this too because it's kind of like the routine but it's like their comfort food routine your character is gonna be forced into so many uncomfortable situations throughout the course of your story all they're gonna want to do is go to their go-to cure for a bad day and try to make it everything right in the world again but they're not gonna because you're an evil author and you're not gonna let them do that so that's just a little extra pain icing on top okay so now we've arrived at the therapy session portion of this the character goals a character is nothing without a goal it's the map that leads them on their journey throughout this story and it's what keeps your reader reading so here's how I figure out my character goals based on their desires fears and misbelief basically you're gonna go through this section of the questionnaire imagining that you're having a fun little therapy session with your character yes you can literally take these questions and make them second person and ask your character I've done this literally asked these questions out loud as if my character is sitting in front of me no I'm not crazy okay maybe just a little so set your character down on an imaginary sofa and ask them these questions how are you dissatisfied with your life what do you think will bring you true happiness or contentment what definitive step could you take to turn your dream into a reality how has your fear kept you from taking this action already how do you feel you can accomplish your goal while still steering clear of the thing you're afraid of by the time you're done listening to your characters spill their guts you should have some awesome material to work with this is literally so good that you could actually stop there but we're not going to we're gonna go even further and dive into your character's dark and scary backstory backstory is one of the most important things to write for your character because it is where your characters misbelief originally came from everything you believe and know to be true is really just an accumulation of your past experiences which have impacted your emotions and your moods and your habits and your personality and yes your actual biology kind of scary but don't get distracted thinking about yourself let's think about your protagonist more specifically let's explore what happened in their past to create this misbelief that they believe with their whole heart today there's a reason why we believe what we believe during the downloading stages of our youth we accepted something as true even if it wasn't experience could be something traumatic or highly emotional but it might not even be some big single emotional event it might be just a small reassurance that we believe only because we've been exposed to it again and again and again in small doses but if you can pin down a specific moment in your character's past when they started to believe this lie all the better why because we're gonna write that scene so let's go back to that example of the truth lies story that we worked out earlier in my video on theme I used this same truth lie as the example and our traumatic event that sparked this misbelief of you are worthless for example protagonist was a moment in their past when they were abandoned by their parents at a young age pretty traumatic so think about your characters in this belief and decide what highly emotional or traumatic event could have happened in their past to create and foster such a misbelief you might already have this backstory seen floating around in your head it might even be a really essential part of your story and even better if it is because that's really your end goal is to make your reader see why this character is the way they are and why everything matters to them so here are the questions for the backstory section the backstory scene that changed everything is the scene where and you're gonna fill in the blank with your scene what does your character go into the scene believing and how are they surprised by the outcome how does your character struggle to hold on to their old beliefs and what is their conclusion their new belief so once you figure out what your protagonists pivotal moment in their backstory is going to be write it and then look for moments in your protagonists past up until this moment where they acted upon their misbelief again and again and again I've said this before and I'll say it again what really creates our personalities and our beliefs is not so much that something happened to us one time it's that we psychologically experienced this event over and over and over again we broke this down in my backstory video a long time ago why you should really go through your characters past and find those events at least three of them where a situation pushed your character outside their comfort zone and gave the two options act upon your misbelief or act upon the truth and they chose their misbelief every single time just further cementing it as the truth to them now it's so deeply ingrained in their brain it's a habit and it's part of their identity so if you have the time all right at least three more scenes from your character's backstory in chronological order where they acted upon their misbelief again and again and again so boom that's the character questionnaire for your main character or any character that's getting major screen time you might do it for your antagonist as well or if you have another main character but you don't have to fill out this whole character questionnaire for all your side characters in fact that would be a major waste of time because you're never gonna be delving that deep into all of your side characters internal journeys unless your book is like hundreds of thousands of words long which it might be but for most people you don't want to do that this is a story about your protagonist okay not your side characters they do have lives of their own and stories of their own but they don't take center stage so I've created a side character version of this character questionnaire that only explores the need-to-know stuff so that you can create powerful side characters that don't steal the show so here's what that template looks like if the character's name their role in the story physical description age MBTI personality type or any other personality type you want to do backstory and for the backstory you can do just like a really brief rundown of like who they are where they came from their family situation etc what is his or her greatest fear what is his or her misbelief about the world what happened in the character's past to create this misbelief what is his or her agenda and the top three things he or she values most in life so this is designed the the greatest fear the misbelief about the world you can give them fears and misbeliefs about the world but we're not gonna like go into a whole total transformation internal journey for this mate for the side character because they're not the main character but their fears and their missed beliefs and their little revelations off to the side can also help to enhance the revelations and the aha moments of the main character so now I'm gonna shop and jump back into my Scrivener project for my book and create my characters I'm gonna fill out the fake character profile questionnaire thing for my protagonist Jenny and maybe for my antihero character because he's kind of a big part of it I might just do the little outline the side character outline for him even though he's not really gonna be a side character he's way more prominent that side character and I'm definitely gonna do the side character profiles for all my side characters I forgot to even tell you what my story was about because I was rambling too much about Scrivener and psychology and story and character profiles so I literally changed my mind like three times I was all ready to write a fantasy book and like high fantasy like kings and queens and Dragons and magic it's gonna be awesome I'm still gonna write it but probably a little bit more slow paced throughout the winter instead of all at once and then I was like oh I have this other idea for this other contemporary book that is amazing but I feel like it's not quite all there yet like not all the plot is figured out but this book kind of just came out of my memory and I've literally been like plotting it in my head for like five years I think it was literally like five years ago that I had the idea maybe even longer than that pretty crazy it's been with me for a long time and I finally decided this day no rhyme oh I'm gonna write it and it's a cute contemporary why about high school and crushes and bullies and donuts and cats and finding yourself and your self worth lots of really cool empowering themes about anti-bullying and anti cyber bullying and finding your confidence and discovering your self-esteem oh it's gonna be so good I'm very excited for this book I need to go and make those character profiles now because now I'm just gonna stay here Iran is about it so let's do that right now [Music] okay so I am pretty happy with what I have so far I've fleshed out pretty much everything for my protagonist and my antihero character all my side characters have their initial profile in there and probably gonna add a little bit more - there's my protagonist mom who is a big impact on the story her character profile is really good just nailed it best friend is pretty much done it's coming really well the only thing I'm really missing is like the pivotal moment backstory scene for my protagonist and I like I said before it doesn't have to be like this big emotional traumatic thing that happened one time as much as it can be like things smaller things over time so I think that might be the case for this protagonist probably gonna figure out at least one scene one or two maybe three if I have time backstory scenes that I can write with those little subtle misbeliefs thrown in there so I'm going to work on my character profiles more this week obviously iron out all the wrinkles and if you want my character profile templates awesome they are all available in the description box below this video the link will be super obvious you can print them off or fill them out by hand or copy paste them into your Scrivener okay that's our nano prep for this week and like I said I'm going to be working on these character profiles throughout the rest of this week and probably adding to them here and there throughout the rest of October next week we're going to get to the actual outlining process so taking our character profiles and combining them with the three-act story structure I'll explain what the three-act story structure is and why it works so well for any genre book you're writing and then I'll take my protagonist journey and see how it fits in that layout in that structure of the three-act story structure and that will produce the real first outline for this book that's next week it's going to be awesome so make sure you're subscribed and make sure you hit the bell icon so that you get notified when I release that video comment below and tell me how is your prep Tober going and if you use these templates let me know how it went what was your favorite part of the template and what was your favorite part of the character creation process smash that like button if you like this video and be sure to check out my patreon because that's where we go beyond videos and take storytelling to the next level the patreon community is not only the best way to support what I'm doing here on YouTube but also connect personally with me and give better guidance on your story and it's where you get those cool templates all of them plus my Scrivener setup so go to patreon.com/scishow my friend rock on Shh [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Abbie Emmons

Views: 344,664

Keywords: nanowrimo, outline a novel, how to outline, characters, character profiles, how to create characters, abbie emmons, write a novel, authortube, preptober, nanowrimo2019, character template, how to write theme, how to write backstory, character backstory

Id: X8cy5iqLYF8

Length: 27min 44sec (1664 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 09 2019