Outlining Characters 101: How I Outline Characters (A Simple But Effective Format)

Scary question: How do you outline a good character?

Don't worry, it's not the format's fault if your character isn't so great. A bad format might prevent you from thinking of a few details that might have helped you flesh out a character a little further, but it's not the format's fault if your character wasn't interesting.

I think the most important part of creating characters is figuring out what kind of character questionnaire works the best for you. Over time, slowly crafting my own has been so fun. It's a little fuzzy around the edges, but it's mine, and I want to share it.

The best thing about this character questionnaire is that it's not that long. I've worked with so many character questionnaires before that had 50, even 100 questions. That's too many. I felt like the longer I worked at them, the less clear the character felt in my head. That's why I think simple but deep ones work so much better. 

Here's my character questionairre:

Name:(what's their first, middle, and last name? Include a nickname if they have one)

Age:(how old are they? If they aren't human, how does their age in years stack up to their maturity level?)

Appearance: (including height, build, facial structure, preferred hairstyle, what clothes they like to wear, their posture and attitude, any birthmarks, tattoos, or scars)

Likes: (this one's a little ambiguous. What kind of people do they like? What foods are their favorites? What colors? What activities?)

Dislikes: (the inverse of the likes. What things do they dislike?)

Now these are just the basic questions. As a general rule, I always include these in my character outlines. are the things I generally always include in my questionnairre.

After this part, I add a section called 'About' where I just do some free writing on the character. This way I don't have to answer the same set of questions every time, and I don't have to know all the answers.

Some of the things I might include in the 'About' section:

What they do when they're bored

How they behave when they're angry

How they behave when something is bothering them

What sort of things bother them

How they show affection and how awkward they feel showing it

Their family and their relationship with said family

What sort of things they might normally carry with them

Their moral alignment(chaotic good, true neutral, etc.)

Talents and abilities

Fears

You don't have to do all of these, you don't have to feel limited to these, and you don't even have to feel that you have to do any of these. I find that as you get started on one topic, more stuff comes to you, and the words just keep going.

After I've written enough random stuff about my character and I feel like I understand them enough to write about them, then I move on to the following wrapup questions:

What is their central flaw?

What is the lie they believe that causes that flaw?

What is the ghost from their past that caused them to believe that lie?

What is the want that drives them in this story?

And now you have your character outlined! Time to hop on Pinterest and make an aesthetic board for them! You deserve it! ;)

I plan to add questionairres for side characters and antagonists as well! I will also be adding printables with this once the whole series is out, so keep an eye out.