Designing Characters

Hey guys. So today I chose to talk about character designs. So for me character designs have two parts. The first part is a basic characters sheet. I never really saw the point of a character sheet. Sometimes I still don’t see the point of a character sheet. But using a character sheet just once has changed my life completely when it comes to writing. I have used several character sheets but these are just a few of my favorites.

My most favorite characters sheet I copy and pasted from this website

https://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jun98/how-to-create-a-character-profile-6986

My other favorites are:

http://www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html

https://www.epiguide.com/ep101/writing/charchart.html

And of course, like anyone else you can also find all sorts of printable character sheets on Pinterest. Ah the glories of Pinterest.

Another problem with character sheets though is when they don’t help. I have located a condition that makes them not help when writing a novel. This condition is *drum roll*

NOT FILLING IT OUT ALL THE WAY!

Honestly though. If you don’t finish filling out the character sheet its not very useful. Even if you get bored with the character sheet try to finish it or set it aside and finish it tomorrow but definitely finish filling it out before you start really writing the book. It helps with character inconsistencies in the plot line. Characters doing things they wouldn’t do during the rest of the novel. Things like that.

But I did say that designing characters has two parts. Because it does. The second part of designing a character is designing their outfits. I know a lot of people skip this part. But I find this part is not only the funnest part of designing a character but it is the most beneficial for me for character descriptions. Its so helpful to see the outfit I’m describing and not just imagining it. It makes it easier for your readers to imagine it as well.

A few tips to costume designing for your characters. First (if you’re like me) draw with a reference. I always look for costume reference art. Here are just a couple of the ones that I use.

I love some of these. I have a lot more. Like a lot more….. Its becoming an obsession. As you can tell some of these pictures aren’t costume designs but sketches drawn by other people. I take pieces of all the costumes and put them together to make my costume look like the ones I want. Most of them are from DeviantArt. I don’t own them. I just enjoy viewing them. I do love a good artist.

Using these I design my own costumes to look the most like the ones I imagine. Like these:

There you go! Art! (Well not really but those are some of my best sketches.)

I don’t know how other writers design their characters. Maybe you should find some and ask them. That might be kind of fun as well. I hope your character designing goes well.

Next week I’m going to write on If I Had A Million Dollars. Not very writerly but its always a fun post to have. As always feel free to subscribe (so you can get the email notifications), share the link with someone, or just continue reading. Faithful followers are good followers! See you next week!