When you're profilng a main character, particularly the protagonsit, what information do you write down.

Name, age, place of birth, qualifications, etc . . .

Hey Dr Q

As much as you want. Some would say everything you can.

But why not simply describe the chaarcter doing something really ordinary like having breakfast. And then see what you discover about him or her.

Repeat this activity for different things your character is likely to do. He or she may surprise you, but you wil be writing a real three dimensional person not a set of rules.

Best

Prosp

Hi Dr Q,

I rarely profile main characters on paper( i know, probably a big mistake) but in my head i tend to concentrate on their past and what has made them the person they are today, what drives them.

Also i concentrate on things which will help the reader build a picture of them - style of hair/dress, idiosyncracies in the way they talk, the way they move/smell.

I rarely think about place of birth.

But then by the looks of your other thread, your genre is totally different to mine (romance), so your profiles may well require more concrete information.

sammy

Jon's is excellent advice (although I'm more like Sammy in that I don't write too much about them - just names and relevant info that may be useful at some point in the story).

I'd suggest just getting into writing the story. You'll find out much more about your characters when they start doing something.

Best of luck with it.

Nik.

Not sure whether I'm misunderstanding the question but, if not, I think this link might help:

http://www.writewords.org.uk/groups/104_71493.asp?y=1&sterm=character%20trait

You should know, in your own mind, how your characters will react in any given situation and also what past experiences have moulded them and brought them to where they are now. Your characters MUST have a history, otherwise they will be shallow and two-dimensional. You don’t necessarily need to include all this history in the novel but the fact that you know it in your head as you're writing will give your characters credibility.

Dee

I'm with Nik on this one. I've used so many methods and various computer programs for profiling characters and to be honest, they all fall down for me. What works for me is seeing the character in a scene (in my head) and seeing if it works. If it does, the later on I play them in other scenes (again, just in my head) that are not going to appear in the book, just to see what they would do. Say a fire breaks out - would they get involved, watch from a distance, take pictures, panic, worry, regret doing or not doing something later on, or simply pocket the book of matches that started the fire and wander off.

In short, writing all the details down works for some and not for others. Having a list of character traits simply doesn't bring a character to life for me.

Colin M

Dee, Dee, Dee,

you have so hit on one of my problems...i place great importance on knowing my characters' history, the problem i have is NOT including every damn detail...
BACKSTORY OVERLOAD!!

Sammy