Ready, Set, Novel!: Character Profiling

It’s officially #NaNoPrep season! Inspired by the creativity and motivational prompts in Ready, Set, Novel!—written by our own Chris Baty, Lindsay Grant, and Tavia Stewart-Streit—we’re bringing some of our favorite writing exercises to you. Today, we’re tackling a character worksheet:

Sometimes everything about your character just comes naturally from your fingertips, and other times, you don’t know your character so well. Are you facing the latter? That’s okay! 

We’re here to help with:

A basic character profile
A personality assessment
Some capability scenarios
A handful of… different character exercises
The BasicsName:
Date of Birth:
Gender:
Cultural Background:
Current Location:
The Personality AssessmentWhere does your character like to hang out?
What is your character passionate about? Politics? Religion?
How does your character feel about their family? (Be honest.)
What’s your character’s pet peeve?
Does your character have any guilty pleasures?
A Capability TestYour character locks their wallet, keys, and cell phone in the car. What do they do?What kind of eater is your character? For example, would they kick butt in an eating competition? Or do they subsist on the bare essentials?Your character gets drunk with their worst enemy. What goes down?Your character’s main love interest demands that they prove their love. How does this go?Here’s Where Things Get WeirdTake a Buzzfeed personality quiz as your character. Take a few. …Stop at eight. That’s probably enough.
Your character takes a selfie, however that may manifest in your world. Please describe in detail this selfie and the circumstances that led to it.
Your character hops through time and space to arrive in our current circumstances. Your character joins Twitter immediately (duh). Craft your character’s first 140-character tweet.
Please select four photos that make up your character’s Tumblr aesthetic.

Ready, Set, Novel!  is brought to you by  NaNoWriMo all-stars Chris Baty, Lindsey Grant, and Tavia Stewart-Streit. Designed to get your feet wet and hands dirty in the days, weeks, or months before noveling, contains character profile templates, exercises to help you find your plot, a ready-to-color outline of Gustave Flaubert, and… could it be? Yes, more!

Top right photo by Flickr user olarte.ollie.