The past few weeks I’ve been working on customizing my writing lifestyle. I wear writing shirts, I drink out of mugs with writing quotes (my Ravenclaw mug is an exception) and have a writing binder full of research and character forms.

Last night (late into the night, as most writers do) I was up designing characters for my new book, a fantasy novel that doesn’t have a title yet. I decided that I wanted each character to have more than just a form where I wrote their ‘ages and favorite colors,’ so I grabbed some construction paper, printed pictures I found on Pinterest for each character (see my ‘How to Beat the Blank Page’ post if you haven’t already), and got to work.

I chose colors for each character depending on their personality. For example, King Ferris and his daughter, Umbella (her name means ‘little shadow’) are cruel and ruthless, so I used black to show the darkness within them.

As you can see above, I glued on (you can use tape, but I thought glue would work better) a strip of printer paper with the character’s name, and below it their picture. The basic character forms beneath the photos are on my ‘Writing Freebies’ page, so you can print them if you click HERE.

I made these forms for all of my main (and some minor) characters. Remember that even for small characters, you want them to act like a real person. Creating depth is vital for a story that reflects life, so creating profiles for less important characters can be very useful. I also created animal profiles, as animals are an important part of my story. If your main characters have any pets, I would recommend creating profiles for them, as well. The animal character worksheets can also be found on my freebies page.

This was definitely very helpful to me while brainstorming, and it’s a lot easier than having pages of in-depth character forms (or none at all). I hope it’s helpful for you, as well.

Happy brainstorming (and writing, of course!),