Writing Blog Number 2 (continued)

20260126 Character Sheets

Character Sheets

I mentioned some time ago that I use character sheets, based on Dungeons & Dragons, for my characters, even those not in the fantasy genre. I was asked to show a demonstration, and have been trying ever since to do it. The pictures are too small, the tables don’t translate, yadda yadda.
         So what I am going to do is put the information that exists on my single page sheet here.
Name
          Yes, the character’s name. First and foremost.
Alias
         Nicknames, pet names, other names known by in the story.
Gender/SO
         The gender and sexual orientation
Height
         Choose your units
Weight
         Choose your units
DoB
         Date of birth
Eyes
         Colour and size
Hair
         Colour and style
Skin
         Colour and racial identity
Education
         How far they went in their education. What qualifications they have achieved (vocational as well as academic)
Occupation
         I also include previous jobs here
The next section is 6 headings (and this is stolen from D&D):
Intelligence
Strength
Wisdom
Endurance
Charisma
Beauty
These are given a score out of 20, where 11 is normal for a human. Strength is physical strength, but you could include more scores for physical, mental and emotional.
Partner
         They don’t need to have one
Live With
         Who they live with – family, relatives, partner, friends, room-mates, etc. Or alone.
Past R
         Past important relationships
Drive?
         Yes or no – do they drive
Licence
         What are they licenced to drive? Car, truck, bus, boat, motorbike, plane
Extra skills
         Listed, and where they learnt them
Religion
         What religion they are; also included here is how important it is to their life
Extra Notes
         Any extra notes for anything else. This is where I tend to put pets, although I have seen sheets with pets as a separate entry.

And that is what I use to form the scaffolding in order to flesh out my characters. As a pantser, I will do one of these for each character as they come up in the story; plotters will, of course, have all of this filled out beforehand. I also add other notes as needed – verbal tics is one – and things that come up not listed.
         Anyway, that is just how I do character sheets.