Fiction Character Profile Template With A Free PDF Example

Character development is essential to fiction writing, and a character profile template can help you.

You need to get to know your fictional characters well before you start writing your story.

No matter what genre you are writing, you should create profiles for your main characters before you begin.

Creating a quick bio profile template is the best way to organize your thoughts.

What is a character profile template?

If you are planning to write a book or even a short story, you need interesting people to write about.

You might already have a few ideas in your head, but they are not fully developed. But a short bio of a couple of sentences will not be enough.

There will be many times in your story that you will need to refer to precise details about your characters.

Very often, a lack of attention to minor details can cause problems in a plot.

When I started writing, I had no idea about building a character profile template.

It led to me making so many mistakes in my first drafts. I was writing by the seat of my pants, and it didn’t end well.

Writing a book needs careful planning and outlining. Without it, you can end up with a convoluted story with very flat characters.

If you detail as much as you can before you begin, you will have a quick and reliable reference you can use as you write your book.

It might take you a little while to complete the details. But it will help you develop your character and save you time in the long run.

How to create a character profile template

There are a lot of choices for book writing software. Many of the premium versions come with a bio template or profile cards.

You can usually add as many sections as you wish, as well as a character image.

But you don’t need to buy software to create as many profiles as you need for character creation.

It’s very easy to detail all the information about a character’s life by creating a simple character template in Microsoft Word or Apple Pages.

Here is an example of creating a fiction profile template complete with some details.

A good profile will have as much information as possible to form a complete overview of your character. Here are some essential traits and details you will need to include once you’ve created your template.

• • Short bio
  • Personal data
  • Physical description
  • Personality traits
  • Positive and negative attributes
  • Mannerisms and habits
  • An image

You can always add more elements if you wish.

You might not use all of the information in your story. Simple things like knowing a birthday and astrological signs might not seem necessary.

But as your story develops, character development questions and small details like this can sometimes crop up. If you are well prepared, you will not confuse a reader by using two dates in your story.

If you write historical fiction, dates are a big issue, and it is so easy to get things wrong or out of order.

If a character lived in the 17th century, a birth date of August 1725 would be wrong. It should be 1625.

When you write, interesting characters should always be showing the story to the reader. The more details you know about them, the more depth you can give to your story.

Download your bio template

If you do a Google search, you can find many free templates to download.

But many want your email address before you can download a template or profile worksheet.

If you are like me, you want to avoid getting even more marketing emails. But it’s up to you.

It’s really so simple to do it yourself by making a simple Word or Pages template.

All you need to do is set up your new document in portrait or landscape and save it as a template.

You can add as many text boxes as you think you will need. I also add an image holder. I’ll cover more on that later.

Here is what my basic template looks like.

You can download my template in pdf if you click the image above.

And no, you don’t need to hand over your email address to get it.

You are welcome to print it out if you are happy to write details by hand. Or, if you know how to do it, you can edit and annotate the pdf file.

But, if you prefer, you can create your own template like this in less than five minutes.

Why you should add an image

There is nothing better than a visual image of your main characters. If you have a picture in your bio template, it will help you a lot when you write.

It doesn’t need to be anything spectacular. But a picture that is representative of what you have in mind is a great idea.

Where can you find an image?

You are not going to use or share your image online. You are only going to use it for your template. So you can use almost any image you can find.

The best places to start looking are royalty-free stock image sites. There are thousands upon thousands of photos you can choose from.

You can find many images of people, fantasy images, and even aliens. Here is one I found on Pixabay.

It’s okay to show you this image because the Pixabay License says it is free for commercial use, and no attribution is required.

You can also search the Internet and even social media platforms for an image that looks like what you have in your imagination.

But if you intend to share your profile image or images, always make sure you check the license information first.

It is essential if you plan to use an image for your book cover.

Summary

I have tried many different ways of creating a good character profile template.

For some time, I kept bullet point notes and spreadsheets and then tried writing long descriptions.

But with a bit of experience, I found that breaking up the information into boxes helped make the details and information clearer and easier to remember and reference.

When you write, you can add more details to each text box as they appear in your story, so you keep building real-life character details.

Then you won’t fall into a fact trap later in your book.

There is no better or the best way to lay out your profile templates.

But not having profiles when you start writing your book is one of the most common mistakes for an inexperienced writer.

When a problem comes up in the plot, it means wading back through the whole manuscript, trying to find mentions of perhaps hair or eye color or important dates.

It’s always a great idea to get to know your characters as best as you can before you write.

Your story will flow better and more naturally and be factually accurate.

Related reading: Learn How To Get Your Dialogue Punctuation Right Every Time