literature

Character Profile Format

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Literature Text

Date of record (Optional feature)
Submitted by (Optional feature. If your world has some sort of investigative organization or bureau, put it here. Preferably, it should be an international organization, like the United Nations or INTERPOL. If the character isn't involved in anything international, a local police station or the equivalent of lone will do. If they are involved in national security, choose an organization or a bureau like the FBI, the NSA, or CSI.)
File #(Optional feature)

Subject:
Species: (Most likely a human, but there are many humanoid characters, and a few people I know have cats as main characters)
Subtype: (The subspecies. Example: Night Elf, Forest Elf, Blood Elf, etc.)
Blood Type:  (Optional. Not usually relevant, but it's still interesting. If the character is foreign to the world, say an entirely different race, they'll have a separate blood type from everyone else.)
Height:
weight:
hair color:
eye color:
Age:
Nationality: (What country they are from)
Service: (Military, paramilitary, police, etc.)
Awards: (Medals and decorations from service)
XXX: (Feel free to add any more information you feel necessary)

[Personal Information]

To simply put it, this is the characters background and history. Not much is needed, just a summary of how they got to where they are. Think of major turning points in their lives, pivotal choices they made.

(Stats)
[Conventional]

The conventional part of a character's stats describe exactly what kind of training they have, their skills, talents…anything an ordinary human could learn. However if it is an animal character that can talk, you might want to include how they learned to speak.

[Biological]

The biological part can be swapped for anything not considered in the realm of reality, such as magic powers, powers, abilities…you know. I use the "biological" label solely because the majority of my characters are Posthuman mutants whose powers come from certain aspects of their DNA and specialized therapies to breed them or inject abilities. It could also go into depth about their exact species. If it is an alien, you could go into deeper explanation as to the biological functioning of that alien. If it is something like a mage or a wizard, explain what types of powers they wield, and how they channel this power. Think in terms of physics and metaphysics for that category.

[Psychological profile]

This is the area that applies to the characters' qualities and faults, motivations and emotional issues. In essence, describe their personality; all this section is is a psychological profile. That means that it goes into depth about why the character does what they do, explaining they're certain styles of that, and how their past affects them, and what their intentions for the future are. Any interesting details, such as a mental illness (Schizophrenia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, mania, Multiple Personality Disorder, etc.) should also go here. If they do have a disorder, explain how they came to acquire it. It is exceedingly rare for a person to develop schizophrenia without some cause. In fact, research any pre-existing conditions. In the real world, there is a reason for everything. It is quite rare for someone to be born a sociopath or a "bad apple". A psychological profile will help you write for your characters so that they leap off the paper (or in this case screen) and into your head so you know exactly what the character will say, how they'll say it, and when they'll say it, and to an extent determine their actions. It is incredibly annoying when someone confuses schizophrenia for Multiple Personality Disorder, and although it is not a common thing for an audience to be that educated, it still falls upon the author's responsibility to know exactly what they are writing about.
NOTE: Although drug addictions and similar chemically related dependencies are biological, include addictions in the mental area of the profile. Someone will have a personal reason for becoming an alcoholic or a smoker, and will not have any feasible default biological need for a cigarette. Although I guess you could put a strange twist on your character so that they can't function without a nicotine patch...but that's your business, not mine. If they have a biological disposition, or some genetic deficiency (such as anemia or any one of thousands of genetic disorders) include that condition in the biological section.
There are quite a few people who try to explain characters through the use of profiles. It has been said that all profiles do is provide meaningless information about what a character looks like, what they like and dislike, and other random information.

But being a fan of the profiling system, I've developed my own format that covers mostly everything. What the character likes and dislikes should be discussed in the story, and not even that much. I can't think of many ways where knowing what kind of music a fictional person likes is relevant. But some profiles ask for a character's political standing, which is important to the story, but not the character. A profile is describing a character as a person, as a human being, and not a member of society. There is plenty of opportunity for that in your book, short story, or what have you. So, if they happen to have an addiction to ice cream, wait until a slow point in your book where it could be interesting. Be creative. Some things belong in a profile, but most of them do not.
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