Mindful Content: Creating Novel Characters with Individuality and Depth – Profiling

By Marcus Coates, @homeinriyadh,

5th August 2021, blog 20

Unsplash: Lance Anderson

Top Trumps

When I was younger, I used to love playing Top Trumps in the schoolyard during breaks.

I’ll provide you with a brief overview for those who don’t recall this particular childhood activity:

Top Trumps were a set of playing cards grouped around a particular theme - this could be aeroplanes, cars, famous footballers, boats, weapons, fish - the categories were numerous.

On each card was an image with a set of related statistics. If the Trump set was related to footballers, then the stats might be something like the cost of the player, overall value to the team, striking ability, defending ability, goals scored, and so on – you get the picture.

The game’s concept was to distribute the cards amongst the players, take it in turns to strategically pick a category, and hope that your chosen category contained a higher numerical value than your opponents’ cards. If so, you trumped your opponents and won the round and the cards.

So, what has Trump Cards got to do with creating novel characters with individuality and depth, I hear you ask? Well, good question, and here’s my answer:

By creating a profile of characters for your novel, using a set of standard categories – in essence, Trump Cards – you’ll be able to build up a portfolio of interesting characters that are distinct from each other and readily at hand to place into your stories.

Character Profiling

How often, when writing (or reading), have you found that the main character (MC) is bland? Or the love interest is one dimensional and vanilla? Or the villain of the piece is generic and lacks distinctive traits? Or find the supporting characters lack definition and feel like afterthoughts rather than intrinsic to the story?

Once the narrative is underway, it becomes increasingly difficult to ‘fix’ characters on the fly. The writing can suffer from missed opportunities of adding tension, intrigue or lack of depth and nuance if the characters come across as homogenous and one dimensional.

Additionally, if a supporting character hasn’t appeared in the story for a few chapters, the chances of sketching in incorrect or conflicting information become ever more likely. A support character might end up with a different name, age, facial appearance or nationality!

To avoid falling into the trap of ill-defined characters or losing sight of your characters individualities as the story becomes more complex – especially if you have a large cast – I recommend creating a set of profile ‘Trump Cards’ using a template, like the one below.

Here is an example of a character profile I created for a Detective Vampire Story.

Profile Template

Why profile?

This character profile template provides me with a great starting point for when I introduce my character.

The profile also helps with adding lots of quirky elements that I can use as I write to create more interest: the Private Investigator job suits a non-conformist with antisocial tendencies - with the Police and Army background adding depth and credibility to how Sam Smiley ended up as a PI; the unusual living accommodation on a houseboat means that the character can live in Central London directly where the plot action will take place; the unique pet (Boa Constrictor) will provide opportunities for future conflict and jokes; the quirks can all add depth (Where did he get the scar? Why is he always drunk or hungover? Why the interest in the Occult? Why the throwing axes?) – all can add individuality and interest to the character.

Once I have the character profile basics sketched out on the template, I can place it in a folder and create a rogue’s gallery. Even at a glance, it becomes apparent if my characters are unique enough or if I’ve overlapped and given multiple personalities the same characteristics, features, clothing or moral code. And I can always revisit and add more detail or adapt with minimum fuss at a later date.

One final point: from my rogue’s gallery, if I don’t use every character in one story, I can have a host of memorable characters to return to or expand upon for future stories or serials.

I’ve included a downloadable template in the resources section of my website:

www.mc-mindful-content.com, so feel free to visit, download, and start character profiling.

Happy writing!

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