The Character Dossier
To send your hero and other characters on their journeys, you need to know who they are and what they’re trying to do.
So learn everything possible about your characters’ lives. Know the most intimate details of their physical, mental, and spiritual lives. Don’t just discover the surface facts of your characters’ lives; explore the backstories. Don’t just find your characters’ names; discover how they got their names and what they mean. Don’t just talk about their jobs; find out what work means to them emotionally.
Be complete. Don’t dismiss any ideas as unimportant. Each detail, somehow, matters. Just as a P.I. gets his best stuff while tracking down unlikely leads, you will discover telling details when you fill in the information for each of these four categories:
Personal Background
• Name
• Age and birthday
• Birthplace
• Parents’ ethnic and religious background
• Parents’ upbringing, hopes and fears, and careers
• Place in the family’s birth order
• Relations with siblings and other relatives
Physical Characteristics
• What others notice first
• Body and build
• Hair and eye color
• Sound of voice
• Conversational oddities
• Physical peculiarities
• Mannerisms while walking, talking, working, and playing
Growing With Others
• Activities and hobbies as a child … and as an adult
• Sidekicks and mentors
• Intellectual and emotional influences
• Rivals and foes at different stages of life
• Not-so-good influences—skeptics, and tempters
• Political leanings—and major political influences
• How the character changes over the course of life
• Turning points in life
Psychology
• All-consuming desires
• Pathological maneuver
• Most admirable qualities
• Least admirable qualities
• Sexual identity
• Philosophy of life
• Optimism or pessimism
• Energy level
• What the character does when alone
• What the character thinks about when alone
• Greatest fears at different stages of life
Gathering so much information might seem like overkill. But you need to know everything about your characters before you can decide what’s important.
When you gather these details, you can move from characterization to character. Characterization offers the simple surface facts of a person’s life; character goes deeper to the heart and soul of their life. We find people’s character in the choices they make in their most difficult moments.
By defining the character, the dossier helps to tell the story. In fact, it’s almost impossible to create a dossier without also beginning to tell the story.
