The Only Character Profile template You Need

Have you ever read your book while in edit mode only to realize that Mary’s eyes turned from brown to blue at some point? Or was she miraculously born in two different towns? Keeping all the details together for your character can make the difference in keeping clean characterization and details in your work in progress (believe me, readers will notice.)

Or perhaps you’re a plotter like me, and you love to plan out each character, who they are, and how they think (and also, like me, your memory is more a sieve than a steel trap), and you need a place to write down all of your thoughts and dreams and disasters planned for them.  That requires a Character Profile.

This becomes even more important when you’re working on a series. Having a document to remind you that your character hates coffee when they stroll into the coffee shop in book 2, 3, or 10 helps build consistency and trust with your readers.

What is a Character Profile?

A character profile is a structured reference document that captures who a character is, what they’ve experienced, and why they make the choices they do in a story. Writers use character profiles to keep character details consistent, deepen motivation, and create more meaningful conflict as the story unfolds.

In practice, a character profile serves two main purposes:

1. It documents your character choices.
It records the decisions you’ve made about your character—their history, traits, relationships, fears, habits, and contradictions. (And yes, sometimes it also records the moments when the character clearly overruled you. That happens.)

2. It helps you think about your character as a real human being.
A strong character arc come from understanding why a character reacts the way they do. A character profile helps you identify the experiences, losses, values, and emotional pressure points that shape their behavior.

One of my favorite reminders about this came from a workshop with Donald Maass, who posed a deceptively simple question:

What else can you take away?

That question works because meaningful conflict isn’t random, it’s personal. When you know your character deeply, you can take away the right thing.

For example, losing a keychain might seem insignificant — unless you know it was the last thing your heroine’s mother gave her before she died. Suddenly, that loss carries emotional weight. And emotional weight is what turns events into story.

That’s what a character profile helps you do:
connect backstory to motivation, moments to meaning, and conflict to consequence.

This Character Profile template is part of my Work in Progress notebook, where you can keep all the details of your book, from plot planning to characters. But if all you’re looking for is the character details, this post is for you.

How much detail should you have?

I’ve seen character profiles that include over 100 different fields. But at some point, you have to balance between having a character profile that keeps you consistent against using the dozens of fields to keep you focused on filling this profile out instead of writing your story.

A character profile should be simple to maintain and easy to build and add to as you gain more knowledge and write your characters more. Then, you can determine what other fields might be important to your story and add them to the list.

Basic categories to think through

This profile breaks down the character into a few categories:

• Name and Books
• Physical Appearance
• Basic Details
• Family and Social Ties
• GMC (Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts)
• Book Excerpts

The questions to ask

If you prefer to build your own, here are the basic questions asked. You can easily copy and paste this character profile list below and drop it into any document.

Want to send this to your inbox to save for later? Drop your email at the bottom of this page to send this right to your email. And receive both a Google Doc link and a Notion template you can use.

Character Name & Books/Series

• Character Name:
• Nicknames:
• Books Included:
• Role:

Physical Appearance

• Hair Color:
• Eye Color:
• Height:
• Weight:
• Skin ColorType:
• Birthmarks:
• Posture/Shape:
• Dominant Hand: Left | Right
• Fashion/Style:
• Health:
• Other Identifying:

Character Inspiration:

Is there an inspiration for this character? Drop an image in here:

Basic Details (Demographics +)

• Age:
• Birthdate:
• Gender:
• Birthplace:
• Race/Nationality:
• Marital Status:
• Education:
• Titles or Degrees:
• Current Residence:
• Own/Rent/other?
• Language(s):
• Financial Status:
• Allergies:
• Dislikes/likes (food, etc):

Family & Social Ties

Significant Relationships (important to the Character’s Journey) – add details and which book(s) this part of the story moves forward.

• Mother:
• Father:
• Sibling(s):
• Sibling(s):
• Children:
• Other Key Family relationships:
• Friends:

Goals, Motivations & Conflict (GMC)

• What events have affected your character and how?
• Introvert or Extrovert?
• How does that impact their actions?
• Positive Traits
• Negative Traits
• Goals at the start of the novel (What do they want?)
• What do they need?
• Internal Conflicts:
• External Conflicts:
• What is one fear that affects them in this story?
• What is something they are known for?
• Other Notes:

Excerpts / Mentions in Book(s)

Copy and paste description paragraphs or significant moments you want to remember here. Believe me, the way you write a specific phrase or have another character describe this character comes in handy.

Book:
Page #:
Excerpt:

---

---

Looking to go deeper with understanding your character? Discover the types of character arcs and how to build one for your characters (including your antagonists.)