Character sheets--how important is it to write these out before starting a novel?

I don't use the snowflake method, but in my experience of fleshing out characters beforehand, I find that they always, always change during the story. I mean some hobbies and what they want to be when they grow up may stay the same, but things like personality or how they act around other characters seem to change.

I think a big part of it is what kind of genre you're working in, and if your work skews more plot-driven or character-driven.

If you're working in a realm where things are super-character-driven, then it's good to hash out more of the details ahead of time. Even if you never end up implementing a fraction of what you put down on the character sheets, you automatically know how A will react in a certain circumstance. Putting in the effort for the character sheets will help you stay internally consistent. We've all read the novels where the character's hair or eyes mysteriously change color at some point, or a rules-following do-gooder ends up committing fifteen felonies in the course of an evening's adventure without batting an eye, or the author just happened to lose track of their own sequence of events and makes a dumb mistake (hello, JK Rowling and the Wand Order Mistake). So it's easier to stay consistent when things are written down in greater detail.

But if things are more plot-driven, then the characters have a little more room to be squishy, and the writer can adapt them to circumstances as necessary. I don't have to figure out someone's favorite cake, or what their major was in undergrad, or whether they were the eldest of six or an only child. You can have a good idea of their rough sketch, in terms of archetype-- someone who's motherly, someone who prioritizes money over relationships, someone who can be convinced to go along with anything-- and you can make a few notes about their appearance-- but you don't have to get too far into the weeds. They move through the plot to make the story happen, rather than dwelling too deeply on their internals regarding what's going on around them while the story happens. And as the story happens, you may discover that instead of having a goal-oriented person from Page 1, it might be a better story if you start off with a slacker who suddenly has an incentive to become goal-oriented, and the slacker's internal evolution is just as compelling as the progress regarding the external plot points. So character elements might be more likely to change, as you discover the needs of the story change.

I agree too; they can be skipped. Tell that to Brian or Brain or whoever you need to. I'm writing my seventh novel and have never done one.

This doesn't mean they are never helpful or that you shouldn't do them. It is always good to have your characters act and speak consistently, and if getting some facts down on paper to refer to later helps then by all means do so.

Patty said:

That's a relief.

See, Brain? I can skip this step. Starry Storm and Lone Star Librarian agree with me.

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So does MaeZe.

Obviously some people find them useful. I know my characters and the story well enough they just didn't seem useful to me.

I think they would be useful if one was developing an initial story. My story was developed before I started writing.


I will add though, I knew a lot about the story and characters and that meant a lot went into the dead darlings pile and sometimes I'd forget what was in my head was not on the page for the reader, so I'd have to add clarity. And other times I'd get all hung up explaining the world to someone and they'd tune out.

Not at all important.

Character sheets are more for RPGs, aren't they?

Maybe some sort of annotation of relevant details might be handy for minor recurring characters so you don't mix up whatever details matter to the story (like not saying a secondary character is someone's cousin in one scene and saying she's their half sister in another), but I never have any trouble remember important details about protagonists and other major characters. Sometimes things about characters evolve as the story evolves too. So if I decide it's better to have someone be a half sister instead of a cousin, or brown eyes instead of hazel, for their mom to be alive instead of dead, that's great. But I don't tend to forget it if the detail is important enough to mention.

Maybe some writers find them useful, and if they are to you, go for it. I don't know many writers who use them. Certainly don't let yourself feel pressured into using them by anyone who is trying to sell their "method" to you, though. Writing is a very individualized process and there is no universally right or wrong way to go about doing it.

Patty said:

That's a relief.

See, Brain? I can skip this step. Starry Storm and Lone Star Librarian agree with me.

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I'm in the skip-the-step camp.

Roxxsmom said:

Maybe some writers find them useful, and if they are to you, go for it. I don't know many writers who use them. Certainly don't let yourself feel pressured into using them by anyone who is trying to sell their "method" to you, though. Writing is a very individualized process and there is no universally right or wrong way to go about doing it.

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I've been eschewing any advice lately after my preferred method was dismissed and I'm trying to remain in the "if it works for you" camp, rather than dismissing everybody's advice as pointless/useless in retaliation out of spite and anger. (Not here, but in meatspace.) Although, I will qualify any advice with the mention that if it's taking away from your actual writing time and becoming a cover for procrastination, then maybe it's time to take a step back and reevaluate what the heck's going on. YMMV.

BenPanced said:

Although, I will qualify any advice with the mention that if it's taking away from your actual writing time and becoming a cover for procrastination, then maybe it's time to take a step back and reevaluate what the heck's going on. YMMV.

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This, 1000x this!

I suppose the particular format of the notes or outline process doesn't matter so much (or even the order) as long as you have what you need. In my case the plot develops more easily if I've first fleshed out some interesting characters with opposing goals. I need to understand what each character wants, what are the stakes in the scene. YMMV, take it with a grain of salt as I'm still a newbie!

I'd keep a notebook on hand to jot down salient points about the character (descriptions, background info if/when it becomes relevant, whether or not they have or acquire significant scars - hey, I can be rough on my characters, so sue me...), but at some point filling out character sheets, like other aspects of worldbuilding, can cross a line between useful preparation and notecard-shuffling procrastination. It's one thing to have a quick-ref cheat sheet so you're less likely to give your MC two birthdates and make them an orphan even though their parents are still alive. When you find yourself plotting the street layout of the home town of their next door neighbor's maternal grandfather twice removed, who isn't even in the story... it's time to set aside the charts and start writing.

It depends on how you write. Some people need every bit firmly outlined and prepared before they start. Some like to discover things as they go. Either way, things do have a way of skewing from even the most rigid of planning. If you do decide to do character sheets, allow for some wiggle room.

JMHO...

My characters don't even appear until after I actually start writing a novel, so in answer to your question, not very important at all (for me).

Oh, I would skip this step so hard. BUT I would keep those sheets on hand and write stuff down as it came to me--having them seems like a great idea (that I should implement for myself!) but sometimes it can feel unnatural to have timing forced on you, and that's not always good for writing. There may be another time when you get all inspired about details of your characters--or of one character--and go nuts with the character sheets, but if you're having to dredge up details from an unwilling brain, I say it's OK to let your subconscious work on it a bit.

I've actually turned into an outliner, I know most of how my story will go, and yet my characters come across fresher and more lifelike if I let them just "show up". They flesh themselves out in action and dialogue, and sometimes something will come up in a scene and I'll go "yeees, that is part of that person's life, exactly!" (I just wrote a scene with two new important characters in it without any idea who they were going to be besides "Maquis leader and his wife" and I can definitely tell you a lot more about their personal lives than before I wrote the scene. Doing it the other way around has never felt organic to me.) Once you've written a certain number of choices & actions from a person you start to have a coherent sense of who they are and what they'd (probably) do in a given situation, and at that point you know them better. (Apparently there is neuroscience about this with knowing real people but since I forget 100% of the details I am not that helpful on the subject!) That may be the right point to go back to the minutiae of their character sheets.

It's letting your subconscious do its share of the work, really. It's the one that "knows" people rather than just knowing info about them, and that's incredibly important.

For me it depends upon who each character is. Some of my characters have been based upon people I know so no notes are needed at all. I just ask myself, “If this person was confronted with this situation, how do I think they’d respond?”

Minor characters might need minimal fleshing out.

For stories with lots of people I do write character sheets, but only in as much detail as I think they need. Some of them it will be mannerisms or repeated figures of speech, others will include how they relate to other characters. Since some characters are based on elements of my own personalty, I find that just mentioning a few words gives me everything I need to know, e.g. if they have a hobby or play a sport I’ve participated in it tells me some of their mindset or their life that parallels my own.

Also, the snowflake method does say that characters will evolve during the writing of the story, and that adjustments to their sheet are pretty much expected. There’s no One Rule. My writing style mostly reflects the snowflake method, in that I build different layers of detail onto previously written drafts, and also create a brief bio for each of my characters so that I don’t lose track of them.

Since snowflaking is supposed to be about building structure to increase word output speed, this is going to vary from person to person. I’m nearly done with the first draft of my WIP but I’m going to see how following each step of the snowflake method will go with my next story. Each of those steps has very clear aims and they all make sense to me, so as far as that goes I’m on board with it. But time will tell.

I hate doing character questionnaires. They always feel so shallow to me. Having said that, I often fall into the pit of Cardboard Cutout Characters, so honestly, what I've been doing doesn't always work...so maybe I should be more open-minded.

Something I recently started doing is to do my own character sheets. I write little scenes from the character's back story. It does wonders for me. I get to hone their voice and understand the events that have shaped them into the people they are when the story begins. It does take quite a bit of effort and time, but so far, it's been worth the while.

Despite being a huge fan of RPGs, I've never used character sheets in fiction. I certainly don't begrudge the people who do, especially if it improves their writing, but I'm a Pantser at heart, so I wait for the story to tell me who the characters are as the plot unfolds.

Agreed. When planning I had my MC have a brother the same age as her (a triplet). But I got the feeling there was another brother I should replace him with. I added her another brother (an older one) and he is far by my favorite male character I've made. He means so much to this story. Not only him but two background characters who were supposed to be mentioned twice at most are now important side characters.

When I first got serious about writing, I tried the character sheet method before writing a single word of the novel, but it didn't work well for me. I'd spend days on one character, trying to figure out every little detail about them, but since I didn't know much about the world I was writing in, I had a hard time figuring out what could have happened in my character's past to make them who they were in the novel. I found that I learn so much more about my characters as I'm writing the first draft.

Once I have the first draft done, then I create a separate file in Scrivener for each named character in my novel and jot down some notes about them. I try to keep the notes to what is important for the story I'm working on, so if there's no plot point or character development moment that involves around my character's favorite food, then I don't keep a record of it.

I used to do them, then realized they were irrelevant to my process and once they were done, they were rarely referred back to. So I make a tile in Scrivener and as I write, I jot pertinent information on the tile, such as place of employment, fear of snakes, names and ages of siblings, BFFs, etc. But ONLY those details that come out as I write and may end up being important later on. For one book, I noted astrological signs and birthstones because it was a detail I referred to a couple of times. Typically, I don't even give my characters a birthdate unless I need to.

They can definitely be helpful, and as Sage mentioned above, if you're going all in with trying out the snowflake method, I'd give it a shot for this project. You can always abandon it later.