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• Unusual Characteristics: Creating a species usually stems from the writer envisioning a character or a group with characteristics impossible for a human to have. Determine what odd characteristics you have in mind for your characters and collect them together to begin to form traits of a species. Determine any unusual markings or colorations, how they hold themselves, their tendencies, and begin to think about powers and special abilities apart from that which a human can do. • Powers: Writing normal lice of life humans isn't for everyone. Characters with powers are unique and intriguing if you can write them as such. Be carefu

Character Reference Sheet-ness Basically this reference sheet covers pretty much everything a person would ever need to know about your character.. and then some. -Basics- Let’s face it. If somebody were to just glance over the reference sheet, at least you can feel some reassurance in knowing that they got the bare minimum Name (Nickname): Age: Please if you’re going to give your character some ungodly, few centuries old, age, make sure to include what age they looks like. Otherwise all shall assume they appear to be a rumpled piece of leather, ran over by some sort of moving vehicle, after being regurgitated by a cat. Obvio

Please copy and paste this into a Word document or deviation. Then highlight the information after the colons and type over it. Setting Time/Era: Exact year or approximate time Name of Country: For fun, you could alter the name of an old country to amuse more educated readers. For example, I altered the Assyrian Empire's name for a conquering people to evoke images of brutality and Mesopotamia. Geography: Keep track of all the places you mention and their approximate locations. I find it handy to draw a rough map of the area. Landscape: Trees, soil, water, buildings... Imagine you were flying over the place in an airplane. What would you

Basics Name (& pronunciation): Date of Birth (& age): Place of Birth: Gender:   Species/Racial Origin: Social Class/Community Status: Language: Family/Friends/Pets/Etc: Physical Description Height: Weight: Hair: Eyes: Limb Dexterity: Detailed Physical Description: Typical Clothing/Equipment: Personality/Attributes Personality/Attitude: Skills/Talents: Favourites/Likes: Most Hated/Dislikes: Goals/Ambitions: Strengths: Weaknesses: Fears: Hobbies/Interests: Regular Routine: Philosophy of Life: Attitude Toward Death:   Religion/Beliefs: Fetishes/Strange Behaviors: Most Instructive/Painful/Mem

Hello, folks! The purpose of this exercise is to delve deep into a character's mind and tease out interesting eccentricities about them, the bits and pieces of unique information that make them special. Each question is designed to help think about the character more and understand them. Whether you're responding to one question or all of them, hopefully your character speaks to you all through it! PERSONALITY PROFILE    1. People don't behave the same way all the time. In fact, they generally have a mask for every social group -- friends, family, business. Sometimes they have a different mask for different groups of friends. How does your

Basic Statistics Name: Nickname: Meaning of name: Origin of name: Age: Sex: Blood type: Nationality: Ethnicity: Race: Sexual Orientation: Current status: Political Party: Police/Criminal/Legal record: Socioeconomic level as a child: Socioeconomic level as an adult: Birth date: Birth place: Current residence: Occupation: Title/Rank: Hobbies/Pastimes: Talents/Skills/Powers: Past History Hometown: First Memory: Most important childhood event that still affects him/her: Why/How? Other memories/events that still affects him/her and why/how: Past failures s/he would be embarrassed to have people know about and why: Bigg

PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE THIS PAGE WILL REMAIN ACTIVE FOR PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND RECORDS, IT IS OUTDATED. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE NEWEST VERSION. 7 Steps to Creating a Great Protagonist Anybody Can Write a Novel   Chapter 3 “Characters” – Section 3 “The Protagonist” With Links to Supplementary Material So I've talked about a couple types of protagonists, and how to create them: Heroes and Antiheroes. As well as what types of Character to Use or to Avoid. But not every Protagonist will be a hero or antihero. Today, I'm going to discuss what universal attributes make a great protagonist, that will drive your

Brief introduction to your character: "(A quote from your character)" Name First name: -Meaning: - Pronunciation: - Origin: Middle name: -Meaning: - Pronunciation: - Origin: Surname: -Meaning: - Pronunciation: - Origin: Alias: -Why this alias?: Nickname(s): -Why this nickname?: Title(s): Characteristics Canon/Story: Role: Age: How old do they appear? Mental Age: Gender: Race: Nationality: Ethnicity: Blood Type: Birth Date: Birth Weight: Birth Length: Manner of Birth: First Words: Symbol: Sexuality: Religion: Native Language: Spoken Languages: Relationship Status: Chinese Zodiac Sign: Astrological Sign: Tarot Card: Social Secur

~Basic Bio Breakdown~ NAME: You should provide the character’s full name, even if it’s not what they go by. If they go by something else, include it in the same category like so: Joshua “Josh” Nickelson. AGE: If your character is in a timeline where it’s simple enough just to list one age or a range of ages for them, then by all means, please do so. If you have a long, complicated series or a lot of time that passes in your book, show a birth year for your character instead—something we can measure things to. APPEARANCE: This should contain everything there is to know about your character visually withou

Name of Religion: Name of Followers: (Sometimes the name of the follower is different than the religion. i.e. Islam vs. Muslim) Number of Deities: (monotheistic, polytheistic, some religions don’t even have a set ‘god’) Major god(s)/goddess(es): Level of Anthropomorphization of Deit(ies): (Are they very human like and have ‘human’ wants and desires or is their god simply a supernatural force?) Is there a set founder of this religion? (Some religions don’t have a set founder {i.e. Hinduism, Ancient Greek religion, etc.}) What is their origin story of the universe? (Celestial egg? Were humans created

If you’re dabbling in the genres of supernatural, paranormal, fantasy, science fiction, and horror, you’re probably going to want to make at least one of your own species eventually. And that’s why I made this short and concise form for you to fill out! This form is free to use but only for those who give credit to me. Species name: Outward distinguishable feature of species: Any notable habits/tendencies: Any enhanced or extra powers or abilities: Describe how they discover, train, and harness their abilities: Various strengths and skills of the species overall: Various weaknesses and detriments of the species overall: An

PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE THIS PAGE WILL REMAIN ACTIVE FOR PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND RECORDS, IT IS OUTDATED. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE NEWEST VERSION. 7 Suggestions for Mapping Your Fictional World Anybody Can Write a Novel   Chapter 1 “World-building” – Section 3 “World Mapping” With Links to Supplementary Material So you now know what sort of Story you want to create, and have written a Timeline for the History of your world. Now, you must decide what parts of that created world you want to use. This step can be as specific or general as you would like—from creating a cartographic masterpiece, to sketc

~Valuable Character Bio Creation Advice And Information~ • NONO: The BIGGEST nono for bios is putting something like “unknown” or “N/A” in a bio category of a character. First of all, why did you even include that category in your bio just to pass it up? It’s an eyeroll for a serious writer to see these things in bios. Even if the character or other characters don't know their name or even their age or parents, it should ALWAYS be listed in the bio. These are things that everyone has (unless they are a robot). • CATEGORIES: I have included a blank bio form with all the categories I find to be necess

Introduction First things first, a quick introduction coming from myself. My name is Jade Choung, but I am better known as mzzazn / mzzy on the world wide web. I am an artist that primarily focuses on digital media. My art work produced for income is of the anime/manga genre. A majority of my publicity is derived from deviantART.com. I have held the position of Community Volunteer (CV) on this popular art website in the past. A community volunteer is pretty much a moderator. This means, there's a handful of tasks given to a CV on this website, but one that last a huge impact on me was selecting Daily Deviations ('spotlights' for art pieces t

4 Tips for Personal Writers Anybody Can Write a Novel   Chapter 9 “Types of Writers” – Section 11 “Personal Writers” With Links to Supplementary Material While some people write for a cause, for the love of story, and/or for profit, there are some who write for themselves—to process their emotions, thoughts, and experiences in life. Even those writers who have other primary motivators can also relate to this feeling. As human experience is tremendously universal, stories that are the result of personal writing have the same potential to help others in the same way they help the writer. However, with rev

Verse: (The universe your character belongs to. Can be original or fanfiction. [Ex: Original : The name of your book, movie, game or whatever. Fanfiction: Pokemon, Star Trek, Naruto, ect.) Date: (The date this sheet was completed.) Full Name: (Self explanatory) Pronunciation: (Self explanatory) Nickname/Alias: (Does your character have a pet name, fake identity, or any other thing they like to go by? Put it here.) Meaning: ([Ex: Emily means "admiring" and William means "protector"] If you aren't sure your character's name has a meaning look it up, I'm sure you'll find something. If it's a fantasy name you made yourself, give it a meaning.) O

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Note: I wrote this after reading a similar article in The Writer magazine about a year ago.  Hope it's helpful! Not all characters are created equal.  Here are some steps to make yours superior. 1) Desire Figure out what your character wants, needs, desires.  A closer relationship with God?  A place to belong?  Just to survive?  Figure it out.  You can’t move on to number 2 until you have. 2) Fear Now that you know what your character most desires, you should be able to figure out what he/she most fears.  Doing the wrong thing, being alone, death?  They are the polar opposites of your character’s desires. 3) History Go back i

10 Tips for Creating a Protagonist Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 2 “Protagonists” (Previous Tutorial)             (Next Tutorial)  “Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.” —Leigh Brackett Apart from Primary and Secondary Protagonists, there are many other different protagonist characters-types that can drive a story—ranging from heroes, to villains, to antiheroes

Update notice as of January 17, 2013: I have given this guide a MAJOR overhaul. It was originally written over a year and a half ago, and since then my own views and understanding of copyrights has changed. I felt that this guide should reflect those changes, so if you read this guide in the past, please take a moment to look through it again as I have added MANY new topics, information, and sources. Unlike my first draft, I have also changed my viewpoint to neutral throughout this writing. Update notice as of July 17th, 2015: Check out DeviantArt's new article on art theft, fanart, copyrights, and other relevant topics! http://protectart.de

PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE THIS PAGE WILL REMAIN ACTIVE FOR PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND RECORDS, IT IS OUTDATED. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE NEWEST VERSION. 10 Requirements for Writing a Publishable Novel Today, I would like to announce a project that I hope all of you will be as excited to be a part of as I am. As you all know, my writing guides and tutorials have been rather random, as I was still testing the waters of the internet. I wanted to know if anyone could possibly be interested in what I had to say about the craft of writing, and I was overjoyed to see all of your enthusiasm. And so, I would like to announce that I will be shifting gears