Creating Character Sketches for Effective Storytelling

Author’s Note: The upper blog image was created using Gemini AI. It came out pretty good. BUT, there’s a typo with the word “sketches” that is misspelled ” as “skeches.” Yikes. I didn’t notice, but my husband did. I tried to fix it after the post date without success. I decided to leave it as a lesson to myself that AI makes big, bad, ugly mistakes. The lower blog image shows my actual character sketches.

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When I wrote Willful Obsession, I didn’t conceive that there would be a part two or three. I did brief character sketches, but only for the few main characters.

Now that I’ve begun writing part two of Willful Obsession, I crave robust character sketches. Let me emphasize that “writing” includes thinking and planning all aspects of the story, not just writing a chapter. I learned about character sketches in my college fiction classes, blog posts, and videos. Combining the best aspects of each, I created a template.

Why is this necessary? For several reasons. First, I want to be consistent with what I wrote before. Second, I forgot what I wrote before, the details such as a particular sports cap that a minor character wore. Now that I’m reviving a minor character and making him a bigger player, I want to get the sports team right. Importantly, I want to get their physical description, mannerisms, age, motivations, speech patterns, etc., consistent too. 

Additionally, these sketches give me ideas to draw from when I’m writing a scene with the character. For example, if a character has a long, blonde braid that swings when she walks in book one, I might have her fiddle with it when she’s anxious in book two. 

What does my template include? Here’s a partial list of my character sketch:

• Full name (I often forget character last names!)
• Age
• Peek into their journal (this gives an insight of what they say to themselves)
• Side character point of view (what another character might say privately about this character)
• Backstory (what past pains might motivate this character?)
• Story arc (this is probably the most vital because I want characters to show growth)
• Conflicts (what internal and external conflicts is this character trying to solve?)
• How they speak (I don’t want all the characters sounding the same)
• Myers-Briggs personality type (more below)

I want to expand on the last bullet. Maybe you’ve taken the Myers-Briggs test? I have more than once. Although some scientifically debunk its usefulness as a life predictor, I like it because it provides a foundational outlook to a character. For example, Wayne, a character from Willful Obsession, is an ENTP, an inventive, enterprising, and versatile character. He happens to be a criminal who’s bright and likes to take shortcuts for his benefit, and that fits the story. 

Creating a character sketch for each person (and dog!) in the story took tedious patience, but I hope that it will create a better story. (I have fifteen sketches for part two, so far!).

Credit: Some inspiration from this post came from Reedsy.

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