Writing Character Outlines Reviewers Will Want to Review

I talked about how ineffective reviewers can be by listing the red flags I look for before deciding whether or not to request a review from these people, but now I want to talk about the character outlines themselves. When I reviewed characters, there were some people that either didn't understand what I needed to review their characters and didn’t fill out the information that I needed or requested that I reviewed character outlines despite them being incomplete. I didn’t think I had all of the information, so I didn’t feel comfortable relaying my opinion that may have missed the mark for their story, so I denied them. It's one thing if the writer is stuck and wants opinions on how to complete their outlines, of which I would recommend discussing it in a writing circle, and wait to complete the outline before requesting a review, but it's another if you say your outline is completed, but it's missing the information the reviewer needs to review the character. If you want detailed character reviews, your character outline has to be detailed as well.

Each reviewer is different, so will want differing kinds of information. This will be based on my personal needs as a reviewer, and also based on the character outline that I use, which I specifically designed my character outline so that it would fit just about every reviewer's specification with little to no changes, and provide a lot of information that gets right to the point. There’s nothing more annoying than having to have multiple outlines for the same character just because reviewers want different information. If you feel some of this is unnecessary, or if you want to change the format and order in your outline, by all means, make whatever change you want to help you develop your character. Helping you develop your character for your story is our goal as reviewers, but meet us halfway by providing as much necessary information as possible.

Before we get to the outline, I strongly recommend you fill out your outline up to the start of the story, as if it hadn’t been written yet, or to the inciting incident of your story at the very latest. The character outline is a foundation of the character for the story, it’s not meant to plot out their character arc during it. That’s what the plot outline is for. Also keep in mind that this is for outlines you plan to have other people review, and not necessarily for your private use, which you can still do. It’s just that some topics may be redundant if you’re not planning on having your characters reviewed.

BASIC INFORMATION

UNIVERSE

This is one of those redundant topics you wouldn't need for your character outline, but may need for the character review, and is the number one thing I asked for people to provide when I reviewed characters, but no one ever did. If I don’t understand the universe, especially for an original story with a universe based on a fantastical setting, I don’t feel comfortable reviewing that character. I could state my opinions on whether I think the character is a strong one, but I feel a huge hole is missing when the universe isn’t provided.

You don’t have to have a separate section solely for the universe, and details and information can be woven throughout the outline, but I find a brief description of it on its own somewhere to be rather helpful.

Fanfiction

Just saying what fandom the character resides in only tells reviewers the fandom. Reviewers will automatically assume you’re sticking with the original universal canon laws dictated by whichever media the reviewer assumes, whether it be the cartoon version of the fandom, the book version, movie version, etc., so specify which media or which combination of versions your character resides in. Movies or shows based on books often make alterations, so it’s important you specify which version, or if it’s a combination of differing versions. Do you also depend on popular fan theories? Such as Lexicon for Harry Potter?

If the fanfiction doesn't follow the original canon universe, is it a crossover of another fandom, or an Alternative Universe, or some other canon-altering genre? State so, and how you're changing the universe for your fan fiction.

Original

If your original story takes place in everyday life, then you only need to specify the where and when, but if it’s a fantasy setting or a world that is very much different than the world we’re sitting in, reviewers need more details. You don’t need to insert the entire universe bible, but here’s a set of questions that need answering:

• Where and when does the story take place?
• Is this story going to be based more on reality, or a cartoony physics law-breaking-on-a-whim world?
• What is going on at the time the story starts?
• Is there something in the distant past that still has an impact or influence on the present?
• Is there magic, psychic powers, or otherwise otherworldly supernatural abilities or beings?

Let’s use something most of you might be familiar with as an example.

Avatar: The Last Airbender. The world is based on ancient eastern and southern Asian culture with four major nations based on the four classic elements: air, water, earth, and fire. Within these nations are people that can control their corresponding elements called “benders.” There is one person who can control all four elements called the Avatar, which this ability is passed down through reincarnation, taking turns through each of the four nations. Once an avatar from the Fire nation dies, the avatar is reincarnated into a child of the Air nation. When that person dies, a child of the Water nation, and the Earth nation after that. The Avatar is a spiritual being who’s also able to contact their previous lives if they need guidance. A century before the start of the story, the king of the Fire nation used a comet to start a world war with the other nations, annihilating the air nation to near-extinction, establishing colonies in the Earth nation, and kidnapping nearly all of the water benders in the Southern Water tribe. At the start of the story, a hundred years later, the war is still going on, and the Avatar, who would be able to end the war and establish peace, had been missing for the last century.

Of course, there is more nuance and more details that only watching the show would reveal, but this would at least give the reviewer some semblance of the world the character lives in. This information could be included in the rest of the outline, but if you do decide to have a Universe section, this is roughly what I would put down if I were to describe the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe. Any other specific details could be woven throughout the outline, such as animals being a hybrid of two or more real-life animals if the character had a pet of some kind. The history could also reveal the level of technology the world is in, such as mentioning scrolls, or oil lamps, and not mentioning cars or electricity.

NAME

Does the meaning of the character’s name matter? Is it necessary? In most cases, no. If reviewers want the origin, meaning, or kanji, then there's no harm in providing it, but I don't think you have to have this information. Is it fun to know this? Sure. Necessary? No. Names have a wide range of possibilities, so that's why I don't stress too much about names, but, sometimes, a little explanation is needed.

The RWBY fandom is a rare exception where names are important. Names have to be a color, mean a color, or remind you of a color. It's significant because of a world war where art was destroyed, and naming their children after a color reminds the world of how important free expression and art are. If the name is a color or means a color, it’s fine if you don’t provide the meaning, because it’s obvious, but reminding one of a color can be personal to the writer or the character’s parents and may need a brief explanation. Stories that take place in the distant past can be difficult to find the further back in time you go. Sites like Behind the Name often include dates of when these names were first documented, which is incredibly helpful, but not foolproof. If names in a certain ancient culture are scarce, such as Babylonian or Phoenician, then I would choose the closest and oldest alternative, such as old Turkish or Arabic names. You might need to provide this explanation so the reviewer knows where you’re coming from, and may know a source with more names or ideas.

International marriages and adoption can make naming conventions a little complex, but a brief explanation is all that’s needed. “She was adopted and chose to keep/change her name” or “The character lives in her mother’s country, and to make legal documents easier to manage, the parents chose to give the character the mother’s family name instead of the father’s.”

Some immigrants choose to adopt another name in their new country’s main language and go by this new name in their day-to-day life and for legal documentation, either to limit discrimination, such as finding a job, or because their birth name would be hard to pronounce in their new country.

If the character decided to legally change their name, that's their decision too. As long as you state when and why I don't think characters should be penalized if they changed it to something unusual. Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffwelchevoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvonangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolftausendjahresvorandieerscheinenvanderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortpflanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvonandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum is the longest personal name in the world. He first chose names beginning with the letters A-Z, and then his last name tells a short story. For legal documentation, and simplicity in conversation, he went by Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff Sr. While he was born with a different name and changed it to this, he did name his son the same name, so he was born with this. Stating why a character would legally change their name (to something as outrageous as this) would probably be necessary, even if the explanation was “He hated his birth name, so he wanted to change it to something outlandish.” As far as I’m concerned, that kind of explanation lends itself to the character’s personality.

If a nickname isn't a shortening of their long name, it more than likely has a story to go along with it—or at the very least someone gave them that nickname. Who? How did that come about? On a whim? How the character looks or behaves, like "Tiny" for a large person if they want it to be ironic?

Hero or villain names may have a meaning that’s personal to the character. Something they chose. Why did they choose that name? Is it based on their ability, or does it have a double meaning?

SPECIES/ETHNICITY/NATIONALITY

Species is referring the type of animal the character is, whether it be a regular human, a wizard human, a vampire, or even a regular house cat if you plan to personify this animal character. Ethnicity refers to bloodlines, clans, tribes, and family origins. Nationality refers to citizenship and where the character calls home, which may not match their ethnic background.

If this character takes place in a setting that is not based on fantasy, then you don't have to have "species." If your story is completely based on fantasy with its own countries and cities, then this can be stated here, and further explained in the Universe section, in Additional Information, or you can have a section for the character's home life.

I stated that you should fill your outline as if it hadn't started yet, or up to the inciting incident. Let's say your character started human but changed into a vampire at the end of the book. I would still just put "human" as the species because if the character is human for most of the book, this shapes their decision-making and personality for the majority of the book, ergo, their human influence would be more important. You can state they turn into a vampire later, but you do not have to, as I think this would be spoilers to your story.

This is the same as “nationality” if the character is living in a new country, is planning on permanently moving there, and is striving to pass their citizenship test. In this case, you could say “American, but is studying to be a citizen of France.”

BIRTH

I usually have "Age/Birthdate/Birthtime" in my character outlines, but the time isn't necessary at all unless you think it's necessary based on your story. Same with the date. Not all of our favorite characters have known birthdates after all, but I would have "age." For one, it gives us a mental image of how young or old the character would be, and, two, it gives us an idea of their maturity at the start of the story. If the character is immortal, and their age is in the centuries or millennia, then I would state that, and their looks defy their actual age in comparison to human years. You can make a guesstimate of what age/maturity is like if you want in their physical description and personality section.

I've seen this weird thing where reviewers suggest not stating the year of the character's birth so the writer doesn't have to age up the character year after year. . . . This is ridiculous, and they are forgetting that most of these characters are for stories that tend to take place in a particular year, so would be a certain age for the story, not whatever year it is currently in reality.

If your fantasy setting has a calendar, state the calendar's date, and you can explain it elsewhere.

IDENTITY

I don't want this to be some politically woke SJW preaching, so this will be as simplified and brief as I can make it. If you prefer simplicity, you can leave this out of your outline.

BIOLOGICAL SEX VS GENDER IDENTITY VS GENDER EXPRESSION

In terms of life and living in it, gender as an implied social construct does play a part in society, whether it be gender roles, if the community is patriarchal or matriarchal, if discrimination based on gender is recognized, and down to how people define genders, whether it is strictly male or female, a spectrum between these two ends, or gender concepts that are all over the place. I’ll try and keep it simple.

Biological sex means the genitalia and chromosomes someone was born with. This is factual and not based on an opinion. Intersex does complicate things, and doctors used to suggest gender reassignment surgery to “fix” this disorder, so if the character was born as a form of intersex, but they had surgery so they would be one or the other (male or female), I would put their specific intersex condition and state if they had surgery to be male or female or other if they live in a country that recognizes a third gender.

Gender identity is the gender the character identifies as in their mind. If it matches their biological sex, this is known as “cis”, but sometimes this doesn’t match. Someone born male but identifies with a female, or vice versa, would be known as a "transgender" person. If born of either sex, but identifies in some way to both would be known as a "genderfluid" person or a "genderqueer" person, and if they don't identify with either gender, they would be known as an "agender" person. All of these terms are adjectives, not an identity in itself. You wouldn't say "that transgender" or "an agender" without “person” after it.

Gender expression is how people portray themselves physically. This means, no matter the biological sex, no matter their gender identity, they dress how they want, they wear makeup if they want they act how they want, and it doesn’t impact their sex or how they identify themselves. That means a cis male that likes dressing in women's clothing—-as to how society deems it--is still a cis male. Dressing in these alternate styles of clothing also doesn't impact someone's romantic or sexual orientation.

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION VS SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Let’s start this off simple.

Romantic orientation is the biological sex/gender identity that attracts your heart. Terms that describe a person's romantic orientation end with -romantic, such as heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, or aromantic.

Sexual orientation is the biological sex/gender identity that attracts your loins. Terms that describe a person's sexual orientation end with -sexual, such as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual.

For most people, their romantic orientation matches their sexual orientation, but there are those where it doesn't. For example, someone who can fall in love with people of either biological sex may only be attracted sexually to someone of one kind of biological sex. That means that while they may only pursue a romantic relationship with someone they may find sexually attractive, simply because it’s easier and less complicated, it doesn’t erase the fact they can love someone outside of that end of the gender spectrum. They can still be biromantic instead of being reduced to just whom they are sexually attracted to whether it’s of the opposite or the same gender.

Can someone's heart change their sexual preference and vice versa? Maybe? It depends on the characters, their history with their relationship, and what's going on. Some people have identified as being heterosexual/heteroromantic all of their lives, and, despite their entire history, fall in love and have sex with someone of the same sex. They could still identify themselves as heterosexual/heteroromantic, it’s just this one person that is the rare exception in their lives. The more precise term for this is “heteroflexible” or “mostly straight,” but if you just want to keep it simple, or leave the backstory or the story to tell the story, “heterosexual/heteroromantic” is still acceptable.

This is similar to many aromantic and asexual people, identifying themselves primarily as ace's, but may still pursue a relationship, whether it be romantic or sexual, albeit only under very specific conditions. So if they do develop certain feelings, they could have a secondary identifier if they realize there's a pattern to their rare affections.

Let me give you an analogy.

Someone’s back itches like crazy. Some prefer anyone to help them scratch their back, some prefer only certain people to scratch their back, and others prefer to scratch their own back, but if they do feel like they want another person to scratch their back, they may have a preference of who scratches their back.

Of biological sex, gender identity, romantic orientation, and sexual orientation, I usually just have the biological sex stated clearly on its own, and leave the rest in the description or the character's backstory if it applies. This isn't because I'm anti-trans or anti-LGBT or I'm "erasing" an identity by not making it obvious in my character outline with “sex:”, “gender:”, “romantic orientation:” and “sexual orientation:”, it’s just one of those things for me where I prefer to let the story do the showing, or (particularly for romantic or sexual orientation) I want to discover that through writing the story. For some characters I know right off the bat, but, for others, I prefer to leave this blank until it comes up or if it comes up at all. If it’s important enough, it’ll more than likely be alluded to in the backstory. Plus, if a character doesn’t care for labels, why should I put a label on them like that? That’s why I don’t assume how characters are one way just because it isn’t listed.

If you want to have all of this in its own section, and plainly stated, then that is entirely up to you. I just don’t want writers or characters deemed as being prejudiced just because this information seems to be missing (at first glance).

DESCRIPTION

While I always find it neat to insert some artwork of characters, I highly suggest you also describe your character in words. You never know what could happen to your pictures online. Photobucket could expire. Your hard drive could crash, causing you to lose everything. You could get hacked. Anything could happen.

BODY

In my outlines, I chose to use ultra-technical language to physically describe just about every feature of my character, bullet-pointing it, saving my flowery description for the story (when it’s needed). You can use flowery descriptions in your outline if you want, just, please, don’t use “orbs” for the eyes.

As for what you want to describe is pretty much up to you, but I would consider these the necessities: height, skin tone, hair (color, length, and texture), build (such as if they're lean, chubby, or have a weightlifter's body), eye (shape, color, and if they need glasses), any natural anomalies (such as freckles or a birthmark(, unnatural anomalies (such as tattoos or piercings), and anything else that makes them stand out.

I don't include weight in my character outlines because I think the height and build say enough, and also because I've seen way too many reviewers depend on a BMI scale to judge whether a character's over or under normal weight. I’ve even seen some reviewers get it wrong saying that the height/weight makes them under or overweight when it doesn't if we were going by the BMI scale. BMI’s do nothing to judge the health of people, and even Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, the inventor of the BMI scale, stated it shouldn’t be used to indicate the health or level of “fatness” in individuals. People that are very fit with muscles tend to be obese according to the BMI scale, and the BMI scale doesn't take into other things like bone density. Plus, what if the character is supposed to be underweight/fat? If the writer says it’s so, so what?

CLOTHES

Some canon characters only have one outfit throughout their entire time shown, so one outfit may be enough for your character. Describe the outfit and state that you think the character would only need one outfit during the story, and it’s in a story where characters only have one outfit. If the reviewer knows the fandom, this would be obvious to them, but for original stories, the reviewers wouldn’t know this, or if you know you won’t describe different outfits for your character along with the other characters.

For the other fandoms, or for your original story with situations that call for different kinds of outfits, I usually describe the character's general style or aesthetic type of clothing and then describe the sorts of clothes they would wear for casual, semi-formal, and formal occasions. If they go to a school, is part of the workforce, is part of the military, or is a superhero/villain, then I would also describe their uniform.

PERSONALITY

This is a controversial tool in my writer's toolbelt, but I made random generators so that I wouldn't recycle character types over and over in multiple stories. Physical description is one thing, but what I needed to vary was how my characters thought and behaved, so I made a complex personality random generator that integrated multiple kinds of archetypes and scales that didn't reduce my characters' personality to some simple keywords. Let’s start with some basic personality types:

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a personality archetype that the character is born with
• The rest of the Big 5--openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism--which describes how the character interacts with other people
• Enneagram, a personality archetype the character nurtures into
• Moral Alignment, an archetype that describes what motivates the character to do selfish or altruistic actions
• Holland Code, the sort of jobs or careers that would best suit the character
• Attachment Scale, how secure or insecure or dismissive the character can be in intimate relationships. This can have ties to the character’s early childhood and how secure their relationship was to their parents, but this isn’t always the case
• Love Attitude Style, what sort of love their love tends to be based on, whether it be friendship or for more practical reasons
• Pearson-Marr Archetype, what sort of role the character has in a story that isn’t based on being the protagonist or a side-character

For the MBTI, Enneagram, Moral Alignment, Pearson-Marr, Holland Code, and Love Attitude Style, I usually have a primary and secondary type, and leave the definition to these types as they are instead of combining them and describing how this combination is for my character. I do this because I think the definitions adequately describe what the type is, and it leaves room for how I interpret these combinations for the character in the writing of the story. As for the Big 5, I write a small paragraph on how they are this way because “They are very open to new experiences” doesn’t say much to me.

For the more complex personality traits that I can’t reduce to types with specific definitions, and needs to work together for the story, I have three philosophies, and the Flaws and Strengths. I don’t list the philosophies and leave a standard definition because these philosophies can be wildly different and can be contradictory, so I felt explaining it further would be necessary.

I based flaws and strengths on Mythcreant's six types of flaws, which are addiction, aversion, fear, immorality, incompetency, and poor judgment; along with VIA's leadership strengths: courage (bravery, honesty, perseverance, and zest), humanity (kindness, love, and social intelligence), justice (fairness, leadership, and teamwork), temperance (forgiveness, humility, prudence, and self-regulation), transcendence (appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality), and wisdom (creativity, curiosity, judgment, love-of-learning, and perspective).

In the random generator, it chooses each of the flaws and how severe it is and chooses a placement in the weak to extreme scale for the strengths. Keep in mind, some of these flaws may not be considered as flaws. In one example of how a flaw isn’t a flaw, here’s one of Calista’s addictions:

She has a minor addiction to exercise. She always liked taking night or early morning walks, but after meeting Chandler, who was into cross-country, he encouraged her to jog with him. Ever since she found it relieved some of her anxieties.

Also, keep in mind, if a strength trait is weak or too extreme, this could be a flaw. I used to just stick with, as an example, “This character has a good sense of physical bravery, a little overbearing sense of psychological bravery, and a too extreme sense of moral bravery.” The bold helped me quickly see how strong or weak the specific traits were. When I stuck to these copied and pasted results in my outlines, and if I were to send these characters off to be reviewed, I would unbold them, but now it doesn’t matter since I rewrite the results. I realized, much like the Big 5, it didn’t tell me much as a writer for this character, so now I combined all of the sub-strengths under courage, humanity, justice temperance, transcendence, and wisdom, and rewrote the paragraph to adequately describe how the character is weak or strong in these categories, and provide brief examples. Here’s an example of Courage from Calista:

If she sees people in danger, she often just jumps in without thinking. When it comes to herself and her shortcomings, it's painful facing them, but she still does a lot of self-reflecting. After knowing Chandler intimately, him turning into a school shooter, and coming back to school only to have the remaining survivors turn on her despite her not being the shooter, and even trying to stop it, she despises the double-standard and hypocrisy. If they hadn't have bullied her and Chandler, if the teachers had done something more to stop them, Chandler wouldn't have had to turn into a monster. While she condemns what Chandler did, she also speaks out against bullying to the point where it gets her into more trouble.

She often hides her pain, feeling that it's her problem, and no one can help her with it. Because she struggles with this, keeping commitments to meet with friends or complete goals is also a struggle. She often uses her hobbies as a way of distracting herself from her problems and feelings.

Despite the tragedy, she does try to find the light in the darkness and claw her way out. She believes the world is only as dark as you want to keep it, and she doesn't want to stay in the dark.

This all being said, do you need all of this in your character outline? NO! You don't need to utilize every single one of these archetypes, types, and traits. If I were to condense this in my outline, I would stick to the flaws and strengths section with philosophies and the list of hobbies. I keep the others just because I think it's fun to have. Should you follow my model for flaws and strengths in your outline? You don't have to do that either! You can describe your character’s personality in just one section instead of multiple little sub-sections. As for what, here is what I look for as a reviewer:

• How they act and think when they’re alone
• How they act and think when they’re in a group
• How they act and think when they’re with friends or loved ones
• How they may come off to other people and strangers
• How they act in different or new situations, such as if they’re in danger, or if they’re doing something entirely new
• Their beliefs in general (their philosophy)
• Their beliefs of other people
• Their beliefs of themselves
• If their spirituality, or lack thereof, play a part in their personality
• How well do they do when trying to accomplish tasks

If you describe all of this, you will also naturally describe the character's flaws and strengths, but I made its section in my outlines, (1) so it's easier for me to find specifically what I need to refer to as I write the story, and (2) to appease character reviewers who may claim there are no flaws (and strengths).

What I would advise against is writing your character's personality--flaws and strengths included--like a list of keywords. Write it out in paragraph format. A list of personality traits, strengths, or flaws doesn't give your character any context on how they demonstrate this in their lives, and some reviewers love keeping a score of how many strengths and flaws the character has. Don't make it easy for them by making a numbered list where if your character seems to have "too many" strengths, the reviewer would just say “give them more flaws.” Make your reviewer review critically, where if they do say “give them more flaws,” they would have to say why.

If something impacted my engagement with the character, where I got the feeling the character seemed too good/bad, or too strong/flawed, I would state why I felt that disconnect, maybe suggest where they would have a flaw or strength, and demonstrate how that could impact the character, and why I think this would be an improvement. Of course, it would just be a suggestion, and I would suggest that if they wanted to change anything, that they come up with their ideas as the writer would best know the character and the story they plan to write. What I suggest would just be an example.

I’m of the personal beliefs that the specific number of flaws vs strengths shouldn’t matter, it’s if the characters are compelling enough to read about, and continue reading about, which would be a subjective viewpoint dependent on who is reading about the character. This is why I encourage having multiple people review the character. Human beings don’t have specific numbers of anything, whether it be personality traits or hobbies, so why should this standardized mold apply to fictional characters?

As for hobbies, they are activities that the character enjoys spending time on when they have the time to do them. They don't have to be good at it to enjoy doing it, and they can have as many hobbies as you think they can have. I usually list five for simplicity and roundedness, and I encourage a range and variety of hobbies rather than sticking with one area, such as hobbies in art, sports, or activities that are intellectual.

RELATIONSHIPS

There are numerous kinds of relationships in one's life. I decided on family, friends, rivals, enemies, crush, and intended partner. You can include other kinds of relationships, such as acquaintances, mentors, or others. For some characters, I just listed the names and how they're related to the character, and then I described their relationship in more detail in the backstory. For others, I state the name, how they are related, and describe the relationship there. It’s up to you and how you choose to format your character outlines.

FAMILY

This indicates parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, or any other people that are legally family. Sometimes the past of these characters affect the relationship with the character the outline focuses on, so may be included, such as how Iyo’s (one of my characters) mother's strict spiritual upbringing influenced her self-doubts about her relationship with her husband as well as Iyo, which resulted in Iyo suppressing her abilities when she was a little girl and demonstrates why their relationship is strained. Because it was long, complicated, and involved more than one character, I put this information primarily in the backstory.

FRIENDS

Unlike family, friends choose each other. So:

• How did they meet?
• How did they know they were going to be friends?
• Do they have things in common?
• What do they disagree on?
• How do they support each other?

RIVALS

This one can be combined with friends, family, enemies, or others depending on the type of rivalry. Rivals can be friends, enemies, or neither. The main component is that they are a direct competitor to the character. What are they rivals in? Battle? Love? Contests?

ENEMIES

These are people the character doesn't like and constantly disagrees with or fights with. Why do they disagree on whatever it is? How do they treat each other?

CRUSH AND INTENDED PARTNER

You do not need to include this in your outline if you plan to have the character reviewed. I’ve seen too many reviewers disparage any hint of romance and even celebrate if a character didn’t have a crush or intimate feeling for even me to feel comfortable including it. You can if you want, but you don’t have to. As a reviewer, a character having a crush, or a planned intimate partner isn’t too important to me, unless it’s told how or why in the backstory.

If you do decide to have this, you can have these two as one section, combining them. I chose to make a personal distinction.

The crush section means the character's feelings at the start of the story, or up to the inciting incident. Sometimes I include past crushes if it plays an important part of the character's backstory. Why does the character have a crush on this person, or these people? It could be as shallow as their looks, or something as deep admiration.

Intended partner means who the character will be with, as planned in the plot, whether by the end of the story, end of life, end up marrying (in this case there could be multiple intended partners), or whatever happens after the story and their relationship didn’t start developing until after the story ended, and the story hints that this relationship could start. If you do decide to include this, why does the character see their intended partner as their intended partner? Why does the character need this other character enough to be their intended partner? If some of this information is past the inciting incident, I don't think you need to explain how this relationship would develop. It's up to you, but if this is getting into spoiler territory, you don't have to dive too deep into this relationship in your character outline. That's for the plot outline to explore.

HISTORY

SKILLS

This may overlap with hobbies in the personality section (or you can put hobbies in the history section), but I usually reserve this for special skills and talents that I would like to tell a little backstory to, such as any magic or psychic powers, any combat skills, or any particular hobby they have an extreme interest in.

In this section, I may also put in the character's weaknesses, particularly if they are supernatural creatures with a folklorish weakness, such as white ash for Jared. I could also put in instances where certain abilities wouldn't work.

GOALS, MOTIVATIONS, AND OBSTACLES

This is one of the few things that I think is monumentally important to have in character outlines, but I don’t see many people include it. This is why heroes become heroes, villains become villains, and normal people find a way to keep living. It's the character's purpose, why they have this purpose, and what is keeping them from achieving their purpose. The characters could have numerous goals throughout the story for each scene they’re a major part in, but I choose four types of goals for the characters in the overall story: internal negative, internal positive, external negative, and external positive.

An internal goal is an unseen goal. Other characters do not know of this goal, and the readers may not know of this goal. An external goal is a known goal, to the other characters as well as to the readers. The chosen one’s external goal is to save the world from this evil villain, while their internal goal could be to get home in the end to finish their diorama.

A negative and positive goal is, as John Hallett puts it: Often people try to change themselves and their behaviour from a place of “I want to stop. . . .” e.g. eating so much, smoking, being so angry. The motivation is usually coming from fear, e.g. “I’ll be unattractive if I gain more weight”. Whereas this can work in the short term, fear motivated change is not likely to be permanent and can disappear as the fear recedes. Negatively framed goals are also likely to lead to self-criticism when the undesired behaviour creeps back in and this in turn leads to de-motivating oneself. On the other hand, a positive goal is one that focuses on the desired behaviour or outcome such as “I want to feel healthy”. Such a desire can be truly integrated into our sense of self in a way that a negative goal can never be (“I don’t want to be fat”). It’s the difference between seeing oneself as working towards health vs. seeing oneself as someone who is overweight and has to eat less.

To put it simply, as I like to think of it, positive goals are uplifting once achieved or is for the sake of others, even if they have to give something up, and negative goals force the character to sacrifice something important, whether it be their health, their friends or family, or sacrificing themselves to achieve something fro only themselves.

You don't have to choose these four types of goals. You can choose one solid goal, you can choose a positive and negative goal or an internal and external goal, or however many goals you think you need. As long as you have a goal, a motivation, and an obstacle of which don't need to explain past the inciting incident of the story.

What I also like to do for my character outlines is choose whether or not the story proceeds in a way that supports this goal, or if the character is forced to abandon their goal to choose another goal with its own set of motivations and obstacles. This gives me more ideas on the story's plot, so you don't have to go that far.

You can integrate this in the backstory, I just choose to give this its section. The backstory, however, may better explain why the character has these goals past the motivation.

BACKSTORY

The backstory can be short, it can be long. It’s just dependant on if the previous parts of the outline explained a fair bit of it, and it would just be repetition by this point. Whatever isn't repetition, write out the backstory up until the inciting incident because even overall happy backstories will have conflict at the inciting incident. Some repetition is inevitable, but putting it in the backstory can help keep the events in order.

In some cases, other character’s backstories have a direct impact on the character, so I include it in the backstory if it’s particularly long, such as what I did with Iyo, and I even tell a bit of Adrasteia’s parents’ backstories.

In some cases, I tell the backstory as if I was writing out a story, and in other cases, I bullet-point it out in a timeline. As long as you answer these four questions, it should be fine:

• What brought the character to the beginning of the main story?
• What is the character’s motivation (that could have been answered in the goals, motivation, and obstacle section)?
• What is the character’s ghost?
• Which backstory revelations will advance the plot?

EXTRA INFORMATION

FANDOM SPECIFIC EXTRAS

This section is specifically for characters residing in fan fiction, and these are things that wouldn’t otherwise fit in the rest of the outline. Different fandoms will require different needs, but if you can integrate the fandom’s information in other parts of the outline, you don’t need this section.

To date, I've only had this section with Adrasteia, who resides in the Harry Potter universe. In this section, I had the Hogwarts House, her wand, Patronus, Amortentia, and Boggart. While I had fears in the personality section of the outline, Addy's deepest fear was something she hadn't realized until she faced her boggart, and that's why they are different.

Her classes reveal that she's a workaholic, and when looking back at her personality section, ". . . if she is afraid of something or isn't feeling her best, she doesn't tend to want to talk to others about it, even if it's easy for others to see she's bothered, and because she tends to be a workaholic when she’s stressed, she has an extreme sense of perseverance,” her not dropping any classes in her later years where she’s the most stressed makes sense.

Is the house, wand, Patronus, etc. Or any other fandom-specific miscellaneous information necessary for the reviewer to know the character? In Adrasteia’s case, it’s not necessarily needed, I have it to keep notes and keep things consistent as I write the story. It might be different for other fandoms.

MISCELLANEOUS

The miscellaneous section is for other information (other than fandom stuff) that doesn't neatly fit into other parts of the outline. You could put fandom stuff here if you want, I just keep it in its section if I have a lot of fandom stuff.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This is the footnotes of anything I would need to further clarify, such as Jared's hobby of vulture culture despite the Navajo culture discouraging this, or that the Shinto ritual that caused Iyo to suppress her abilities are based on the idea of actual Shinto purification rituals, but I integrated hypnosis into it.

RESOURCES

After the way Jared was reviewed, I always, always, always include a resource section. This section is not for me, but for potential reviewers.

Yes, I research, and yes, I keep notes so my character arcs and plot progression make sense and so I use sensitivity when writing about sensitive topics, but I don't usually keep a list of links with my character outlines when it's for my personal use. I read, I take notes, I plan, and I let the links go. Or, at least I used to. I keep links now.

That said, there are benefits to listing your resources in your character outline when you plan to have it reviewed.

(1) It proves that I gathered tools for my story.

(2) It gives the reviewer a chance to see what I saw, and see if what I saw was reputable and factual.

(3) If the reviewer would like to give me a link to another source, they can see if I already have it linked.

You can use MLA citation format, or just link it. It’s up to you.

What you provide doesn’t have to be for serious topics, such as trauma, and nor does it have to be “reputable.” For example, I sometimes link to things that inspire me, such as umbrakinesis for Calista, or fan theory websites for Adrasteia.

THINGS I PURPOSEFULLY DID NOT INSERT IN MY OUTLINES

One thing I decided against inserting in my character outline, is the character's role in the story, whether they are the main protagonist, a villain, or just a side character. I didn't want the possibility that this would put a bias in the review. If I want my character to be a villain, would the reviewer understand and sympathize with this person? If I wanted my hero to be unrelatable or unlikeable in the story, would the reviewer find them fascinating enough to want to still read about them? Is my side character interesting enough by themselves that they could carry the story along if the main characters weren't around for a scene or two?

DO YOU NEED TO HAVE MORE THAN THIS?

You can add as much information as you want, even if it's things the reviewer may not care about. It's your character outline, and if you need this written down, you write it down. What I put above is what I think is the bare minimum for me to get a grasp on a character if I were to review them.

One thing I may add to my character outline, specifically for reviewers, is to state my concerns about the character, and I want to know what reviewers think. It puts a focus on what my reviewers concentrate on.

I hope this helps you receive more productive reviews by helping you provide the information reviewers need to understand the character, and tell me if you've noticed a difference in the quality of reviews you receive.

Do you have any thoughts or questions on what you just read?

Send me an email to let me know!