Yesterday, I talked about the Middle Grade anthology the SIW did, mentioning the character sheets we did for our characters. Today, I’ll share the sheets and how I filled mine out. These sheets were put together specifically for schoolcentric stories, although not all of the stories turned out that way. Because us.
Blank Middle Grade School Story Character Sheet
Character Name:
Character Description:
Character personality traits, good and bad.
Character’s home life: lives with parents? Parents divorced? Lives with grandparents? Etc.
Favorite class. Why?
Least favorite class. Why?
Class best at.
Class worst at.
Hobbies
Read? What kinds of books?
Movies? TV?
Sports?
Best friend:
Worst enemy:
Pet(s):
My Character’s Completed Sheet
Character Name: Haskell Jesse Tilford
Nickname: Husky (fam), White Bread, Honker
Character Description: 12, white, strawberry blond hair short and spiky, dark blue eyes, medium build, freckles, favors camo pants and shirts with dragons or obscure sf stuff on it (Blue Sun, BttF DeLorean)
Character personality traits, good and bad.
Morally compromising, trying to figure out his right from his wrong. Physical coward. Sharply sarcastic, often hurtful. Fiercely loyal to friends. Quick thinker. Compassionate to anybody he realizes is an underdog, but doesn’t always realize who is one. An unwitting bully. Willing to re-evaluate situations.
Character’s home life: Lives with parents. Father works in meat-packing plant pasting on labels. Mother works in meat-packing office expediting shipments.
Favorite class. Why?
Art. He can lose himself in the space and lines.
Least favorite class. Why?
Phys Ed. He’s naturally adequate at sports but isn’t a team player and doesn’t care enough to drill himself into being as good as he could be.
Class best at. Shop. Good with his hands, but only with good directions.
Class worst at. English. Not a deep reader.
Hobbies: Drawing. Woodblock prints. Fishing.
Read? What kinds of books? Field and Stream magazine
Movies? TV? Hunting and fishing shows. Anything popular, just so he can jaw about it.
Sports? Likes to watch women’s gymnastics. Championship wrassling for fun.
Pet(s): Petey the rescue Pomeranian. The family dog, but has adopted Husky.
Best Friend: Beej
~*~
I didn’t use most of this information. If we ever return to Wurstburg, I’ll have something ready to use. The purpose of a character sheet, after all, isn’t to get stuff to put into a story any more than the purpose of memory is to give you something to talk about. You are who you are because that’s who you are. You act and speak out of who you are, and your characters act and speak out of who they are; you need to know who they are so they can act and speak convincingly.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Fill out a character sheet for yourself when you were in middle school. Fill out a character sheet for your main character when they were 10-15.
MA
joey
July 24, 2017 at 7:08pmI still love the premise of this book, the concept. I think it’s downright clever.
I might should read it!!!
Marian Allen
July 25, 2017 at 7:43amMebbe you oughta should! 😀
Deborah
July 24, 2017 at 10:46pmI got an idea for a book and took myself seriously enough to do loose character sheets, and sort of a story arc then I actually wrote several chapters once. Then my story hit a wall…or I did. The unfinished story is sitting in a trunk and has been sitting there for 10 years or more. I don’t believe it will be finished. I enjoyed the process of writing when it was flowing though. I’m grateful for that experience.
I don’t know how you come up with so many great ideas and always have something to write about. I don’t have that talent at all!
I think your Husky has stories to tell!
Marian Allen
July 25, 2017 at 7:47amYou’re very kind! And you’re right: Writing is a blast, when the story is flowing. When it hits that wall, you walk around cussing your characters, trying to get them to talk to you, picking at the storyline to see where it took a wrong turn. Maybe you’ll get that trunk story out some day and look it over and say, “Oh! Of course!” and finish it up. 🙂 Writing is a disease; some people recover from it, and some of us itch all the time. lol