Character profile template

• The engine — external want, internal need, the lie, the wound, the flaw, and what they are good and bad at.
• Voice — how they speak, three things they would say, three they never would, and one physical tell.
• Relationships — a small table: who, what is owed, and what is unsaid between them.
• Arc — the belief at the start, the event that could turn it, and what the reader should feel at the last appearance.

1. Download the file, then Import it in the editor (or open it in any text editor).
2. Do the protagonist first. If the engine section has gaps, the draft will too.
3. Do the antagonist second — an antagonist with a want and a lie is worth more than a page of menace.
4. Keep the “what is unsaid” column honest; that is where scenes come from.

Because most novels need a handful of characters, not a wiki. A page per person in plain text is searchable, portable and readable at a glance; a spreadsheet of traits tends to become a form that is filled in once and never opened. If you do have a large cast, the same file works as one document with a section per character — the headings make it navigable.

Notes that live in another app are notes you will not read. Import the sheet into the same library as the manuscript, and the backup guide covers keeping both safe.

• Three-act structure — the outline the character arc has to fit inside.
• Essay outline — for the nonfiction version of the same problem.

The novelists page has the chapter workflow these sheets sit inside.