Dreaming of Sweets

Your local goddess of flavors, animals and blood DNI: minors and prejudicial people. yah that's it.

[cottonccat]

Light a candle, leave me a baked good...

"Oh, Look! another kid made a universe where copyrighted media is canon! So creative" (/s)

Modern Fantasy, no hiding that mythological creatures are real, they are visible to humans and no, humans don't like that!

Find me on...

WIP stories

The First Witch (book)

Outcasts (RPG/Comic/book)

The Fall of Demons (book)

The Five Warriors (book/comic)

Arontopia and Fairytales (comic)

Her Familiars

Beauty and The Beast (rewritten)

Sabbath (comic)

MAGIA (game)

Overcross Pretense (animated miniseries)

Twilight Reimagined (fanfic)

Overcross (Origins)

The Mansion (game)

I'm [not] a Superhero! (Live action/anime)

Overcross (s1-s2)

Nightdreams (Game)

Overcross: The Movie (animation)

Overcross (S3)

The Veil Rip (live action/anime)

MAGIA: Come Back (miniseries)

Best Friend (movie?)

Rosen'Blood (book)

Waning Moon (comic/book)

Maze's R.P.J. (comic/book)

Overcross!Future (comic)

Fall of Hell (porn)

Journey to Hell

Third Life (animated series)

MLP:Fall of Humans (fanfic)

Outside of Encompassing Universe:

Counterclock (comic)

Creepypasta Land: Rewritten (fan game)

WIP names, everything is due to change

Personal gaming account where you might find stuff to cancel me over (/j): @gamesweetdreaming

[cottonccat]

Soul Colors and Meanings

❤️:  Determination, rage, force, loyalty, passion

🧡: Bravery, gluttony, constitution, honesty, willfulness

💛: Justice, envy, warning, proactiveness, generosity, luck

💚:  kindness, greed, toxicity, flexibility, nature

🩵: patience, passivity, flexibility, immaturity

💙: Integrity, Sadness, knowledge, laziness, equality

💜: perseverance, pride, magic, crazyness, royalty

🩷: creativity, lust, charisma, fun, sensitivity

A living creature's body is composed by 3 things: Soul, spirit and body

a soul is the power source of a creature, depending on its species, its color and permanence will vary. Natural souls will reincarnate to new bodies when the last one dies, unless someone stops it from continuing on.

a spirit is either a remnant of a mortal, it's memories specifically, when they don't turn into something else and don't hold on to their souls, they'll slowly fade away or turn into something worse. Or the original body of a magical creature, normally these creatures don't have physical bodies and can't inhabit the mortal planes (overworld) but they can travel through other planes (of reality) easily.

A body is a physical composition of a mortal's existence, it births from something and dies similarly. It's strength of existence is commonly correlated to the soul, such as monsters turn into dust like their souls, angels leave marks of their death like the explosion of their souls and humans decompose naturally as their souls move on to a newer vessel.

Deeper descriptions of how souls work in my world exclusive in my patreon!

[cottonccat]

Fully rewritten one of the characters inspired by creepypasta.

Overcross was initially a creepypasta fanfiction and in many ways it still is. I struggled with mental health as a teenager and overly consumed horror my entire childhood, but the way I wanted to grapple with mental health topics is in a more professional and inclusive way.

I hope people like what I positively took from stories that in majority are badly written (even the ones in /r nosleep were rarely good....)

If you care, here's the ones I still clearly remember but not necessarily inspire anything in my story:

The Showerheads

Tales from a Gas Station (this is actually a book, the author posted the first story on nosleep, I think)

1999 (The bear mascot one)

Pen pal

My Father Punished Me When I Talked to Ghosts

[cottonccat]

Just something I forgot...

I wanted to take one of Ticci Toby's syndromes that didn't add much to his story and add to Ashley (Natalie) but I completely forgot 🙃

It doesn't matter anyways, her rewritten backstory is much more complex than throwing a random syndrome in it. It's entirely based on cognitive behavioral theories (Behaviorism)

Normally in creepypastas like these I barely change the events of the story, I just make the reaction of the characters through the events more realistic according to psychology.

I also fully redesign the characters for no deeper reason but to be different people from the original. (Ok maybe I don't like that most characters are white in these stories, whatever)

[cottonccat]

Fully rewritten one of the characters inspired by creepypasta.

Overcross was initially a creepypasta fanfiction and in many ways it still is. I struggled with mental health as a teenager and overly consumed horror my entire childhood, but the way I wanted to grapple with mental health topics is in a more professional and inclusive way.

I hope people like what I positively took from stories that in majority are badly written (even the ones in /r nosleep were rarely good....)

If you care, here's the ones I still clearly remember but not necessarily inspire anything in my story:

The Showerheads

Tales from a Gas Station (this is actually a book, the author posted the first story on nosleep, I think)

1999 (The bear mascot one)

Pen pal

My Father Punished Me When I Talked to Ghosts

[cottonccat]

For years I've been trying to make a productive character sheet, I've tried many things

Common sheet for writers

Those that focus on personality

One specific for production

Visual ones

I KNOW all of these helped, however I think I'm finally contempt with how I'm doing now.

The ones I posted here are still important, basic information of the characters, but now I've added more stuff that are more in depth and will help with the writing. The order that the information is filled out is important, it'll dictate the consequent things about the character.

Part 1/?

The Basics: Ethnicity, Name, Species, Religion and Date of Birth, Gender and Sexuality are important.

Species: this is very dependent on your story, mine is a fantasy setting in modern days, I want to include all religions and culture, even some fictional ones, so there's quite a lot of species to pick from. A story with no fantasy aspects won't need this, however, it's quite useful for sci-fi, animal/furry stories, etc. Normally, a species is heavily dependent on the country or place you are in the story, so it would make "ethnicity" come first. I've made a deliberate decision to make any species be able to be of any ethnicity, just like any ethnicity can be of any nationality. Although it's not realistic, I like to give the freedom of option not only to myself, but my friends too, of course, I still write in my species sheets the country they are more common in (according to real life religions and references and my own world's worldbuilding)

Ethnicity: the conjunction of race, culture, religion and nationality, when I was at school, it was more morally correct to refer to people of color in that way because not all people of the same "race" are from the same country and not all people from the same country have the same culture and religion, you give the individual the freedom to choose how they want to be called and perceived under all these aspects that they can't change about themselves. In terms of character, having this in a sheet will avoid you cookie cutter your way through your characters nationally (e.j. most people make white characters, I tend to make latino characters, etc.)

Religion: something that also can make you run away from your own cookie cutting, I myself struggle with it since I grew up atheist, but it's always good to make a diverse set of beliefs in your characters, the fun thing about religion is that you can explore the social and cultural aspects of your character within themselves or others (of course depending on how your story deals with intolerance and diversity) plus, making up new religions is always a fun process! This is a very fast way to make your character feel more real, avoiding stereotypes, of course.

Gender: There are more than five genders out there, be creative! I love to have fun with my GNC characters, it makes the creativity on what they wear and how they represent themselves much better. Personally, I think that gender and how it's expressed changes extremely depending on the story and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're writing cyberpunk, I expect that the non binaries and bigenders take advantage of the access of technology to express themselves through robotics. If you're making a story with animals, use the sexual dymorphism to make fun designs through gender, make big male frogs, make a trans bee king, make a intersex tricolor cat! If your story is in a post apocalypse or in the old ages, don't be afraid of tackling different genders, don't be scared of giving your trans characters a GNC body or allude to the fact they are trans, but don't know or can't transition, showing it on their haircut, style, hobbies, personality, etc.

Sexuality: there's a reason gender comes first, although it's not a rule for all, people's gender will affect how they see their sexuality, but also, again, repeat after me "avoid the cookie cutting", this normally isn't a problem for me, I'm omnisexual so I can easily imagine my characters being with anyone, but just to avoid it, sometimes I go with what "feels right", I ended with a handful of asexual characters due to this! This normally is affected mainly by appearance, personality and story, so just like name, I suggest you leave it aside until you're doing your characters relationships and see how this character's dynamic is with other characters, leaving the room open for you and they to explore their sexuality. If this doesn't help (because you're probably straight), just pick a sexuality randomly after choosing the character's gender. On this subject, please don't make a character just to be a love interest, make a character you need to tell the story first (if it's not romance, of course, then the dynamic of the characters are the most important part) and check out which one would date the other, this makes the relationship feels less forced and more realistic.

Name: Commonly, you can leave the name for later, I may even recommend you do so, a name is dependent on a character's ethnicity, species, gender, appearance and many more. Don't feel pressured to name your character, the right one will come along with the process.

Date of Birth: why date of birth and not age? Well, for my story, the characters actually grow through the years, so for me it's more important when they were born than with what age they are in the story, of course, this means you'll have to do math, but at least you can avoid plot holes with it. Something else I like to do with background characters is to not specify the age of date, just put life stage instead: Baby, Toddler, Child, (pre teen), Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder. Date of birth goes last and is those things you can also take your time putting because, personally, design them first, then I see their vibe and put a zodiac according with it (I don't even believe in it but) it's a easy way to pick a date of birth that "makes sense". In that sense you can do the same for anything related to birth dates, the chinese zodiac is harder since its depedants on year, and year is something extremely important to be correct under the timeline of your story.

[cottonccat]

Part 2/?

These are specifics to my world, here, you consider things that'll be important for your character designs and story.

Some examples:

In Madoka magica, all girls have thematic symbols (Mami is a clover, Madoka is tear drops and bows, Homura is card diamonds and circles)

Batman's villains use subversion of common horror themes or random objects (clowns, black cats, scarecrows or ice, condiments, penguins)

Generally, superhero stories have specific set of powers depending on the character.

This is what I'm putting here in this post: Soul Color, Symbolism, Kin Characters, Favorite thing, Hobby, Aesthetic, occupation

Occupation: either relating to job or study, my characters in OverCross specifically are college age, so half is in college and the other half is working in a non specialized job. Choosing a character's occupation will set their goals for the future and the influences they had in the past to choose that occupation. Setting another thing that influences how they'll be written and their personality.

Favorite Thing: Something your character really loves, commonly a thematic thing that will affect his other interests and even personality.

Hobby: A hobby could be related to your favorite thing, but not directly it, something your character does to relax, they don't do it for financial gain it can be related to their job, but not directly their job, however it's better to be completely unrelated to the job. Giving hobbies to characters immediately makes them feel more like a real person.

Soul Color: commonly related to the character's personality, I don't personally like to do personality descriptors, I commonly figure this out through test writing, interests and the character's role in the story. The soul color commonly appears on the character's eyes, (depending on the species, could be also skin for spirits) and other details. The base of souls are heavily inspired by Undertale, but I added to it through cultural color theory of various different countries.

Symbolism: A symbol, of any kind, that represents all the different aspects of your character, commonly, I like to make a thematic correlation to my main characters, for example, the main characters of OverCross have card themes (although chess would work best for them), with this, you can not only have a specific object correlated to your character, that'll help with character design, but to also relate this same character with their group of friends or family.

Aesthetic: This is not useful for a world that has a specific aesthetic, it's better for modern settings where diversity is strongly amplified on our day to day, unless you want to make a different setting where all or most characters do feel personalized. An aesthetic is commonly related to a character's fashion taste, but also to their personality, hobby, occupation and enjoyed things. I commonly focus on details, silhouette and symbols of the aesthetic, not necessarily the colors, the color story I pick is specifically related to the character's personality, but the strength (saturation and lightness) of the color do sometimes get affected by the aesthetic itself.

Wants kids?: This feels out of left field to talk about, especially here. I have one specific reason to keep this here, which is the future genealogical tree of my characters, knowing which ones will probably have kids in the future, helps me plan out the next generation for the continuation of the series. It's highly specific and not at all necessary, but it is to show how this part of the sheet is heavily specific for your story.

Having to go back and change stuff in other parts of the character sheet is not bad.

Kin Character: Commonly related to the inspiration of the character, this is only here for me for a specific arc in OverCross where everyone is "cosplaying" the characters they kin. It's also good to have it in mind, to not only help with finding a good voice acting inspiration for your character, but to also pick apart, analyze and change your OC in relation to the character.

VA: only helpful if you want to make an audio(visual) story, but it's always fun to know how you want your character to sound like!

[cottonccat]

By now, you already have a pretty clear idea of how your character look like and act like.... Or you don't, there are just some details that still doesn't make them feel part of the story.

Part 3/? Time to focus on the writing.

At this point that I've done the above ones, I have done some writing exercises between them, so before we got to the final steps to fill in the missing chunks, let's talk about them.

What are they?

(1)Preset Facts, (2)Lore, (3)Aspects of Childhood, (4)Plot Points.

I've done these in a terrible order, so there's three orders here, mine and two that feels more logical.

Mine: 4, 1, 2, 3

If the character is new: 1, 3, 2, 4

If the character already exists: 4/1, 2, 3, 4

Preset Facts: things you immediately thought for your character since it's conception, like a specific relationship, their reason/differential to be a character, fun and not so fun facts about them, this will shape everything about them (when I'm done with the series I'll make an full list of all the aspects in the order that will avoid the most of you to go back and change your character.)

Aspects of Childhood: contain its own list, it's different from lore because it focuses on general things instead of specific happenings, because of this they might be interchangeable in the order depending if you have a clear idea of your characters backstory.

Parents: the relationship between their parents and between themselves and the familial structure

Siblings or sibling equivalent familiars: The relationship with them, if they have any, counting cousins or other family members that were special for the person's development

Pets: if they had any, what type, their relationship with it

Childhood friends: Who they still keep around as friends and even who they don't, together with how their social life was in school

School Grades: the development of the grades, but also stuff like clubs, competitions and what influenced their academic relationship.

Lore: with the preset facts and childhood written down, now you can develop them into an actual story. I like to have fun in this part, commonly focusing on the point of view of the characters, I play with structure, wording and type of storytelling. This is where you put all the important things that happened to your character before the start of the story, I cannot express enough how important this is to avoid plot holes but to also build a character with consistent reasoning and past (of course this is not for all stories, like any and all things in these lists, Dr. Doofenshmirtz overcomplicated lore works bc he's comedic relief in a cartoon show)

Plot points: This is already inside the story you're writing, you're writing down in what arcs your character appears and what they do in it. For me, this looks like a list of plot arcs I'm doing through "actions" my characters make in each arc, consequentially writing down the characters that are present in the current arc (this is why it's all over the place, I've made this document before my most used character sheet)

[cottonccat]

Part 4/5 (probably)

Ok, you've built the basics, got the worldbuilding interaction part, wrote your character and now, if you're an artist, you're itching to draw your character to better visualize how they look like.

You got some of the character design parts down, likes and dislikes, main color theme and aesthetic just to name a few, then, what else is there to note down?

I can think of a few, let's get some inspiration for your character: Pinterest board (can be other sites that do the same stuff) and Different clothes they'll wear during the story (I call it "skins")

Seems simple enough, but things are going to get more complicated than that in just a moment.

Skins: this is a list of all the variations that your character will have through the story. If your character is an animated character, it probably has at best 5 variations for simplicity sake, I hate myself so that's normally around 10, for a irl series it may change every episode and best of all, books have the creative freedom of changing down to little details. For my story I'm currently using as example, I have a preset list for all characters:

Casual (everyday wear)

Pyjamas

Warmer/colder clothes depending on how the casual looks, for winter/summer

Party outfit

Formal outfit

Workout clothes

(Pinterest) Board: Now you've set the variations you have to draw in the future, let's start visualising how everything you've set by now will look like. Here's the subsections I commonly use:

Clothes (focus more on the fabric, aesthetic and shape than the color)

Accessories (bags, jewelry, but also decorations and tools.): good for people who struggle putting details (me), separate the subsections by type of item.

Bedroom: for someone who struggles with backgrounds this is really important.

Hobby 1

Hobby 2 (....etc.)

Studies Board (if in college)/Job inspiration board (if they like their job)

Pets (if applicable): have a subsection for each pet

Food: Knowing what your character likes to eat will build more complexity to them, think about their restrictions, if they are vegetarian or vegan, etc.

Wallpapers and Icons: here youll explore what your character thinks is aesthetic and what IPs they enjoy, this will probably be the fullest subsection you have.

Makeup (if applicable): Save pictures of the type of makeup your character would wear, it'll give more personalization to them and will also be a good contrast to those that don't wear any.

Fun stuff, fun stuff. Now excuse me I will beta test my own creation and then organize everything In a master list!

[cottonccat]

Part 5/5

Here I'll put the final sheet and the order I found best.

Character Sheet

Basics Name: Date of Birth: Species: Ethnicity: Religion: Gender: Sexuality: Occupation:

Personality MCR: Soul Color: Symbolism: Favorite Thing: Hobby: Interests: - Reading: - Movie/Series: - Animation: - Game: - Music: - IP: Kin Character: Wants Kids?

Visual Aesthetic: Pinterest: Skins: - Casual - Pyjamas - Special - (add more...)

Writing Preset Facts: - - - Childhood: MCR Analysis: Lore: (you should have a document for everyone's plot points)

Best Order For Writing

1. Kin Character  2. Species  3. Ethnicity  4. Religion 5. Name (based on above, if not ready, skip) 6. MCR (optional) 7. Occupation (if not ready, skip) 8. Favorite thing (use a randomizer until you find something that fits) 9. Hobby (same as above) 10. Symbolism (if not ready, skip) 11. Aesthetic (optional) 12. Soul Color (if not ready, skip; Optional) 13. Kids? (Optional) 14. VA: (if not ready, skip) 15. Preset Facts 16. Childhood 17. Lore 18. Plot Point 19. Interests 20. Date of birth  21. Pinterest 22. Skins

1. Occupation 2. Symbolism 3. Soul color 4. Name 5. VA

[cottonccat]

For years I've been trying to make a productive character sheet, I've tried many things

Common sheet for writers

Those that focus on personality

One specific for production

Visual ones

I KNOW all of these helped, however I think I'm finally contempt with how I'm doing now.

The ones I posted here are still important, basic information of the characters, but now I've added more stuff that are more in depth and will help with the writing. The order that the information is filled out is important, it'll dictate the consequent things about the character.

Part 1/?

The Basics: Ethnicity, Name, Species, Religion and Date of Birth, Gender and Sexuality are important.

Species: this is very dependent on your story, mine is a fantasy setting in modern days, I want to include all religions and culture, even some fictional ones, so there's quite a lot of species to pick from. A story with no fantasy aspects won't need this, however, it's quite useful for sci-fi, animal/furry stories, etc. Normally, a species is heavily dependent on the country or place you are in the story, so it would make "ethnicity" come first. I've made a deliberate decision to make any species be able to be of any ethnicity, just like any ethnicity can be of any nationality. Although it's not realistic, I like to give the freedom of option not only to myself, but my friends too, of course, I still write in my species sheets the country they are more common in (according to real life religions and references and my own world's worldbuilding)

Ethnicity: the conjunction of race, culture, religion and nationality, when I was at school, it was more morally correct to refer to people of color in that way because not all people of the same "race" are from the same country and not all people from the same country have the same culture and religion, you give the individual the freedom to choose how they want to be called and perceived under all these aspects that they can't change about themselves. In terms of character, having this in a sheet will avoid you cookie cutter your way through your characters nationally (e.j. most people make white characters, I tend to make latino characters, etc.)

Religion: something that also can make you run away from your own cookie cutting, I myself struggle with it since I grew up atheist, but it's always good to make a diverse set of beliefs in your characters, the fun thing about religion is that you can explore the social and cultural aspects of your character within themselves or others (of course depending on how your story deals with intolerance and diversity) plus, making up new religions is always a fun process! This is a very fast way to make your character feel more real, avoiding stereotypes, of course.

Gender: There are more than five genders out there, be creative! I love to have fun with my GNC characters, it makes the creativity on what they wear and how they represent themselves much better. Personally, I think that gender and how it's expressed changes extremely depending on the story and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're writing cyberpunk, I expect that the non binaries and bigenders take advantage of the access of technology to express themselves through robotics. If you're making a story with animals, use the sexual dymorphism to make fun designs through gender, make big male frogs, make a trans bee king, make a intersex tricolor cat! If your story is in a post apocalypse or in the old ages, don't be afraid of tackling different genders, don't be scared of giving your trans characters a GNC body or allude to the fact they are trans, but don't know or can't transition, showing it on their haircut, style, hobbies, personality, etc.

Sexuality: there's a reason gender comes first, although it's not a rule for all, people's gender will affect how they see their sexuality, but also, again, repeat after me "avoid the cookie cutting", this normally isn't a problem for me, I'm omnisexual so I can easily imagine my characters being with anyone, but just to avoid it, sometimes I go with what "feels right", I ended with a handful of asexual characters due to this! This normally is affected mainly by appearance, personality and story, so just like name, I suggest you leave it aside until you're doing your characters relationships and see how this character's dynamic is with other characters, leaving the room open for you and they to explore their sexuality. If this doesn't help (because you're probably straight), just pick a sexuality randomly after choosing the character's gender. On this subject, please don't make a character just to be a love interest, make a character you need to tell the story first (if it's not romance, of course, then the dynamic of the characters are the most important part) and check out which one would date the other, this makes the relationship feels less forced and more realistic.

Name: Commonly, you can leave the name for later, I may even recommend you do so, a name is dependent on a character's ethnicity, species, gender, appearance and many more. Don't feel pressured to name your character, the right one will come along with the process.

Date of Birth: why date of birth and not age? Well, for my story, the characters actually grow through the years, so for me it's more important when they were born than with what age they are in the story, of course, this means you'll have to do math, but at least you can avoid plot holes with it. Something else I like to do with background characters is to not specify the age of date, just put life stage instead: Baby, Toddler, Child, (pre teen), Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder. Date of birth goes last and is those things you can also take your time putting because, personally, design them first, then I see their vibe and put a zodiac according with it (I don't even believe in it but) it's a easy way to pick a date of birth that "makes sense". In that sense you can do the same for anything related to birth dates, the chinese zodiac is harder since its depedants on year, and year is something extremely important to be correct under the timeline of your story.

[cottonccat]

Part 2/?

These are specifics to my world, here, you consider things that'll be important for your character designs and story.

Some examples:

In Madoka magica, all girls have thematic symbols (Mami is a clover, Madoka is tear drops and bows, Homura is card diamonds and circles)

Batman's villains use subversion of common horror themes or random objects (clowns, black cats, scarecrows or ice, condiments, penguins)

Generally, superhero stories have specific set of powers depending on the character.

This is what I'm putting here in this post: Soul Color, Symbolism, Kin Characters, Favorite thing, Hobby, Aesthetic, occupation

Occupation: either relating to job or study, my characters in OverCross specifically are college age, so half is in college and the other half is working in a non specialized job. Choosing a character's occupation will set their goals for the future and the influences they had in the past to choose that occupation. Setting another thing that influences how they'll be written and their personality.

Favorite Thing: Something your character really loves, commonly a thematic thing that will affect his other interests and even personality.

Hobby: A hobby could be related to your favorite thing, but not directly it, something your character does to relax, they don't do it for financial gain it can be related to their job, but not directly their job, however it's better to be completely unrelated to the job. Giving hobbies to characters immediately makes them feel more like a real person.

Soul Color: commonly related to the character's personality, I don't personally like to do personality descriptors, I commonly figure this out through test writing, interests and the character's role in the story. The soul color commonly appears on the character's eyes, (depending on the species, could be also skin for spirits) and other details. The base of souls are heavily inspired by Undertale, but I added to it through cultural color theory of various different countries.

Symbolism: A symbol, of any kind, that represents all the different aspects of your character, commonly, I like to make a thematic correlation to my main characters, for example, the main characters of OverCross have card themes (although chess would work best for them), with this, you can not only have a specific object correlated to your character, that'll help with character design, but to also relate this same character with their group of friends or family.

Aesthetic: This is not useful for a world that has a specific aesthetic, it's better for modern settings where diversity is strongly amplified on our day to day, unless you want to make a different setting where all or most characters do feel personalized. An aesthetic is commonly related to a character's fashion taste, but also to their personality, hobby, occupation and enjoyed things. I commonly focus on details, silhouette and symbols of the aesthetic, not necessarily the colors, the color story I pick is specifically related to the character's personality, but the strength (saturation and lightness) of the color do sometimes get affected by the aesthetic itself.

Wants kids?: This feels out of left field to talk about, especially here. I have one specific reason to keep this here, which is the future genealogical tree of my characters, knowing which ones will probably have kids in the future, helps me plan out the next generation for the continuation of the series. It's highly specific and not at all necessary, but it is to show how this part of the sheet is heavily specific for your story.

Having to go back and change stuff in other parts of the character sheet is not bad.

Kin Character: Commonly related to the inspiration of the character, this is only here for me for a specific arc in OverCross where everyone is "cosplaying" the characters they kin. It's also good to have it in mind, to not only help with finding a good voice acting inspiration for your character, but to also pick apart, analyze and change your OC in relation to the character.

VA: only helpful if you want to make an audio(visual) story, but it's always fun to know how you want your character to sound like!

[cottonccat]

By now, you already have a pretty clear idea of how your character look like and act like.... Or you don't, there are just some details that still doesn't make them feel part of the story.

Part 3/? Time to focus on the writing.

At this point that I've done the above ones, I have done some writing exercises between them, so before we got to the final steps to fill in the missing chunks, let's talk about them.

What are they?

(1)Preset Facts, (2)Lore, (3)Aspects of Childhood, (4)Plot Points.

I've done these in a terrible order, so there's three orders here, mine and two that feels more logical.

Mine: 4, 1, 2, 3

If the character is new: 1, 3, 2, 4

If the character already exists: 4/1, 2, 3, 4

Preset Facts: things you immediately thought for your character since it's conception, like a specific relationship, their reason/differential to be a character, fun and not so fun facts about them, this will shape everything about them (when I'm done with the series I'll make an full list of all the aspects in the order that will avoid the most of you to go back and change your character.)

Aspects of Childhood: contain its own list, it's different from lore because it focuses on general things instead of specific happenings, because of this they might be interchangeable in the order depending if you have a clear idea of your characters backstory.

Parents: the relationship between their parents and between themselves and the familial structure

Siblings or sibling equivalent familiars: The relationship with them, if they have any, counting cousins or other family members that were special for the person's development

Pets: if they had any, what type, their relationship with it

Childhood friends: Who they still keep around as friends and even who they don't, together with how their social life was in school

School Grades: the development of the grades, but also stuff like clubs, competitions and what influenced their academic relationship.

Lore: with the preset facts and childhood written down, now you can develop them into an actual story. I like to have fun in this part, commonly focusing on the point of view of the characters, I play with structure, wording and type of storytelling. This is where you put all the important things that happened to your character before the start of the story, I cannot express enough how important this is to avoid plot holes but to also build a character with consistent reasoning and past (of course this is not for all stories, like any and all things in these lists, Dr. Doofenshmirtz overcomplicated lore works bc he's comedic relief in a cartoon show)

Plot points: This is already inside the story you're writing, you're writing down in what arcs your character appears and what they do in it. For me, this looks like a list of plot arcs I'm doing through "actions" my characters make in each arc, consequentially writing down the characters that are present in the current arc (this is why it's all over the place, I've made this document before my most used character sheet)

[cottonccat]

Part 4/5 (probably)

Ok, you've built the basics, got the worldbuilding interaction part, wrote your character and now, if you're an artist, you're itching to draw your character to better visualize how they look like.

You got some of the character design parts down, likes and dislikes, main color theme and aesthetic just to name a few, then, what else is there to note down?

I can think of a few, let's get some inspiration for your character: Pinterest board (can be other sites that do the same stuff) and Different clothes they'll wear during the story (I call it "skins")

Seems simple enough, but things are going to get more complicated than that in just a moment.

Skins: this is a list of all the variations that your character will have through the story. If your character is an animated character, it probably has at best 5 variations for simplicity sake, I hate myself so that's normally around 10, for a irl series it may change every episode and best of all, books have the creative freedom of changing down to little details. For my story I'm currently using as example, I have a preset list for all characters:

Casual (everyday wear)

Pyjamas

Warmer/colder clothes depending on how the casual looks, for winter/summer

Party outfit

Formal outfit

Workout clothes

(Pinterest) Board: Now you've set the variations you have to draw in the future, let's start visualising how everything you've set by now will look like. Here's the subsections I commonly use:

Clothes (focus more on the fabric, aesthetic and shape than the color)

Accessories (bags, jewelry, but also decorations and tools.): good for people who struggle putting details (me), separate the subsections by type of item.

Bedroom: for someone who struggles with backgrounds this is really important.

Hobby 1

Hobby 2 (....etc.)

Studies Board (if in college)/Job inspiration board (if they like their job)

Pets (if applicable): have a subsection for each pet

Food: Knowing what your character likes to eat will build more complexity to them, think about their restrictions, if they are vegetarian or vegan, etc.

Wallpapers and Icons: here youll explore what your character thinks is aesthetic and what IPs they enjoy, this will probably be the fullest subsection you have.

Makeup (if applicable): Save pictures of the type of makeup your character would wear, it'll give more personalization to them and will also be a good contrast to those that don't wear any.

Fun stuff, fun stuff. Now excuse me I will beta test my own creation and then organize everything In a master list!

[cottonccat]

For years I've been trying to make a productive character sheet, I've tried many things

Common sheet for writers

Those that focus on personality

One specific for production

Visual ones

I KNOW all of these helped, however I think I'm finally contempt with how I'm doing now.

The ones I posted here are still important, basic information of the characters, but now I've added more stuff that are more in depth and will help with the writing. The order that the information is filled out is important, it'll dictate the consequent things about the character.

Part 1/?

The Basics: Ethnicity, Name, Species, Religion and Date of Birth, Gender and Sexuality are important.

Species: this is very dependent on your story, mine is a fantasy setting in modern days, I want to include all religions and culture, even some fictional ones, so there's quite a lot of species to pick from. A story with no fantasy aspects won't need this, however, it's quite useful for sci-fi, animal/furry stories, etc. Normally, a species is heavily dependent on the country or place you are in the story, so it would make "ethnicity" come first. I've made a deliberate decision to make any species be able to be of any ethnicity, just like any ethnicity can be of any nationality. Although it's not realistic, I like to give the freedom of option not only to myself, but my friends too, of course, I still write in my species sheets the country they are more common in (according to real life religions and references and my own world's worldbuilding)

Ethnicity: the conjunction of race, culture, religion and nationality, when I was at school, it was more morally correct to refer to people of color in that way because not all people of the same "race" are from the same country and not all people from the same country have the same culture and religion, you give the individual the freedom to choose how they want to be called and perceived under all these aspects that they can't change about themselves. In terms of character, having this in a sheet will avoid you cookie cutter your way through your characters nationally (e.j. most people make white characters, I tend to make latino characters, etc.)

Religion: something that also can make you run away from your own cookie cutting, I myself struggle with it since I grew up atheist, but it's always good to make a diverse set of beliefs in your characters, the fun thing about religion is that you can explore the social and cultural aspects of your character within themselves or others (of course depending on how your story deals with intolerance and diversity) plus, making up new religions is always a fun process! This is a very fast way to make your character feel more real, avoiding stereotypes, of course.

Gender: There are more than five genders out there, be creative! I love to have fun with my GNC characters, it makes the creativity on what they wear and how they represent themselves much better. Personally, I think that gender and how it's expressed changes extremely depending on the story and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're writing cyberpunk, I expect that the non binaries and bigenders take advantage of the access of technology to express themselves through robotics. If you're making a story with animals, use the sexual dymorphism to make fun designs through gender, make big male frogs, make a trans bee king, make a intersex tricolor cat! If your story is in a post apocalypse or in the old ages, don't be afraid of tackling different genders, don't be scared of giving your trans characters a GNC body or allude to the fact they are trans, but don't know or can't transition, showing it on their haircut, style, hobbies, personality, etc.

Sexuality: there's a reason gender comes first, although it's not a rule for all, people's gender will affect how they see their sexuality, but also, again, repeat after me "avoid the cookie cutting", this normally isn't a problem for me, I'm omnisexual so I can easily imagine my characters being with anyone, but just to avoid it, sometimes I go with what "feels right", I ended with a handful of asexual characters due to this! This normally is affected mainly by appearance, personality and story, so just like name, I suggest you leave it aside until you're doing your characters relationships and see how this character's dynamic is with other characters, leaving the room open for you and they to explore their sexuality. If this doesn't help (because you're probably straight), just pick a sexuality randomly after choosing the character's gender. On this subject, please don't make a character just to be a love interest, make a character you need to tell the story first (if it's not romance, of course, then the dynamic of the characters are the most important part) and check out which one would date the other, this makes the relationship feels less forced and more realistic.

Name: Commonly, you can leave the name for later, I may even recommend you do so, a name is dependent on a character's ethnicity, species, gender, appearance and many more. Don't feel pressured to name your character, the right one will come along with the process.

Date of Birth: why date of birth and not age? Well, for my story, the characters actually grow through the years, so for me it's more important when they were born than with what age they are in the story, of course, this means you'll have to do math, but at least you can avoid plot holes with it. Something else I like to do with background characters is to not specify the age of date, just put life stage instead: Baby, Toddler, Child, (pre teen), Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder. Date of birth goes last and is those things you can also take your time putting because, personally, design them first, then I see their vibe and put a zodiac according with it (I don't even believe in it but) it's a easy way to pick a date of birth that "makes sense". In that sense you can do the same for anything related to birth dates, the chinese zodiac is harder since its depedants on year, and year is something extremely important to be correct under the timeline of your story.

[cottonccat]

Part 2/?

These are specifics to my world, here, you consider things that'll be important for your character designs and story.

Some examples:

In Madoka magica, all girls have thematic symbols (Mami is a clover, Madoka is tear drops and bows, Homura is card diamonds and circles)

Batman's villains use subversion of common horror themes or random objects (clowns, black cats, scarecrows or ice, condiments, penguins)

Generally, superhero stories have specific set of powers depending on the character.

This is what I'm putting here in this post: Soul Color, Symbolism, Kin Characters, Favorite thing, Hobby, Aesthetic, occupation

Occupation: either relating to job or study, my characters in OverCross specifically are college age, so half is in college and the other half is working in a non specialized job. Choosing a character's occupation will set their goals for the future and the influences they had in the past to choose that occupation. Setting another thing that influences how they'll be written and their personality.

Favorite Thing: Something your character really loves, commonly a thematic thing that will affect his other interests and even personality.

Hobby: A hobby could be related to your favorite thing, but not directly it, something your character does to relax, they don't do it for financial gain it can be related to their job, but not directly their job, however it's better to be completely unrelated to the job. Giving hobbies to characters immediately makes them feel more like a real person.

Soul Color: commonly related to the character's personality, I don't personally like to do personality descriptors, I commonly figure this out through test writing, interests and the character's role in the story. The soul color commonly appears on the character's eyes, (depending on the species, could be also skin for spirits) and other details. The base of souls are heavily inspired by Undertale, but I added to it through cultural color theory of various different countries.

Symbolism: A symbol, of any kind, that represents all the different aspects of your character, commonly, I like to make a thematic correlation to my main characters, for example, the main characters of OverCross have card themes (although chess would work best for them), with this, you can not only have a specific object correlated to your character, that'll help with character design, but to also relate this same character with their group of friends or family.

Aesthetic: This is not useful for a world that has a specific aesthetic, it's better for modern settings where diversity is strongly amplified on our day to day, unless you want to make a different setting where all or most characters do feel personalized. An aesthetic is commonly related to a character's fashion taste, but also to their personality, hobby, occupation and enjoyed things. I commonly focus on details, silhouette and symbols of the aesthetic, not necessarily the colors, the color story I pick is specifically related to the character's personality, but the strength (saturation and lightness) of the color do sometimes get affected by the aesthetic itself.

Wants kids?: This feels out of left field to talk about, especially here. I have one specific reason to keep this here, which is the future genealogical tree of my characters, knowing which ones will probably have kids in the future, helps me plan out the next generation for the continuation of the series. It's highly specific and not at all necessary, but it is to show how this part of the sheet is heavily specific for your story.

Having to go back and change stuff in other parts of the character sheet is not bad.

Kin Character: Commonly related to the inspiration of the character, this is only here for me for a specific arc in OverCross where everyone is "cosplaying" the characters they kin. It's also good to have it in mind, to not only help with finding a good voice acting inspiration for your character, but to also pick apart, analyze and change your OC in relation to the character.

VA: only helpful if you want to make an audio(visual) story, but it's always fun to know how you want your character to sound like!

[cottonccat]

By now, you already have a pretty clear idea of how your character look like and act like.... Or you don't, there are just some details that still doesn't make them feel part of the story.

Part 3/? Time to focus on the writing.

At this point that I've done the above ones, I have done some writing exercises between them, so before we got to the final steps to fill in the missing chunks, let's talk about them.

What are they?

(1)Preset Facts, (2)Lore, (3)Aspects of Childhood, (4)Plot Points.

I've done these in a terrible order, so there's three orders here, mine and two that feels more logical.

Mine: 4, 1, 2, 3

If the character is new: 1, 3, 2, 4

If the character already exists: 4/1, 2, 3, 4

Preset Facts: things you immediately thought for your character since it's conception, like a specific relationship, their reason/differential to be a character, fun and not so fun facts about them, this will shape everything about them (when I'm done with the series I'll make an full list of all the aspects in the order that will avoid the most of you to go back and change your character.)

Aspects of Childhood: contain its own list, it's different from lore because it focuses on general things instead of specific happenings, because of this they might be interchangeable in the order depending if you have a clear idea of your characters backstory.

Parents: the relationship between their parents and between themselves and the familial structure

Siblings or sibling equivalent familiars: The relationship with them, if they have any, counting cousins or other family members that were special for the person's development

Pets: if they had any, what type, their relationship with it

Childhood friends: Who they still keep around as friends and even who they don't, together with how their social life was in school

School Grades: the development of the grades, but also stuff like clubs, competitions and what influenced their academic relationship.

Lore: with the preset facts and childhood written down, now you can develop them into an actual story. I like to have fun in this part, commonly focusing on the point of view of the characters, I play with structure, wording and type of storytelling. This is where you put all the important things that happened to your character before the start of the story, I cannot express enough how important this is to avoid plot holes but to also build a character with consistent reasoning and past (of course this is not for all stories, like any and all things in these lists, Dr. Doofenshmirtz overcomplicated lore works bc he's comedic relief in a cartoon show)

Plot points: This is already inside the story you're writing, you're writing down in what arcs your character appears and what they do in it. For me, this looks like a list of plot arcs I'm doing through "actions" my characters make in each arc, consequentially writing down the characters that are present in the current arc (this is why it's all over the place, I've made this document before my most used character sheet)

[cottonccat]

For years I've been trying to make a productive character sheet, I've tried many things

Common sheet for writers

Those that focus on personality

One specific for production

Visual ones

I KNOW all of these helped, however I think I'm finally contempt with how I'm doing now.

The ones I posted here are still important, basic information of the characters, but now I've added more stuff that are more in depth and will help with the writing. The order that the information is filled out is important, it'll dictate the consequent things about the character.

Part 1/?

The Basics: Ethnicity, Name, Species, Religion and Date of Birth, Gender and Sexuality are important.

Species: this is very dependent on your story, mine is a fantasy setting in modern days, I want to include all religions and culture, even some fictional ones, so there's quite a lot of species to pick from. A story with no fantasy aspects won't need this, however, it's quite useful for sci-fi, animal/furry stories, etc. Normally, a species is heavily dependent on the country or place you are in the story, so it would make "ethnicity" come first. I've made a deliberate decision to make any species be able to be of any ethnicity, just like any ethnicity can be of any nationality. Although it's not realistic, I like to give the freedom of option not only to myself, but my friends too, of course, I still write in my species sheets the country they are more common in (according to real life religions and references and my own world's worldbuilding)

Ethnicity: the conjunction of race, culture, religion and nationality, when I was at school, it was more morally correct to refer to people of color in that way because not all people of the same "race" are from the same country and not all people from the same country have the same culture and religion, you give the individual the freedom to choose how they want to be called and perceived under all these aspects that they can't change about themselves. In terms of character, having this in a sheet will avoid you cookie cutter your way through your characters nationally (e.j. most people make white characters, I tend to make latino characters, etc.)

Religion: something that also can make you run away from your own cookie cutting, I myself struggle with it since I grew up atheist, but it's always good to make a diverse set of beliefs in your characters, the fun thing about religion is that you can explore the social and cultural aspects of your character within themselves or others (of course depending on how your story deals with intolerance and diversity) plus, making up new religions is always a fun process! This is a very fast way to make your character feel more real, avoiding stereotypes, of course.

Gender: There are more than five genders out there, be creative! I love to have fun with my GNC characters, it makes the creativity on what they wear and how they represent themselves much better. Personally, I think that gender and how it's expressed changes extremely depending on the story and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're writing cyberpunk, I expect that the non binaries and bigenders take advantage of the access of technology to express themselves through robotics. If you're making a story with animals, use the sexual dymorphism to make fun designs through gender, make big male frogs, make a trans bee king, make a intersex tricolor cat! If your story is in a post apocalypse or in the old ages, don't be afraid of tackling different genders, don't be scared of giving your trans characters a GNC body or allude to the fact they are trans, but don't know or can't transition, showing it on their haircut, style, hobbies, personality, etc.

Sexuality: there's a reason gender comes first, although it's not a rule for all, people's gender will affect how they see their sexuality, but also, again, repeat after me "avoid the cookie cutting", this normally isn't a problem for me, I'm omnisexual so I can easily imagine my characters being with anyone, but just to avoid it, sometimes I go with what "feels right", I ended with a handful of asexual characters due to this! This normally is affected mainly by appearance, personality and story, so just like name, I suggest you leave it aside until you're doing your characters relationships and see how this character's dynamic is with other characters, leaving the room open for you and they to explore their sexuality. If this doesn't help (because you're probably straight), just pick a sexuality randomly after choosing the character's gender. On this subject, please don't make a character just to be a love interest, make a character you need to tell the story first (if it's not romance, of course, then the dynamic of the characters are the most important part) and check out which one would date the other, this makes the relationship feels less forced and more realistic.

Name: Commonly, you can leave the name for later, I may even recommend you do so, a name is dependent on a character's ethnicity, species, gender, appearance and many more. Don't feel pressured to name your character, the right one will come along with the process.

Date of Birth: why date of birth and not age? Well, for my story, the characters actually grow through the years, so for me it's more important when they were born than with what age they are in the story, of course, this means you'll have to do math, but at least you can avoid plot holes with it. Something else I like to do with background characters is to not specify the age of date, just put life stage instead: Baby, Toddler, Child, (pre teen), Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder. Date of birth goes last and is those things you can also take your time putting because, personally, design them first, then I see their vibe and put a zodiac according with it (I don't even believe in it but) it's a easy way to pick a date of birth that "makes sense". In that sense you can do the same for anything related to birth dates, the chinese zodiac is harder since its depedants on year, and year is something extremely important to be correct under the timeline of your story.

[cottonccat]

Part 2/?

These are specifics to my world, here, you consider things that'll be important for your character designs and story.

Some examples:

In Madoka magica, all girls have thematic symbols (Mami is a clover, Madoka is tear drops and bows, Homura is card diamonds and circles)

Batman's villains use subversion of common horror themes or random objects (clowns, black cats, scarecrows or ice, condiments, penguins)

Generally, superhero stories have specific set of powers depending on the character.

This is what I'm putting here in this post: Soul Color, Symbolism, Kin Characters, Favorite thing, Hobby, Aesthetic, occupation

Occupation: either relating to job or study, my characters in OverCross specifically are college age, so half is in college and the other half is working in a non specialized job. Choosing a character's occupation will set their goals for the future and the influences they had in the past to choose that occupation. Setting another thing that influences how they'll be written and their personality.

Favorite Thing: Something your character really loves, commonly a thematic thing that will affect his other interests and even personality.

Hobby: A hobby could be related to your favorite thing, but not directly it, something your character does to relax, they don't do it for financial gain it can be related to their job, but not directly their job, however it's better to be completely unrelated to the job. Giving hobbies to characters immediately makes them feel more like a real person.

Soul Color: commonly related to the character's personality, I don't personally like to do personality descriptors, I commonly figure this out through test writing, interests and the character's role in the story. The soul color commonly appears on the character's eyes, (depending on the species, could be also skin for spirits) and other details. The base of souls are heavily inspired by Undertale, but I added to it through cultural color theory of various different countries.

Symbolism: A symbol, of any kind, that represents all the different aspects of your character, commonly, I like to make a thematic correlation to my main characters, for example, the main characters of OverCross have card themes (although chess would work best for them), with this, you can not only have a specific object correlated to your character, that'll help with character design, but to also relate this same character with their group of friends or family.

Aesthetic: This is not useful for a world that has a specific aesthetic, it's better for modern settings where diversity is strongly amplified on our day to day, unless you want to make a different setting where all or most characters do feel personalized. An aesthetic is commonly related to a character's fashion taste, but also to their personality, hobby, occupation and enjoyed things. I commonly focus on details, silhouette and symbols of the aesthetic, not necessarily the colors, the color story I pick is specifically related to the character's personality, but the strength (saturation and lightness) of the color do sometimes get affected by the aesthetic itself.

Wants kids?: This feels out of left field to talk about, especially here. I have one specific reason to keep this here, which is the future genealogical tree of my characters, knowing which ones will probably have kids in the future, helps me plan out the next generation for the continuation of the series. It's highly specific and not at all necessary, but it is to show how this part of the sheet is heavily specific for your story.

Having to go back and change stuff in other parts of the character sheet is not bad.

Kin Character: Commonly related to the inspiration of the character, this is only here for me for a specific arc in OverCross where everyone is "cosplaying" the characters they kin. It's also good to have it in mind, to not only help with finding a good voice acting inspiration for your character, but to also pick apart, analyze and change your OC in relation to the character.

VA: only helpful if you want to make an audio(visual) story, but it's always fun to know how you want your character to sound like!

[cottonccat]

By now, you already have a pretty clear idea of how your character look like and act like.... Or you don't, there are just some details that still doesn't make them feel part of the story.

Part 3/? Time to focus on the writing.

At this point that I've done the above ones, I have done some writing exercises between them, so before we got to the final steps to fill in the missing chunks, let's talk about them.

What are they?

(1)Preset Facts, (2)Lore, (3)Aspects of Childhood, (4)Plot Points.

I've done these in a terrible order, so there's three orders here, mine and two that feels more logical.

Mine: 4, 1, 2, 3

If the character is new: 1, 3, 2, 4

If the character already exists: 4/1, 2, 3, 4

Preset Facts: things you immediately thought for your character since it's conception, like a specific relationship, their reason/differential to be a character, fun and not so fun facts about them, this will shape everything about them (when I'm done with the series I'll make an full list of all the aspects in the order that will avoid the most of you to go back and change your character.)

Aspects of Childhood: contain its own list, it's different from lore because it focuses on general things instead of specific happenings, because of this they might be interchangeable in the order depending if you have a clear idea of your characters backstory.

Parents: the relationship between their parents and between themselves and the familial structure

Siblings or sibling equivalent familiars: The relationship with them, if they have any, counting cousins or other family members that were special for the person's development

Pets: if they had any, what type, their relationship with it

Childhood friends: Who they still keep around as friends and even who they don't, together with how their social life was in school

School Grades: the development of the grades, but also stuff like clubs, competitions and what influenced their academic relationship.

Lore: with the preset facts and childhood written down, now you can develop them into an actual story. I like to have fun in this part, commonly focusing on the point of view of the characters, I play with structure, wording and type of storytelling. This is where you put all the important things that happened to your character before the start of the story, I cannot express enough how important this is to avoid plot holes but to also build a character with consistent reasoning and past (of course this is not for all stories, like any and all things in these lists, Dr. Doofenshmirtz overcomplicated lore works bc he's comedic relief in a cartoon show)

Plot points: This is already inside the story you're writing, you're writing down in what arcs your character appears and what they do in it. For me, this looks like a list of plot arcs I'm doing through "actions" my characters make in each arc, consequentially writing down the characters that are present in the current arc (this is why it's all over the place, I've made this document before my most used character sheet)

[cottonccat]

Would it be cool if I knew my character's favorite food?

Does it matter? No

But it could be cute for drawing ideas....

[cottonccat]

For years I've been trying to make a productive character sheet, I've tried many things

Common sheet for writers

Those that focus on personality

One specific for production

Visual ones

I KNOW all of these helped, however I think I'm finally contempt with how I'm doing now.

The ones I posted here are still important, basic information of the characters, but now I've added more stuff that are more in depth and will help with the writing. The order that the information is filled out is important, it'll dictate the consequent things about the character.

Part 1/?

The Basics: Ethnicity, Name, Species, Religion and Date of Birth, Gender and Sexuality are important.

Species: this is very dependent on your story, mine is a fantasy setting in modern days, I want to include all religions and culture, even some fictional ones, so there's quite a lot of species to pick from. A story with no fantasy aspects won't need this, however, it's quite useful for sci-fi, animal/furry stories, etc. Normally, a species is heavily dependent on the country or place you are in the story, so it would make "ethnicity" come first. I've made a deliberate decision to make any species be able to be of any ethnicity, just like any ethnicity can be of any nationality. Although it's not realistic, I like to give the freedom of option not only to myself, but my friends too, of course, I still write in my species sheets the country they are more common in (according to real life religions and references and my own world's worldbuilding)

Ethnicity: the conjunction of race, culture, religion and nationality, when I was at school, it was more morally correct to refer to people of color in that way because not all people of the same "race" are from the same country and not all people from the same country have the same culture and religion, you give the individual the freedom to choose how they want to be called and perceived under all these aspects that they can't change about themselves. In terms of character, having this in a sheet will avoid you cookie cutter your way through your characters nationally (e.j. most people make white characters, I tend to make latino characters, etc.)

Religion: something that also can make you run away from your own cookie cutting, I myself struggle with it since I grew up atheist, but it's always good to make a diverse set of beliefs in your characters, the fun thing about religion is that you can explore the social and cultural aspects of your character within themselves or others (of course depending on how your story deals with intolerance and diversity) plus, making up new religions is always a fun process! This is a very fast way to make your character feel more real, avoiding stereotypes, of course.

Gender: There are more than five genders out there, be creative! I love to have fun with my GNC characters, it makes the creativity on what they wear and how they represent themselves much better. Personally, I think that gender and how it's expressed changes extremely depending on the story and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're writing cyberpunk, I expect that the non binaries and bigenders take advantage of the access of technology to express themselves through robotics. If you're making a story with animals, use the sexual dymorphism to make fun designs through gender, make big male frogs, make a trans bee king, make a intersex tricolor cat! If your story is in a post apocalypse or in the old ages, don't be afraid of tackling different genders, don't be scared of giving your trans characters a GNC body or allude to the fact they are trans, but don't know or can't transition, showing it on their haircut, style, hobbies, personality, etc.

Sexuality: there's a reason gender comes first, although it's not a rule for all, people's gender will affect how they see their sexuality, but also, again, repeat after me "avoid the cookie cutting", this normally isn't a problem for me, I'm omnisexual so I can easily imagine my characters being with anyone, but just to avoid it, sometimes I go with what "feels right", I ended with a handful of asexual characters due to this! This normally is affected mainly by appearance, personality and story, so just like name, I suggest you leave it aside until you're doing your characters relationships and see how this character's dynamic is with other characters, leaving the room open for you and they to explore their sexuality. If this doesn't help (because you're probably straight), just pick a sexuality randomly after choosing the character's gender. On this subject, please don't make a character just to be a love interest, make a character you need to tell the story first (if it's not romance, of course, then the dynamic of the characters are the most important part) and check out which one would date the other, this makes the relationship feels less forced and more realistic.

Name: Commonly, you can leave the name for later, I may even recommend you do so, a name is dependent on a character's ethnicity, species, gender, appearance and many more. Don't feel pressured to name your character, the right one will come along with the process.

Date of Birth: why date of birth and not age? Well, for my story, the characters actually grow through the years, so for me it's more important when they were born than with what age they are in the story, of course, this means you'll have to do math, but at least you can avoid plot holes with it. Something else I like to do with background characters is to not specify the age of date, just put life stage instead: Baby, Toddler, Child, (pre teen), Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder. Date of birth goes last and is those things you can also take your time putting because, personally, design them first, then I see their vibe and put a zodiac according with it (I don't even believe in it but) it's a easy way to pick a date of birth that "makes sense". In that sense you can do the same for anything related to birth dates, the chinese zodiac is harder since its depedants on year, and year is something extremely important to be correct under the timeline of your story.

[cottonccat]

Part 2/?

These are specifics to my world, here, you consider things that'll be important for your character designs and story.

Some examples:

In Madoka magica, all girls have thematic symbols (Mami is a clover, Madoka is tear drops and bows, Homura is card diamonds and circles)

Batman's villains use subversion of common horror themes or random objects (clowns, black cats, scarecrows or ice, condiments, penguins)

Generally, superhero stories have specific set of powers depending on the character.

This is what I'm putting here in this post: Soul Color, Symbolism, Kin Characters, Favorite thing, Hobby, Aesthetic, occupation

Occupation: either relating to job or study, my characters in OverCross specifically are college age, so half is in college and the other half is working in a non specialized job. Choosing a character's occupation will set their goals for the future and the influences they had in the past to choose that occupation. Setting another thing that influences how they'll be written and their personality.

Favorite Thing: Something your character really loves, commonly a thematic thing that will affect his other interests and even personality.

Hobby: A hobby could be related to your favorite thing, but not directly it, something your character does to relax, they don't do it for financial gain it can be related to their job, but not directly their job, however it's better to be completely unrelated to the job. Giving hobbies to characters immediately makes them feel more like a real person.

Soul Color: commonly related to the character's personality, I don't personally like to do personality descriptors, I commonly figure this out through test writing, interests and the character's role in the story. The soul color commonly appears on the character's eyes, (depending on the species, could be also skin for spirits) and other details. The base of souls are heavily inspired by Undertale, but I added to it through cultural color theory of various different countries.

Symbolism: A symbol, of any kind, that represents all the different aspects of your character, commonly, I like to make a thematic correlation to my main characters, for example, the main characters of OverCross have card themes (although chess would work best for them), with this, you can not only have a specific object correlated to your character, that'll help with character design, but to also relate this same character with their group of friends or family.

Aesthetic: This is not useful for a world that has a specific aesthetic, it's better for modern settings where diversity is strongly amplified on our day to day, unless you want to make a different setting where all or most characters do feel personalized. An aesthetic is commonly related to a character's fashion taste, but also to their personality, hobby, occupation and enjoyed things. I commonly focus on details, silhouette and symbols of the aesthetic, not necessarily the colors, the color story I pick is specifically related to the character's personality, but the strength (saturation and lightness) of the color do sometimes get affected by the aesthetic itself.

Wants kids?: This feels out of left field to talk about, especially here. I have one specific reason to keep this here, which is the future genealogical tree of my characters, knowing which ones will probably have kids in the future, helps me plan out the next generation for the continuation of the series. It's highly specific and not at all necessary, but it is to show how this part of the sheet is heavily specific for your story.

Having to go back and change stuff in other parts of the character sheet is not bad.

Kin Character: Commonly related to the inspiration of the character, this is only here for me for a specific arc in OverCross where everyone is "cosplaying" the characters they kin. It's also good to have it in mind, to not only help with finding a good voice acting inspiration for your character, but to also pick apart, analyze and change your OC in relation to the character.

VA: only helpful if you want to make an audio(visual) story, but it's always fun to know how you want your character to sound like!

[cottonccat]

By now, you already have a pretty clear idea of how your character look like and act like.... Or you don't, there are just some details that still doesn't make them feel part of the story.

Part 3/5 Time to focus on the writing.

At this point that I've done the above ones, I have done some writing exercises between them, so before we got to the final steps to fill in the missing chunks, let's talk about them.

What are they?

(1)Preset Facts, (2)Lore, (3)Aspects of Childhood, (4)Plot Points.

I've done these in a terrible order, so there's three orders here, mine and two that feels more logical.

Mine: 4, 1, 2, 3

If the character is new: 1, 3, 2, 4

If the character already exists: 4/1, 2, 3, 4

Preset Facts: things you immediately thought for your character since it's conception, like a specific relationship, their reason/differential to be a character, fun and not so fun facts about them, this will shape everything about them (when I'm done with the series I'll make an full list of all the aspects in the order that will avoid the most of you to go back and change your character.)

Aspects of Childhood: contain its own list, it's different from lore because it focuses on general things instead of specific happenings, because of this they might be interchangeable in the order depending if you have a clear idea of your characters backstory.

Parents: the relationship between their parents and between themselves and the familial structure

Siblings or sibling equivalent familiars: The relationship with them, if they have any, counting cousins or other family members that were special for the person's development

Pets: if they had any, what type, their relationship with it

Childhood friends: Who they still keep around as friends and even who they don't, together with how their social life was in school

School Grades: the development of the grades, but also stuff like clubs, competitions and what influenced their academic relationship.

Lore: with the preset facts and childhood written down, now you can develop them into an actual story. I like to have fun in this part, commonly focusing on the point of view of the characters, I play with structure, wording and type of storytelling. This is where you put all the important things that happened to your character before the start of the story, I cannot express enough how important this is to avoid plot holes but to also build a character with consistent reasoning and past (of course this is not for all stories, like any and all things in these lists, Dr. Doofenshmirtz overcomplicated lore works bc he's comedic relief in a cartoon show)

Plot points: This is already inside the story you're writing, you're writing down in what arcs your character appears and what they do in it. For me, this looks like a list of plot arcs I'm doing through "actions" my characters make in each arc, consequentially writing down the characters that are present in the current arc (this is why it's all over the place, I've made this document before my most used character sheet)

[cottonccat]

For years I've been trying to make a productive character sheet, I've tried many things

Common sheet for writers

Those that focus on personality

One specific for production

Visual ones

I KNOW all of these helped, however I think I'm finally contempt with how I'm doing now.

The ones I posted here are still important, basic information of the characters, but now I've added more stuff that are more in depth and will help with the writing. The order that the information is filled out is important, it'll dictate the consequent things about the character.

Part 1/?

The Basics: Ethnicity, Name, Species, Religion and Date of Birth, Gender and Sexuality are important.

Species: this is very dependent on your story, mine is a fantasy setting in modern days, I want to include all religions and culture, even some fictional ones, so there's quite a lot of species to pick from. A story with no fantasy aspects won't need this, however, it's quite useful for sci-fi, animal/furry stories, etc. Normally, a species is heavily dependent on the country or place you are in the story, so it would make "ethnicity" come first. I've made a deliberate decision to make any species be able to be of any ethnicity, just like any ethnicity can be of any nationality. Although it's not realistic, I like to give the freedom of option not only to myself, but my friends too, of course, I still write in my species sheets the country they are more common in (according to real life religions and references and my own world's worldbuilding)

Ethnicity: the conjunction of race, culture, religion and nationality, when I was at school, it was more morally correct to refer to people of color in that way because not all people of the same "race" are from the same country and not all people from the same country have the same culture and religion, you give the individual the freedom to choose how they want to be called and perceived under all these aspects that they can't change about themselves. In terms of character, having this in a sheet will avoid you cookie cutter your way through your characters nationally (e.j. most people make white characters, I tend to make latino characters, etc.)

Religion: something that also can make you run away from your own cookie cutting, I myself struggle with it since I grew up atheist, but it's always good to make a diverse set of beliefs in your characters, the fun thing about religion is that you can explore the social and cultural aspects of your character within themselves or others (of course depending on how your story deals with intolerance and diversity) plus, making up new religions is always a fun process! This is a very fast way to make your character feel more real, avoiding stereotypes, of course.

Gender: There are more than five genders out there, be creative! I love to have fun with my GNC characters, it makes the creativity on what they wear and how they represent themselves much better. Personally, I think that gender and how it's expressed changes extremely depending on the story and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're writing cyberpunk, I expect that the non binaries and bigenders take advantage of the access of technology to express themselves through robotics. If you're making a story with animals, use the sexual dymorphism to make fun designs through gender, make big male frogs, make a trans bee king, make a intersex tricolor cat! If your story is in a post apocalypse or in the old ages, don't be afraid of tackling different genders, don't be scared of giving your trans characters a GNC body or allude to the fact they are trans, but don't know or can't transition, showing it on their haircut, style, hobbies, personality, etc.

Sexuality: there's a reason gender comes first, although it's not a rule for all, people's gender will affect how they see their sexuality, but also, again, repeat after me "avoid the cookie cutting", this normally isn't a problem for me, I'm omnisexual so I can easily imagine my characters being with anyone, but just to avoid it, sometimes I go with what "feels right", I ended with a handful of asexual characters due to this! This normally is affected mainly by appearance, personality and story, so just like name, I suggest you leave it aside until you're doing your characters relationships and see how this character's dynamic is with other characters, leaving the room open for you and they to explore their sexuality. If this doesn't help (because you're probably straight), just pick a sexuality randomly after choosing the character's gender. On this subject, please don't make a character just to be a love interest, make a character you need to tell the story first (if it's not romance, of course, then the dynamic of the characters are the most important part) and check out which one would date the other, this makes the relationship feels less forced and more realistic.

Name: Commonly, you can leave the name for later, I may even recommend you do so, a name is dependent on a character's ethnicity, species, gender, appearance and many more. Don't feel pressured to name your character, the right one will come along with the process.

Date of Birth: why date of birth and not age? Well, for my story, the characters actually grow through the years, so for me it's more important when they were born than with what age they are in the story, of course, this means you'll have to do math, but at least you can avoid plot holes with it. Something else I like to do with background characters is to not specify the age of date, just put life stage instead: Baby, Toddler, Child, (pre teen), Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder. Date of birth goes last and is those things you can also take your time putting because, personally, design them first, then I see their vibe and put a zodiac according with it (I don't even believe in it but) it's a easy way to pick a date of birth that "makes sense". In that sense you can do the same for anything related to birth dates, the chinese zodiac is harder since its depedants on year, and year is something extremely important to be correct under the timeline of your story.

[cottonccat]

Part 2/5 (UPDATED)

These are specifics to my world, here, you consider things that'll be important for your character designs and story.

Some examples:

In Madoka magica, all girls have thematic symbols (Mami is a clover, Madoka is tear drops and bows, Homura is card diamonds and circles)

Batman's villains use subversion of common horror themes or random objects (clowns, black cats, scarecrows or ice, condiments, penguins)

Generally, superhero stories have specific set of powers depending on the character.

This is what I'm putting here in this post: Soul Color, Symbolism, Kin Characters, Favorite thing, Hobby, Aesthetic, occupation, Mental Condition Representation

Mental Condition Representation (MCR): "what the hell is this?" I hear you asking. So, this is actually the point of OverCross for me, time and time again I've seen harmful and stereotypical representation of mental health in the media. I could go on about this but let's get to the point: "representation" in this case means the character isn't necessarily officially diagnosed with a disorder, I think it's much better to represent symptoms in characters without an actual diagnosis for people to feel more comfortable to recognize themselves in them and feel seen (and not be harmful with the "it can only be this way, my characters are people so they show traits in their own way). Mind you, I don't come from a place of ignorance, I've spent the past years (almost decade) interacting with communities and last year I officially enrolled in psychology in one of the best (private) universities in my country! For the set up of the sheet itself, I'm using the DMS-5's basic list of symptoms, of course, I'm aware the DMS-5 is heavily flawed (it's very USA based), but in my experience it's a good head start.

Occupation: either relating to job or study, my characters in OverCross specifically are college age, so half is in college and the other half is working in a non specialized job. Choosing a character's occupation will set their goals for the future and the influences they had in the past to choose that occupation. Setting another thing that influences how they'll be written and their personality.

Favorite Thing: Something your character really loves, commonly a thematic thing that will affect his other interests and even personality.

Hobby: A hobby could be related to your favorite thing, but not directly it, something your character does to relax, they don't do it for financial gain it can be related to their job, but not directly their job, however it's better to be completely unrelated to the job. Giving hobbies to characters immediately makes them feel more like a real person.

Soul Color: commonly related to the character's personality, I don't personally like to do personality descriptors, I commonly figure this out through test writing, interests and the character's role in the story. The soul color commonly appears on the character's eyes, (depending on the species, could be also skin for spirits) and other details. The base of souls are heavily inspired by Undertale, but I added to it through cultural color theory of various different countries.

Symbolism: A symbol, of any kind, that represents all the different aspects of your character, commonly, I like to make a thematic correlation to my main characters, for example, the main characters of OverCross have card themes (although chess would work best for them), with this, you can not only have a specific object correlated to your character, that'll help with character design, but to also relate this same character with their group of friends or family.

Aesthetic: This is not useful for a world that has a specific aesthetic, it's better for modern settings where diversity is strongly amplified on our day to day, unless you want to make a different setting where all or most characters do feel personalized. An aesthetic is commonly related to a character's fashion taste, but also to their personality, hobby, occupation and enjoyed things. I commonly focus on details, silhouette and symbols of the aesthetic, not necessarily the colors, the color story I pick is specifically related to the character's personality, but the strength (saturation and lightness) of the color do sometimes get affected by the aesthetic itself.

Wants kids?: This feels out of left field to talk about, especially here. I have one specific reason to keep this here, which is the future genealogical tree of my characters, knowing which ones will probably have kids in the future, helps me plan out the next generation for the continuation of the series. It's highly specific and not at all necessary, but it is to show how this part of the sheet is heavily specific for your story.

Kin Character: Commonly related to the inspiration of the character, this is only here for me for a specific arc in OverCross where everyone is "cosplaying" the characters they kin. It's also good to have it in mind, to not only help with finding a good voice acting inspiration for your character, but to also pick apart, analyze and change your OC in relation to the character.

VA: only helpful if you want to make an audio(visual) story, but it's always fun to know how you want your character to sound like!

Having to go back and change stuff in other parts of the character sheet is not bad.

[cottonccat]

For years I've been trying to make a productive character sheet, I've tried many things

Common sheet for writers

Those that focus on personality

One specific for production

Visual ones

I KNOW all of these helped, however I think I'm finally contempt with how I'm doing now.

The ones I posted here are still important, basic information of the characters, but now I've added more stuff that are more in depth and will help with the writing. The order that the information is filled out is important, it'll dictate the consequent things about the character.

Part 1/5

The Basics: Ethnicity, Name, Species, Religion and Date of Birth, Gender and Sexuality are important.

Species: this is very dependent on your story, mine is a fantasy setting in modern days, I want to include all religions and culture, even some fictional ones, so there's quite a lot of species to pick from. A story with no fantasy aspects won't need this, however, it's quite useful for sci-fi, animal/furry stories, etc. Normally, a species is heavily dependent on the country or place you are in the story, so it would make "ethnicity" come first. I've made a deliberate decision to make any species be able to be of any ethnicity, just like any ethnicity can be of any nationality. Although it's not realistic, I like to give the freedom of option not only to myself, but my friends too, of course, I still write in my species sheets the country they are more common in (according to real life religions and references and my own world's worldbuilding)

Ethnicity: the conjunction of race, culture, religion and nationality, when I was at school, it was more morally correct to refer to people of color in that way because not all people of the same "race" are from the same country and not all people from the same country have the same culture and religion, you give the individual the freedom to choose how they want to be called and perceived under all these aspects that they can't change about themselves. In terms of character, having this in a sheet will avoid you cookie cutter your way through your characters nationally (e.j. most people make white characters, I tend to make latino characters, etc.)

Religion: something that also can make you run away from your own cookie cutting, I myself struggle with it since I grew up atheist, but it's always good to make a diverse set of beliefs in your characters, the fun thing about religion is that you can explore the social and cultural aspects of your character within themselves or others (of course depending on how your story deals with intolerance and diversity) plus, making up new religions is always a fun process! This is a very fast way to make your character feel more real, avoiding stereotypes, of course.

Gender: There are more than five genders out there, be creative! I love to have fun with my GNC characters, it makes the creativity on what they wear and how they represent themselves much better. Personally, I think that gender and how it's expressed changes extremely depending on the story and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're writing cyberpunk, I expect that the non binaries and bigenders take advantage of the access of technology to express themselves through robotics. If you're making a story with animals, use the sexual dymorphism to make fun designs through gender, make big male frogs, make a trans bee king, make a intersex tricolor cat! If your story is in a post apocalypse or in the old ages, don't be afraid of tackling different genders, don't be scared of giving your trans characters a GNC body or allude to the fact they are trans, but don't know or can't transition, showing it on their haircut, style, hobbies, personality, etc.

Sexuality: there's a reason gender comes first, although it's not a rule for all, people's gender will affect how they see their sexuality, but also, again, repeat after me "avoid the cookie cutting", this normally isn't a problem for me, I'm omnisexual so I can easily imagine my characters being with anyone, but just to avoid it, sometimes I go with what "feels right", I ended with a handful of asexual characters due to this! This normally is affected mainly by appearance, personality and story, so just like name, I suggest you leave it aside until you're doing your characters relationships and see how this character's dynamic is with other characters, leaving the room open for you and they to explore their sexuality. If this doesn't help (because you're probably straight), just pick a sexuality randomly after choosing the character's gender. On this subject, please don't make a character just to be a love interest, make a character you need to tell the story first (if it's not romance, of course, then the dynamic of the characters are the most important part) and check out which one would date the other, this makes the relationship feels less forced and more realistic.

Name: Commonly, you can leave the name for later, I may even recommend you do so, a name is dependent on a character's ethnicity, species, gender, appearance and many more. Don't feel pressured to name your character, the right one will come along with the process.

Date of Birth: why date of birth and not age? Well, for my story, the characters actually grow through the years, so for me it's more important when they were born than with what age they are in the story, of course, this means you'll have to do math, but at least you can avoid plot holes with it. Something else I like to do with background characters is to not specify the age of date, just put life stage instead: Baby, Toddler, Child, (pre teen), Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder. Date of birth goes last and is those things you can also take your time putting because, personally, design them first, then I see their vibe and put a zodiac according with it (I don't even believe in it but) it's a easy way to pick a date of birth that "makes sense". In that sense you can do the same for anything related to birth dates, the chinese zodiac is harder since its depedants on year, and year is something extremely important to be correct under the timeline of your story.

[tokkibean]

TRUE writers suddenly get writing urges at 1am mid-doomscroll and proceed to ramble out the most incoherent plot into a new doc and wake up and then just. stare at it.

[cottonccat]

I must lock in

I say this as it's almost 2 am

[cottonccat]

I made my own language, well, not from zero, it's a language derived from latin (accidentally the one specifically from around Italy, but that works-)

One day I'll share it here but it's spoilers for my tabletop rpg so I can't :p

[cottonccat]

Demons can pronounce Cthulhu correctly.

[cottonccat]

Freedom

[cottonccat]

"To what lengths will you go to spite me?"

"...Not everything surrounds your existence."