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.
