Character Development — Part D
So, following the General Information is the Physical Information about your character. As mentioned before, this category is pretty much the most important one to be fleshed out properly, because your character will very likely be introduced by their appearance the very first time they appear.
Physical Information
Height Rather self-explanatory. The height can be noted down in your preferred measurement unit like meters/centimeters/foot/inch/ ... or a fictional unit. You can put a conversion into a common measurement unit i.e. in brackets for comparison purpose.
Weight This is the same as with height. You can either choose a universal unit or use a made-up one.
Body Type/Shape Body type, in this case, refers to type such as the common female types apple/pear/hourglass figure. The shape depicts the level of fitness of the character. This can reach from lean/skinny over muscular to curvy/fat. If you want, you can also add if your character is ectomorph, mesomorph or endomorph.
Species This comes in most useful if you write a fantasy story. The species would illustrate if someone is human/beast/demon/dark elf/ ... or anything you can think of.
Ethnicity Ethinicty is one of the most sensitive points in the character sheet, especially because it covers such a wide range of information. Determining someone as i.e. Banjarese/Hani/Komi/ ... gives a lot of information about a person’s ancestry, history, homeland, language and cultural heritage. However, be very careful when filling out this point, because it can happen very quickly that the character becomes an annoying avatar of a stereotypical representative of your chosen ethnicity.
Current Health A rather important but often overlooked point, I think. It gives you a lot of information to work with. Is your character currently ill? Where did they contract their illness? Is it likely to become an epidemic or pandemic? Or has your character a chronic illness? Is it lethal or just interfering with their life? You can also add the other extreme. Has your character outstanding health? Do they ever get sick? Do they have an unusual regenerative ability?
Hair Color Of course, here goes the color of your character’s hair. This can be a natural color like black/brown/blond if you aim for a more natural feel. But it can also be an unusual color like blue/pink/green/ ... if you want your story to feel a bit more like a fantasy story. Naturally, those can also be colors acquired through hair dyeing. You can simply put the original hair color i.e. in brackets.
Eye Color Like with the hair color, this can be common ones like brown/blue/green or exceptional colors like pink/red/yellow/ ... if you like. As with hair dyeing, unusual colors can also be acquired through colored contact lenses. Try not to give too many characters outstanding eye or hair colors because they will become the norm if used too much.
Skin Tone If you write an ordinary story, I would recommend to stick to skin tones that are present in our world. Strange and uncommon skin tones like blue/green/red/ ... won’t go too well with humanoid characters, so those colors should only be used for non-human characters.
Face Shape This is also a point that will look very random to most people. However, the face shape often tells a lot about a character. Those with round faces i.e. are often softer in personality and usually also have rounder body shapes. Moreover, for every face shape there are a variety of stereotypical traits that people think of immediately. So if you want your character to have some kind of specific impression on others, you can also utilize the face shape on top of body type. Of course, there can be exceptions to this rule.
Distinguishing Features Do they have any special birthmarks or tattoos that makes them easily recognizable in a group? Did they sustain any visible scars or some other kind of disfigurement? All this info goes here!
Facial Expressions Do they show their emotions on their face? If so, do they show everything or are there emotions the character hides no matter what?
Resting Face This could, of course, also fit into the facial expressions, but I think it is very meaningful to know if someone is constantly smiling/frowning/scared/angry/ ... even if they don’t feel the emotion at that specific moment. Because they could be easily misunderstood that way.
Smile Another point that would also fit into one of the two points above. However, like with the resting face, the type of smile says a lot about a person’s real thoughts or intentions. Do they smile often? And what type of smile do they show (gentle smile/smirk/sneer/...)?
Eye Contact Do they usually keep eye contact? If yes, does the character constantly keep eye contact? Or do their eyes shift/break from time to time?
Posture The posture can also tell a lot about a character’s background. Is it stiff or relaxed? Do they stand upright or slouched? An upright and slightly stiff posture could i.e. indicate that a person is from a noble family since they are often urged to keep such a posture all the time.
Gait Not many people know that, just like a fingerprint, the stride is unique for every person. So knowing if a character’s gait is confident/lazy/slow/fast/ ... can come in handy, especially for mystery stories.
Gestures Do they often use gestures? Are they using them compulsively? Or maybe they only use them when they are excited or agitated?
Distinguishing Tics and Mannerisms Like already mentioned before, this is another part of tics and mannerisms and a bit different from the one in the general information. While the ones in the general information cover more or less the mannerisms that hail from the mind, these are the ones that have a definite physical component. It includes habits like biting their lip during certain situations, rubbing their arm when they are nervous and anything along that line.
Accent The accent describes almost everything regarding the voice. What falls under this point is i.e. dialect, intonation and pronunciation.
Pitch Another component of the voice, but slightly different from the accent, is the pitch. This can also be a stand-alone identifier. The pitch can be described as i.e. melodious/gravelly/deep/smooth/...
Speech Impediments Although this could also be considered part of the accent, like the pitch it is something that can easily identify a character. This point could contain things like apraxia of speech, stuttering or dysarthria.
Preferred Curse Word This is just what it is. In my opinion, a curse word here and there livens up almost every story. It also tells a bit about a character’s upbringing. Tame and harmless curse words usually indicate a different upbringing than crude or vulgar curse words.
Style of Speech Rather self-explanatory. How does the character talk? Do they sound formal and stiff with complex grammatical structure and heavy use of subject-specific vocabulary? Do they use formal speech that would rather be used in written texts with a lot of figures of speech? Or does the character speak casually to others, regardless of who it is with easy sentences and commonly used words? Maybe they talk intimately with everyone, almost like a child, with very easy to follow sentences and slang words or abbreviations?
Tempo of Speech This too is quite self-explanatory. Does the character talk rapidly without pausing? Are they talking at a measured tempo? Or do they talk very slow as if choosing every word very carefully?
Distinguishing Speech Tics This point shares some similarities with speech impediments, but speech tics aren’t necessarily a speech disorder. What could also be included in this point are repetitive speech patterns that i.e. appear at the beginning or the end of almost every sentence. Like the catchphrase in the general information, Japanese media is a very good example. If watched/played in their original language, anime and games do often have characters that have a recurring pattern at the end of sentences. One good example comes from the game Final Fantasy IX, where the villainous characters Zorn and Thorn use the words ojaru and gojaru to finish their sentences in the Japanese version. The German version has a similar pattern with ..., sag ich and ..., zag ich.
Accessories Accessories cover anything that is carried around on a regular basis. This can be jewelry, hats, a cane or a pipe or anything else. Those things might also be important keepsakes from people the character cherishes.
Glasses Even though glasses could be counted as accessories as well, I listed them separately because aside from being a fashion item, glasses can also be a measure against a physical disability. Does the character wear glasses? Do they even need to wear them? And if they do, when do they have to wear them? Are they able to see without them?
Body Care This point tells a lot about a person’s upbringing, living environment and habits. It illustrates if a character cleans up regularly, washes their clothes and takes care of their body in general. I.e. a person who is on the run will very likely look disheveled, untidy, dirty and famished.
Preferred Outfit/Preferred Style The clothes a character likes to wear the most might also tell you a lot about the character’s personality. Though it will not always represent the exact same type as the personality, you can often estimate someone personality based on their clothing style. It can be a certain outfit they like to wear all the time or a specific style like grunge/casual/goth/sportswear/business casual/hip hop/streetwear/etc. which acts as a visible representation of the character’s personality.
As you can see, there is much more to comment on than with the general information points, so it might be obvious how important the physical information is. Next time we are going to cover the Mental Information.
