Circle C Writer's Corner Lesson Three - Character Traits
Jun 25, 2025 6:01 pm
3- Character Traits
Welcome back to the Circle C Writer's Corner. If you missed lessons 1 or 2, you can find them right here:
Last month’s newsletter (May) highlighted the importance of creating interesting characters for your story. Your characters are one of the most important “pieces” of the five essential elements for a good fiction story. In this Writer's Corner, we will continue to add to our story “puzzle” with more on developing those all-important characters.
CHARACTER TRAITS REVISITED
To review, an author must remember two important things when creating characters:
- Physical Traits: What do the characters look like on the outside?
- Personality Traits: What do the characters look like on the inside?
Last month I suggested you and your child think about your favorite book and/or movie characters and practice writing character sketches. This month we’re going to dig deeper into physical and personality traits for the characters you or your child might want to create for your own stories. You can download five "Character Traits" charts. Just click the button below. These charts are super helpful when you are creating your story characters.
Character Traits Chart: Page one lists ideas for physical and personality traits to fire up your imagination. Keep it handy when thinking up characters.
Hint: Believable characters—just like people—have both “good” traits and “bad” traits. The best hero still has a weakness he needs to work on. The worst enemy has a spark of good. Make sure your characters have both. This makes them seem real.
Sample Character Traits Chart. The second page shows a filled-out sample chart for a few of the main characters in the Circle C Adventures. Can you see how I took notes about my characters in order to get ideas of how they think and what they look like?
Blank Character Charts: Pages 3-5 are blank. There are spaces to fill in your characters’ names, physical traits, personality traits, and their likes & dislikes. Hint: a baby name book is a wonderful resource for coming up with fun names. Finding pictures of your characters online is also a great way to visualize them. Have fun! Create your characters!
THE MAIN CHARACTER OFTEN DETERMINES THE STORY'S PROBLEM
The more you study the Character Traits chart, the more it helps you brainstorm your characters. The more you know about your characters (especially what makes them different from each other), the more interesting your story becomes because of who the characters are. In fact, sometimes a story will come to mind just because of the way you created your characters.
Remember the five essential elements of a good fiction story? CHARACTER, SETTING, PROBLEM, PLOT, and SOLUTION. You can take your new character and pretty much come up with a story based on how you created him!
Example: Let’s say you choose “Jon” as a character name. You look at the Character Traits chart and decide that Jon is a confident, bold, and adventurous sort of kid. He’s also rather reckless and impulsive, and he doesn’t think before he acts. Next, put him in a setting: Jon lives next to the woods. His mom tells him to stay away from the woods because strange things happen there. Jon wants to do right and obey, but one day he hears a weird noise. Before thinking it through (because he’s reckless and impulsive) he jumps over the fence to explore. You have now set Jon up for a big story problem. He can have some adventures (plot) while he solves the problem (like surviving whatever he meets in those dangerous woods). All this because you know what Jon is like on the inside.
On the other hand, suppose you create a character, “Tim.” He’s cheerful, lively, and responsible. He’s a little fearful, however, and a bit spoiled. Putting Tim in the setting with the dangerous woods nearby won’t work for a story. Why not? Because if Tim’s mom tells him to stay away from the woods, not even a strange noise will convince him to venture into those woods, and you have no story problem. Tim is very different from Jon.
But you can think of a great story for Tim based on who he is. Maybe Tim becomes the target of bullies. How he gets out of those messes, and how he learns to stand up for himself is a great and worthy adventure too. This kind of story would not work for Jon, however, because the bullies would never dare try to bully him, based on who Jon is on the inside.
Do you understand how important it is to really know your characters? Perhaps during this month’s exercise, as you fill out the blank character charts and create interesting characters, a story will come to mind based on these new characters. If so, go back to Lesson One about the The Five Story Elementsand see if you can fill in the other elements. You’re on your way to writing a story!
Want to dig deeper and watch this lesson on video? Go here >
The next Writer's Corner will teach you how to highlight your character’s feelings in “Let the Feelings Show.”
Don't Forget: Name Maggie's Colt
If you haven't yet joined in the fun to come up with a name for Maggie's colt (and win a book if your name is chosen), read this newsletter from Monday. It's not too late. Contest ends Saturday, June 28 @ 5pm.
Monday's Newsletter 👉🏼 Name the Colt and Win a Book
👇🏼 This is pregnant Maggie with Kristi 👇🏼
SUSAN K. MARLOW
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