Creativity Hacker

Not a Scrivener user? No problem. Check out the last paragraph of this article for an easy way to use these cards in your favorite editing system.

Like most Scrivener users, I maintain a doc for each character, filled with things like back story, personality notes, attributes, beliefs, etc. But when I’m actually in the middle of drafting a scene,  I rarely want to break my flow long enough to look up the details and wade through the story of how his older half-brother crushed his pet meal worm when he was five. Instead, what I find most useful is a quick thumbnail sketch. What he looks like, what his basic modes of behavior are, and what his primary goal is.

For this, I’ve created the character card. It’s a quick little info-graphic that contains the main points, and lets me dial into his character quickly, without having to hunt through the reams of biographical text I might have written about him. In fact, by using these graphics in place of the recipe card display, I can refresh my memory quickly, without having to even open the actual text file. These cards may seem simple, but I find they pack a pile of information.

The first item is the facial sketch. I’ve written elsewhere about how to create these sketches quickly, and once you’ve done that (or selected a photo, or drawn a cartoon, or whatever) this is a great place to put it. Next, in a big, bold font, comes his name. This is the name he usually goes by – the name that would be used in a dialog tag. If he has one or two other names that might be applied to him frequently, I sometimes put those in small text, under the primary name, but I only do that if I find them hard to remember.

Below his name, I put four descriptive words that give me a sense of how he behaves. In the case of Kern, we see a young man with clear anger issues, but he also has a softer, more charming side that he keeps hidden. He’s in love with adventure stories and dreams of a life of glory, even though he feels trapped by his current circumstances. All of that comes to me when I look at his card, and most of that is expressed in his four behavior points.

Above his name, where it’s hard for me to overlook, is the one word or phrase that describes how other people see him. In addition to reminding me how others react to him and talk about him, it is also an idea that will be used within the text to reinforce that view of him. An angry shop keeper might refer to him as “that hot-headed hooligan,” and his sister might warn him to “cool that hot temper of his.” Such tagging of the basic personality throughout the text helps to keep Kern’s personality alive and vital in the reader’s imagination.

The word in bold, to the right of the character’s name describes their job, or their role within the team, or the story arc. In Kern’s case, he is part of a trio of boys with a bad reputation, although in secret, they are a team of under-cover heros. Kern’s role on that team is the “scrapper.” Note that I didn’t call him the “fighter,” as I was initially tempted to do. This is because “fighter” connotes experience and perhaps even some training, but in Kern’s case, he’s the physically aggressive member of the team, even if it does manifest as little more than an instinct for barn-yard brawling.

Even the color chosen for the background of the keyword bullets is chosen for a purpose. In my scheme, I like to use a color that reinforces the basic personality temperament of the character. In Kern’s case, a reddish tone to reflect his hot temper, while Tam is more reserved and thoughtful, warranting a chill blue, while Merrit is the honorable, duty-driven member of the team, earning him a purplish color for his more noble makeup. I don’t really use these colors in any way, but I do find it helps subconsciously when I’m trying to refresh my memory about a character after not having worked with him for some time.

The only real prose that I like to include on the character cards is a short paragraph relating what I consider the primary driver of the character’s behavior. It usually references some point of his back story, and puts it in the context of his current head space. If there’s one thing to remember about what this guy is all about, it’s blah. This character card note is a brief explanation of that “blah.”

Creating these cards is pretty simple. You can do it in PhotoShop or the GIMP, if you already have those tools, but they’re not really ideal. The best tool for the job, in my opinion, is Inkscape. It’s not only easier and more flexible for this kind of work, but it has the added advantages of being available for all operating systems, and it’s free.

So that’s about it. Dense character capsules that take up very little space. I see them so often as I’m working, that they are almost absorbed by osmosis, and I rarely have to dive into any of those deeper character notes that lie behind them.

Update: It’s been two years since I wrote this article, and I no longer use Scrivener. It’s still a great tool, but being a programmer, I’m rarely satisfied with off-the-shelf tools for long. Despite that change though, these cards are still a vital part of my process, but instead of devoting screen space to them, I printed them out and laminated them. Now when I start working on a project, I pull out the relevant character cards and clip them to my monitor. It’s extremely flexible, and I find that the process of sorting through the cards and re-reading them as I set them up helps get me in the groove for the day’s writing. It also makes it easier for me to get back up to speed if I switch between projects.