FREE 10+ Character Outline Samples in PDF

One of the most interesting and fun parts of watching an amazing movie, reading comic books, or playing video games is getting to know the characters in them. Whether they are a hero, an animal, a talking plant, or the final ogre boss that looks undefeatable, all of them are vital to bringing any story to life. There is a reason why most of an artist’s work is popular to their audience, especially with characters that actually surpassed the perfection standard against real-life humans. In this article, we will give you tips on how to create a character outline that can help you greatly in your writing or drawing process. 

10+ Character Outline Samples

1. Character Outline

2. Character Analysis Outline

3. Character Driven Plot Outline

4. Character Sketch Outline

5. Character Centric Plot Outline Worksheet

6. Character Mentoring Outline

7. Character Animator Course Outline

8. Character Analysis Planner Outline

9. Simple Character Outline

10. Charactered Lesson Outline

11. Musical Character Outline

What Is a Character Outline?

A character outline is a document that states a comic book, video game, or animation character’s profile, personality, skills, attributes, background story, relationships, ideology, and certain unique qualities. Writing a character outline helps you create the perfect character that would complement the settings and main plot of your story. The outline also helps you organize the details of your story especially if you have multiple characters that are connected to one another. 

How to Create a Character Outline?

To create a character outline efficiently, it would be helpful to prepare a character sheet template, a clean sheet of paper, or a notebook where you can write your ideas. Without further delay, here is a step-by-step guide to creating your character outline. 

1. Write The Character’s Basic Profile and Role

To begin your outline, you can write the character’s profile and their role in the story. For example, you can write “Sea Briar, elf mage, master of Skycastle”, as your opening description in the outline. By writing it like this, you already have established an identity of your character and that can help you think of what to write in the succeeding details. After that, you can continue writing the character’s age, birthplace, birth date, height, and occupation to supplement more information.

2. Include Skills and Abilities

It is safe to assume that your character might be living in a special world where fantasy and reality meet. If that is the case, you need to write a list of what your character’s superpowers are and what other special abilities they have that make them unique. Do not stop your imagination and be more creative. Let’s say the swordsman in your story can summon flying blades and magic pets. Or, that lovely healer can make any medicine from any type of plant using her concoction magic. Try to come up with various skills and abilities for your character to make them more interesting to the audience such as being able to read music sheets, knowing how to cook any specialties from a food menu, and others.

3. Introduce Their Origin or Parental Background

One thing that makes a character very relatable is the way they were brought up in their childhood. While there are characters that do not have childhood stories (such as robots in science experiments, humanoids, homunculus, or magic pets), you still have to write about where they are from or who made them. Having a great tale of background stories will make your character interesting, plus it gives an additional twist to the storyline. 

4. Give Them Unique Characteristics and Hobbies

Another thing that makes your character more entertaining is them having an attitude, behavior, or quirks that are close to reality. Have you ever read about a warrior so powerful that they can move heaven and earth, yet they are afraid of motherly figures and insects? Yes, that type of character does exist. Give your audience something to talk and compare about. This makes your characters more memorable to them. 

It is always a good thing to give your characters some hobbies that they thoroughly enjoy while they are not out there fighting for world peace. Say, the beautiful prince Bernhardt who is a strict ruler is actually a soft guy who likes to make desserts for his wife. Create the other side to your characters that the audience will definitely love or get surprised about. 

Get your character to become the best and most sought-after hero in the world you created for them. Give them an identity that will set them apart from everyone else with our editable character outline templates that you can check on our gallery.