What I do is start out with a brief synposis of the character and then branch out from there. I have an easier time writing more if I have something to go off of.
I always want to write those nice, thought-out bios with actual paragraphs of information, but I always write short notes instead. How do I write more paragraphs?
I'm impressed at people who can just leave it at short notes actually haha but if you really wanna write more, I find that structure helps. I always end up writing a lot if I make things easy for myself by splitting up what I'm trying to write into a couple of different categories. Also, generally, instead of just jotting down the "whats", I like to get into the "whys" and "hows", and this approach tends to naturally evolve into a bit of a paragraph. In general, I approach the whole thing more like how I'd approach writing prose-- albeit super ridiculously over-indulgently focused on the character at hand ;v
Here's how I'd normally split up the different sections of a detailed profile
- Backstory
- Think up your character's timeline, pick out the important events, jot them down. Now you can flesh them out. Why did that thing happen? When that thing happened, what did your character feel? If I'm feeling especially wild, I might even get into character for a sentence or two and you'll actually get a little snippit of a really important event from a character's own perspective.
- Personality
- What is the character like superficially? How about as a friend? How about what actually makes them tick? It's easier to write more when you start thinking about how they'd behave in specific scenarios, and you can bring examples in if they help contribute to getting the point across.
Why is your character like how they are? How do they feel about themself/others/anything/everything? How did their experiences shape them like this?
- What is the character like superficially? How about as a friend? How about what actually makes them tick? It's easier to write more when you start thinking about how they'd behave in specific scenarios, and you can bring examples in if they help contribute to getting the point across.
- Noteworthy skills or special powers they have
- Elaborating on where they learned these skills, how good they are at them, and what they use them for, is a good way to get more words. They can talk to plants? How does it work? When did they realise they could do this? etc.
- Appearance
- Describe more than just visual things. I like describing how they move and behave in this section too. So, how do they speak? What's their gait like? Imagine yourself in a space with this person, and try describing what you'd actually notice about them. Again, adding in the "whys" always helps get more words. Where did they get that scar, what does that tat mean to them, why do they dress like that, etc.
- Trivia
- ok I just do bullet-points here, of anything I can think of that might be fun/interesting that didn't fit in another category.
- ok I just do bullet-points here, of anything I can think of that might be fun/interesting that didn't fit in another category.
If you want an example of what I mean, Ryn's my ultimate posterboy, but I'm taking a similar approach with Blair (his is still v rough though)
So yeah that's basically my own approach, but of course there's no wrong or right, just do what works for you. If you don't end up writing massive novellas for character profiles, that's just as valid!
I agree with Aarix! Having a standard structure for your bios helps me a lot too and also gives your viewers an idea of what to expect when you repeat the same structure in your profiles. As an addition to the structure list, I usually like to begin my bios with some sort of tl;dr summary of the character so people in forum games don't really have to read my super long personality and backstory section, unless it's literally a high effort game in the first place.
Something I have found very handy with writing in general is to first read a bunch of other people's bios / texts before working on your own. I doubt it works for everyone, but for me personally warming up my brain for writing by reading often makes the process easier and helps me avoid the blank page problem