Basic details of your character:

Role: What role is my character playing?

Protagonist

Antagonist

Best Friend/Side Kick

Henchmen

Love Interest

Guide

Name of character: Princess Julianna of Nordrest

Sex: Female

Age: 17

What is their social status: e.g., poor, rich, ultra rich, middle class

Rich and powerful. Younger daughter of the king of Nordrest, a powerful kingdom in the North.

Employment status:

What is their job? Princess, not a direct heir to the throne but has all the high expectations of being a close member of the Royal family.

Do they enjoy their job? If so why? If not, what don’t they like about their job? What is their ambition? Hates being a princess and all the responsibility and rules that come with it. Has no interest in marrying and losing her freedom. Her ambition is to explore the world. Heavily inspired by her father’s close friend, Osküldur who has travelled west to explore new lands.

Where does your character live? Why do they choose to live there?

Think about the setting your character is in and consider writing a short paragraph on what surrounds them, focusing on what they think is most important to them. If they tell you why those things are important, it will give you insight into what they value.

In the Palace of Öst with her family. Has no choice where she lives as she is a member of the Royal family.

Physical Attributes:

Eye colour and eye shape: Green, large eyes.

Eyebrows: Dark brown, expressive, thick

Scar: N/A

Tattoos: N/A

Piercings: Two ear piercings and a bar through the upper right ear

Body shape: Thin but not athletic

Hair type, colour, length: Dark brown, long and slightly curled, reaches down her back

Ears size, shape: Normal

Favourite jewellery: A necklace that was her late mother’s.

Favourite clothes: The leather combat armour she has found in the armoury. She wishes they made female versions and would love to try them on.

What are they most uncomfortable wearing? Why is that? The full, regal dresses she has to wear on formal occasions. She associates them with the fact she has to impress loathsome suitors who are only interested in marrying her.

What are they most comfortable wearing? The simple, peasant clothes she wears to sneak outside of the palace.

Add your own details here as required or even paste in a photo of someone that represents your character. This will help you visualise them as a real human being and can be a jumping off point for character creation.

Write a small paragraph from your character’s perspective on what they think about their looks. Have them describe to you the one thing they dislike most about their body and why? Have them describe to you what they like about themselves and why?

How do I look? Well, I guess I must be quite attractive, what with all of these suitors desperate to marry me, but I imagine they care more about the power I hold than how I look. I prefer not showing off my body if I can help it, I don’t like the attention. I most dislike my arms. I wish I was more toned but life as a princess involves lots of rich food and sitting around so I don’t get the exercise I would like. I most like my ears and my smile. My mother would always compliment me on them. I miss her so much…

Internal Attributes:

* Internal attributes such as their goals, hopes, dreams, greatest ambition and faults will help you to create characters that will come across as real to your readers.

What is your character’s goal? What are they trying to achieve in your story?

To break free from the constraints of life as a princess. To explore the world, to lives as she pleases and to marry, or not marry, whoever she wants.
To get revenge on those who have hurt her family. Early in the story her family is killed and she is forced to choose – claim the throne or gain the freedom she has always sought?

What motivates them to keep trying to achieve their goals even when they fail?

Her mother always wanted her to be free and happy. She taught her to never give up and fight for what she wants.

Revenge is a major motivator – finding who is responsible for the death of her family.

What is their internal conflict? Brain storm up to three internal conflicts. These can be small conflicts that they will deal with in the story.

Does she tell her friends who she really is? She has kept her identity hidden from the local kids she hangs around with.

She is attracted to the emperor who has invaded the continent, the mortal enemy of her allies. Does she act upon this feeling?

Does she work with the person responsible for her mother’s death, in order to find who murdered the rest of her family?

What is your character’s external conflict? This is the main conflict they will face in the story – what big thing are they facing that will change their life forever?

Does she claim the throne and sacrifice her freedom?

Or does she walk away from her Palace responsibilities to live the life she has always wanted?

If there is a romance planned, what is your character’s romantic conflict?

How do they feel about falling in love? What would stop them from falling in love? Or what would be an obstacle to them falling in love?

If you have a love triangle, who are the other two people involved and what does each one want in this romantic conflict? What will stop them from falling in love? What choices and/or obstacles to falling in love will they have to face? What will they do to get what the one they want?

She would prefer not to marry and wants the freedom, however, the weight of responsibility may force her to choose for the good of others. Does she marry someone safe and dependable, but that she has no feelings for?

Or does she succumb to her desires for the emperor, despite the political disaster it could cause?

Love triangle involves a woman who has been exiled, who is later found to have been responsible for her mother’s death.

Describe your character’s greatest fear? What will they do anything to avoid? Knowing your character’s fears will lead you to put them into situations where they have to face and find courage, thus making them grow and mature. Living the life she sees she is destined for – being a princess, married to an older lord, raising children and stuck in a Palace with no freedom.

What makes your character likeable to other characters? Who loves them and why? How can you show their caring nature. Write a small scene that shows the protagonist cares.

She is feisty and says what she thinks, even if it is not what is expected of a princess. She doesn’t have airs or graces and is down to earth, making her popular among her friends in the city.

She is loved by her father, despite how much she does not conform, because she reminds him so much of his wife.

She will stick up for the underdog and hates bullies.

Have your character tell you something important about themselves. This could be their most embarrassing moment and how this affected them. Let them speak through you and tell you what is important to them.

Julianna realised her hand had slipped around the necklace dangling from her neck. She looked down at the intricately carved, silver pendant in the palm of her hand, so delicate and so unlike anything she would normally choose to wear. The pendant had originally belonged to her mother and she wore it as a constant reminder of her.

Her thoughts drifted back to that day, the day she lost her mother. She had been only 12 at the time and so much of her memory was clouded in the confusion and grief that had engulfed her whole family. She had been sleeping in her room when she awoke to hear an almighty uproar coming from the palace grounds below. She remembered her father coming into her room to reassure her, trying but failing to hide the tears that pricked the corners of his eyes. She remembered curling up on the floor by her bedroom door, ear pressed to the wood, snatching parts of conversation as guards and stewards rushed past outside ‘…she has returned… not good…’, ‘Is the king aware?’, ‘How far have they got?’, ‘Orders are to keep quiet around the children… Julianna… too young to understand…’.

She clenched her fist around the pendant, fighting back her own tears. They still haven’t told me how she died. How it happened. Surely I am old enough, now? They say I am old enough to get with child, so why won’t they let me know what happened to my mother?

Lisa Perrygrove

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