Seasoned authors know that you can never have too much information about the fictional characters that populate your creative writing. The information that you amass as you fill out a character profile template is useful in many stages of the novel writing or screenplay writing process. If you’re armed with enough information about your character’s life, personality, and physicality, you’ll probably end up using it somewhere in the writing process—even if it’s just to guide your own estimation of how a character would act under particular circumstances.

Remember, though, that not every trait will make it from your character profile worksheet to the first draft of your book or screenplay—and that’s perfectly fine. Perhaps certain details will only manifest in subsequent drafts, or perhaps they won’t appear at all. Your character development work will still prove valuable throughout the writing process. The more you develop at this stage, the more likely you are to create characters who feel like real people.