Character development guide and worksheets for fantasy and sci-fi writers.

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Struggling with character development or writer's block? Try this.

The Essential Character Creation Blueprint and Workbook - Print

The Essential Character Creation Blueprint and Workbook - Print

Develop iconic characters with binge-worthy plots.

$48.99 USD
$48.99 USD
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Create memorable characters like a bestselling author—even if you're a new writer. 

 

Character is story. It's the lens through which we see and understand your fictional world. It's the reason we care about the plot.

 

While creating a character is easy, making them complex and realistic enough to carry an entire novel is as tricky as reaching level 100 of the Skull Cavern without using staircases (confession: I once used 93 staircases to get there - Eva).

 

Get guidance and templates from bestselling authors on how to write character-driven stories that keep readers turning the page, even after they miss their bus stop.

  • 16K writers helped
  • Created by bestselling authors
  • Tree planted with every order

Learn secrets of character development from published authors.

If you're stuck on character development, it might be because you listed your character's traits, decided their favorite color, and recounted their backstory.

But you need to know your character as deeply as a therapist who watched their entire life unfold. You need to know them better than you know yourself.

Even then, they won't come alive until you place them in their social environment and tie their personality and beliefs to the plot.

We'll teach you how to do all of this and more in just a couple of weeks.

15 chapters on creating characters that make readers clamor for sequels.

Character development tips and templates for:

● What makes a compelling character
● Where to start when creating a character
● Body, senses, and mind
● Traits and flaws
● Contradictions
● Social values and expectations
● Relationships
● Ethics
● Perspectives about the world
● Skills and knowledge
● Lies, truths, and ghosts
● Wants and needs
● Normal life
● Appearance and gestures
● Defining introductory moment

Write without distractions.

Have you ever bought a fancy planner and worried about using it because you felt you had to carefully keep everything in the right box. And what if you couldn't t fit all your thoughts?!

Yeah, us too.

So, our worksheets are clean, simple, and distraction-free. No fancy layouts to try to jam your thoughts into. No fear you'll mess it up. Just prompts and wide-open spaces for all your ideas.

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A proven framework for writing character-driven stories that spawn fandoms.

You're going to write new comfort characters and novels that readers can't put down. Learn:

📘 The five-minute trick to turn any character into one readers obsess over.

📘 The secret that newer writers don't know about creating realistic characters.

📘 The character arc method that many of your favorite stories use to keep you addicted.

📘 The reason why online character questionnaires lead to flat characters and what to do instead.

📘 And more.

We don't simply tell you what to do. We help you do it with worksheets and templates.

Created by published authors based on years of research and writing.

The knowledge in The Essential Character Creation Workbook saved my writing career.

Eva here. I struggled with plots for the longest time. I had 456 events scribbled on note-cards with no idea what order to put them in. My novels were a million words long with no end in sight.

Turned out, I had a character problem.

A strong character arc helps determine what happens in a book, what order it happens in, and when to end the story. Understanding arcs took me from floundering writer to published author.

So, of course, I wrote down and formalized what I had learned. The rest of the team helped refine it.

The result is the Essential Character Creation Workbook (and for me, over 20 published novels, including on the USA Today bestseller list).

The Essential Character Creation Blueprint and Workbook - Editable Word Doc - Scribe Forge

What you get with The Essential Character Creation Blueprint and Workbook

You'll get 15 chapters and worksheets in a spiral-bound book with inspiring artwork and lots of room for your ideas.

Here's what we cover:

😎 What Makes a Compelling Character + Where to Start: Learn why some characters become fan favorites while others cause readers to groan when they show up.

🧠 Body, Senses, and Mind: Write deep POVs by crawling inside your character's skin to experience their body and mind.

💁‍♂️ Traits and Flaws: This is more than a simple list of traits. Create a template for your character's actions to make them more realistic and your writing process easier.

🔃 Contradictions: Add complexity to any character with a method that takes less time than waiting for your laptop to finish updating.

👩‍👩‍👧 Social Values and Expectations: Get a step-by-step system to tie together character and worldbuilding to make them richer and more believable.

💖 Relationships: Many new writers skip this part! Learn how to use relationships to make every character as real as your best friend.

❌ Ethics: Decide on the lines your character will not cross and use those to develop binge-worthy plots and conflicts (or just torture them for the delicious drama).

🤔 Perspectives About the World: Turn a character from a shambling zombie to a living, breathing being by diving into their deepest beliefs.

📘 Skills and Knowledge: Combine abilities with personality to make your character a complete whole (rather than a pile of disjointed parts like a bin of dolls at a thrift store).

👻 Lies, Truths, and Ghosts: Give your character an arc so powerful that it'll turn readers into obsessive fans.

🍨 Wants and Needs: Discover how to write a relatable character, even if their hobby is watching TikTok at the movie theater.

🏠 Normal Life: Add unexpected sources of conflict and depth that many writers overlook.

🖖 Appearance and Gestures: Learn a simple method for using physical descriptions to give every character a unique POV.

🤩 Defining Introductory Moment: Start your novel so strong that readers keep turning the pages until a bookstore employee tells them it's closing time.

  • The fantasy wizard cover of the Essential Character Creation Blueprint and Workbook, showing a wizard facing a monster.
1 16

The Essential Character Creation Blueprint and Workbook - Print

$48.99 USD
$48.99 USD
Sale Sold out
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Distraction-free character creation.

Write without worrying that you'll run out of space in the little boxes or ruin the fancy layout.

Just simple, clean pages with prompts and lots of room for brainstorming, writing, and doodling.

Woman sitting at a table with a notebook and pen, smiling.

The secret to evading writer's block? Characters.

When you understand how your characters think and feel, what they do next becomes as transparent as an iMac from the late 90s.

Just like real people, they can only act in a certain way because of who they are. So, the story starts to write itself, and you face writer's block less often.

Know your characters better than you ever thought you could and develop arcs that will keep the words flowing with the system I've used to write and publish more than 20 books.

Tablet displaying the essential character creation workbook's chapter on social values.

Bundle and save.

Buy a physical copy and get a digital one for 75% off.

Just add both to your cart. Discount is applied automatically at checkout.

  • The fantasy wizard cover of the Essential Character Creation Blueprint and Workbook, showing a wizard facing a monster.
1 16

The Essential Character Creation Blueprint and Workbook - Print

$48.99 USD
$48.99 USD
Sale Sold out
View full details

FAQ

How many characters can I create with this?

The physical version has enough worksheets for one character.

If you need more, the digital version handles as many characters as you can dream of.

How does this help me with plotting and avoiding writer's block?

Many struggles with writer's block are due to missteps in the plot. And many struggles with plotting are because of weak character arcs.

When you understand the change your character will undergo, you realize the plot has to happen in a certain order for that change to work.

This doesn't lead to formulaic stories because each character's growth is different.

The arc is like the skeleton. We all have the same bone structure, and we all look and act differently. Your story becomes original in who your character is and how they will change. The arc just helps you know what needs to go where.

Won't a workbook lead to cookie cutter characters and arcs?

A surface-level understanding of, say, a villain wearing a dark mask, means you'll write the same villain in a dark mask as everyone else.

But if you understand that character to their very soul, you see how they're different from others. You make them into something new.

The Essential Character Creation Workbook helps you delve deeply into your characters, making them more complex and more themselves.

What genre does this work with?

The framework in the Essential Character Creation Blueprint works with any genre.

But the examples and advice are geared toward fantasy, sci-fi, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and romantasy, so you might find it less helpful if you write outside these genres.

Can I use this to create my DnD/TTRPG character?

Yes, you can!

While the Essential Character Creation Workbook doesn't cover things like class and skill allotment, it will help you develop your character's personality, backstory, and arc.

How long will my order take to ship?

We print the physical books on demand to reduce waste. This means your order will take a bit longer to ship. Expect about two weeks for processing.

If you want to start writing now, you can grab a digital version at a deep discount when you order a physical one. Just add both to your cart.

Was this created with AI?

No. We'd rather eat glass than outsource our creativity.

We first started selling The Essential Character Creation Workbook in 2021 before gen AI even existed. All the artwork in the Workbook are stock photos we paid to license from real human artists.