A Catalogue of Histories

Today I started a "Catalogue of Personal Histories" for each character in each of my novels.

I have all of the information tucked away in incomprehensibly written scraps of papers scattered around my office, but today I started creating an easy to read reference sheet for each of my characters.

I start with their full name (given) and their nicknames Then I underline their name with a colour coded bar with the series and book title. The Left side of the page is two columns of text about the characters Background: Their personal History, traits, quirks, motivations, relationships, geography etc.. and anything else I find relevant to their character. In the centre of the page is a picture of a live model/ head shot of a person I find to have similar physical traits to the character.On the Right hand of the page is a point form description of their attire and physical characteristics.

The second page has a description of any outstanding characteristics that need more description.
For example: Describing in detail the character's religion or beliefs, their magical abilities, complex relationships or family trees.

*Note: Any character that occurs in more than one novel will have one of these compact reference sheets for each book. They will denote the character's growth, changes in personality and motivations as well as add to any abilities.

These are like Character resumes, that take several hours to complete. I know my characters like I know my family, and yet it still took me an hour and a half (at my fastest) to write out one of these Histories. This morning I completed 3, and am about to complete a 4th. Eventually I would like to have one of these for every character in each of my books, and then several for each world.

My Catalogues of Histories will include;
-Character refs/ bios/ histories
-Country & Province histories and maps
-Religions & Deities
-Royalty & Leadership
-Legends & Myths
-Tales & Stories

for each novel. It's a daunting challenge but will make writing easier, clearer and faster to reference. I will take it character by character, book by book, eventually creating enough information to fill several binders.

If you would like to try to make you own I am currently using a template in Microsoft Word Starter 2010 called "Apothecary Newsletter" it is the perfect template for the information I want to display easily. 

If you use this trick, I hope it helps. I already love it!

-Brandolyn

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