Preparing Character Outlines Reviewers Will Want to Review

I talked about how ineffective reviewers can be by listing the red flags I look for before deciding whether or not to request a review from these people, but now I want to talk about the character outlines themselves. When I reviewed characters for , there were some people that either didn't understand what I needed to review their characters and didn't fill out the information that I needed or requested that I reviewed character outlines despite them being incomplete. I didn't think I had all of the information, so I didn't feel comfortable relaying my opinion that may have missed the mark for their story, so I denied them. It's one thing if the writer is stuck and wants opinions on how to complete their outlines, of which I would recommend discussing it in a writing circle, and wait to complete the outline before requesting a review, but it's another if you say your outline is completed, but it's missing the information the reviewer needs to review the character. If you want detailed character reviews, your character outline has to be detailed as well.

Each reviewer is different, so will want differing kinds of information. This will be based on my personal needs as a reviewer, and also based on the character outline that I use, which you can see in my , which I specifically designed so that it would fit just about every reviewer's specification with little to no changes, and provide a lot of information that gets right to the point. That book also contains the characters that I refer to here in this article. There's nothing more annoying than having to have multiple outlines for the same character just because reviewers want different information. If you feel some of this is unnecessary, or if you want to change the format and order in your outline, by all means, make whatever change you want to help you develop your character. Helping you develop your character for your story is our goal as reviewers, but meet us halfway by providing as much necessary information as possible.

Before we get to the outline, I strongly recommend you fill out your outline up to the start of the story, as if it hadn't been written yet, or to the inciting incident of your story at the very latest. The character outline is a foundation of the character for the story, it's not meant to plot out their character arc during it. That's what the plot outline is for. Also keep in mind that this is for outlines you plan to have other people review, and not necessarily for your private use, which you can still do. It's just that some topics may be redundant if you're not planning on having your characters reviewed.

BASIC INFORMATION

UNIVERSE

This is one of those redundant topics you wouldn't need for your character outline, but may need for the character review, and is the number one thing I asked for people to provide when I reviewed characters, but no one ever did. If I don't understand the universe, especially for an original story with a universe based on a fantastical setting, I don't feel comfortable reviewing that character. I could state my opinions on whether I think the character is a strong one, but I feel a huge hole is missing when the universe isn't provided.

You don't have to have a separate section solely for the universe, and details and information can be woven throughout the outline, but I find a brief description of it on its own somewhere to be rather helpful.

Fanfiction

Just saying what fandom the character resides in only tells reviewers the fandom. Reviewers will automatically assume you're sticking with the original universal canon laws dictated by whichever media the reviewer assumes, whether it be the cartoon version of the fandom, the book version, movie version, etc., so specify which media or which combination of versions your character resides in. Movies or shows based on books often make alterations, so it's important you specify which version, or if it's a combination of differing versions.