Character Intros: How to write an effective bio for your RP character

Every character, canon or otherwise, can benefit from having a bio on their info page. It's totally optional, but it tends to be one of the first things people look at on the site and reflects not only your character, but you as a writer. It is often the first impression you get to make with a potential friend/writing partner. Having no bio to many people indicates you just aren't serious about role-playing, your character, or writing and can actually turn people off from interacting with you. Same goes for an incomplete bio, saying 'ask me about my character', or just writing something adversarial like 'that's for me to know and you to find out' (yes, I've actually seen that).

The bio on your info page is a chance to present your character as someone other people might want to write and interact with. Think of it a bit like a sales pitch, like publishers do with the short summaries on the back of books. You want basically the same thing, but for your character. Research shows we only have a few seconds to grab someone's attention and make a good impression, so it's important that this initial introduction presents your character both quickly and attractively.

What do I mean by attractive? I don't mean how pretty your info page is, though readability and design do help. I don't mean how your character looks. Really, that should only get the barest mention if any at all in your introduction unless it is a defining part of the character's persona. By attractive, I mean presenting your character as someone who is:

1. Well written - be literate and proofread thoroughly. Mistakes in your writing here look sloppy and like you just don't care. Use spellcheck, have a friend proofread for you, read your bio out loud. All of these will help catch any goofs. And don't worry about finding a few; we all make them. Nobody's first draft is perfect. No unintelligible acronyms or obscure terms - remember you're writing for a general audience. If you must use these, link the reader to more information about what they mean.
2. Well planned - have a backstory and major character traits established. Have a current story arc.
3. Interesting and flexible - the more scenarios you can reasonably write your character in, the easier it will be to find others to write with. This isn't an invitation to be vague, just a reminder that the more you limit a character, the harder it will be to find suitable storylines and characters to interact with and still remain true to character.

Your character doesn't have to be nice or pretty in order to be attractive in this sense.

Anybody who says size doesn't matter isn't talking about your character intro. Size DOES matter in this case. You want to use the Goldilocks principle: not too long, not too short. Like a resume or cover letter, try to keep your bio to about one page. We're talking somewhere around 500 words or less. Mine are generally around 300 words and while my character is a complex guy with a long history, I feel like I only need that many words to get the basics across of who he is. Your bio on your info page isn't your character's whole story, just a teaser, like a movie trailer.

Successful characters are multi-dimensional with distinctive physical attributes, emotional traits, appearances, personalities, intelligence, vulnerabilities, emotions, attitudes, idiosyncrasies, and hopes and dreams. Writing successful characters also means digging deep into their past and present to get a true understanding of them as a person. Some of that will need to be reflected in your introductory bio so people get a sense of who your character is. Tempt the reader in, don't give them the whole story. Think of it like a personals ad, but without the pathetic stench of desperation. Your introductory bio is like the back of a novel or a film summary on imdb. It needs to give people enough information to decide they like/identify with your character and want to RP with you. This is your advert, don't blow it.

What should you include in your introductory bio?

1. Basic stats about your character like name, age, gender, species, title (if any).
2. Mention major distinguishing features about your character. Personality traits, contradictions, etc.
3. Set up your story arc - What is your character currently doing? Where is your character headed? What conflict(s) are they dealing with? What drives them?
4. Mention major formative events/people in the character's story arc, but only briefly. You can always link readers to the full story of the events - Parents killed in front of them? Nearly died in outer space? Became friends with a witch?
5. What kind of role(s) fit your character. Parent? Romantic interest? Villain? Hero? Somewhere in between?
6. Special abilities of any kind, if applicable, but not in great detail. Is your character a witch? Great! Definitely mention that, but don't list every kind of magic/spell she knows. If you want, you can do that in a separate character sheet.

Things that should not be in your introductory bio:

1. Detailed physical traits like eye and hair color, height, weight. Put these in a character fact sheet somewhere, if you want. Whether their eyes can change rainbow colors or they have blue hair isn't going to be a deciding factor on whether or not people want to write with your character.
2. Everything that's happened to your character since birth. It's perfectly alright to focus on who your character is now. If you want to write out a detailed history, you can link readers to that for more information.
3. Who you ship your character with, want to ship your character with, or that you don't ship them at all. Put this in your rules/terms somewhere, not your bio.
4. Stuff about the writer. Your introductory bio is about your character and their story, not you. If you want to share information about yourself, consider doing that in a separate place. Using print novels again as an example, you will never see "about the author" information jumbled in with the book summary. Those need to be kept separate.
5. Out-of-character meta references. I see way too much of this in bios and it's really confusing. Keep out-of-character (OOC) and in-character (IC) separate and make it clear which is which. Your intro bio shouldn't read like "[character name] is looking for friends on this site and people to write with". The CHARACTER isn't looking for that, YOU are. Keep the bio about the character or it's going to read like you can't tell the difference. That's a big red flag for a lot of people and will likely hurt your chances of getting to write with them.
6. A bunch of pictures of your faceclaim. This should be obvious, but ten photos of your character in a row really doesn't tell other writers much about your character or storyline.

Focus first on making your info page bio something you can be proud of and that presents your character well and then check out this great RPL Writer's Corner blog on how to 'beautify' your info section with images and formatting.

Your info page: http://www.roleplaylives.net/[username]/info/ like http://www.roleplaylives.net/writerscorner/info/

As always, these articles are merely suggestions and recommendations based on our experience. People are free to do as they please with their writing. These aren't rules and the author has provided this in an attempt to be helpful to other writers. If the information doesn't suit you, simply disregard.


Questions? Comments? My inbox is open to all or you can leave a comment below. Constructive criticism and thoughtful debate welcome. Thanks for reading!