101% of the time, you won't need character profiles. Character profiles are pointless the more complicated they are, and I've learned from this the hard way because my first fanfiction had one in the forewords section for a long time before I realized my mistake and took it down.

Character profiles take away the quality of a character. If you imagine your character dressed in quality from head to toe, and you happen to write them some shoddy character profile, your character's now stripped clean of any quality he or she could have had. You may think they're necessary because your character has some super intricate plot that needs prior explanation, but really, you don't need it.

In the end, all character profiles amount to something like this:

Name here (You!)

• Beautiful
• Funny
• Smart
• Likes Jongin
• Loves animals

Not only have you just butchered your character's personality by showing all that needs to be shown, you've given away her/his love interest! No, no, no! I should slap any author who writes these with a frozen fish.

Take character profiles out of your story. Just do it. Trust me.

I have never, ever, ever seen a movie or read a book in which a director or author introduces all of the characters, one by one. Some people say character profiles are needed because their pasts are intricate. Harry Potter has very complex and three-dimensional characters and J.K Rowling never introduced all fifty plus of her brilliant characters at the beginning of her book.

A character should be introduced through dialogue and actions... in the story. As simple as it sounds, most fanfiction authors fail to realize that fanfictions are works of fiction; therefore, it's no different than a published book. I'm going to be fairly blunt with this and say that any author who puts bland character profiles (that are also poorly written) in their fanfiction will never reach the level of sophistication they desire.

There are better, more interesting ways for you to introduce your character than to summarize him/her in one or two words. The best way to go about this is, as I mentioned before, through dialogue and actions.

The way your character responds and reacts to a certain situation or talks to someone can give deep insight on what he or she is like.

For example! These snippets of text are excerpts from some of my own works. Without describing any of them with an adjective, I can still portray them the way I want and convey their personality to my readers. Can you guess what these characters are like just by the way they talk and behave?

• "O-Okay." Chanyeol smiled, rubbing his empty hands together, "You... You can borrow them because you're my friends." No matter how brightly he said it, there was no mistaking how nervous he looked, his clammy hands rubbing his pants like a child coping without its security blanket. His right eye was twitching every two seconds.

• "You're not my target today, pretty un. I'll come back to skin ya some other time. I'll have your head on a pretty lil' pedestal~" Kai leaned in close and pulled out the dagger with a tight grip, his tongue running over the warm, crimson blade.

Sure, it takes a bit of effort to get your head rolling for indirect ways to bring your character to life, but who said it was easy? If you really want to impress your readers, find alternative ways to deliver the message that your character has unique traits of his/her own.

But, you're probably wondering "Hey Jindeul, how am I supposed to tell my readers that my character was abandoned at four, or has a scar on her right arm?" and I say the same thing, friend: through dialogue and actions. Dialogue and actions. Even a narration is fine.

Don't be lazy. A lazy writer comes off as being uncreative and simple-minded.

Lastly, don't treat your readers like they're incapable of connecting two and two. They don't need to be told your character's a certain way before the story even starts to figure it out on their own. I've learned from personal experience that it's much more entertaining for me as a reader to understand what a character is like through the things they say and do. Your readers have more to comment on if you give them questions instead of answers.

Still a bit perplexed and stuck on how to really bring your character to life?

How about we give it some quirks and habits?