# Character sheet — the short version that actually gets used

Most character sheets are forty questions long and never opened again. This one fits on a page. Fill the first five lines; the rest is optional and will change.

- Name, age at the start, what they do all day:
- The one thing they want in this story (concrete, checkable):
- What it costs them to want it:
- What they believe about themselves that isn't true:
- How they talk when they're tired:

## Optional, when the draft asks for it
- Who they love, who they owe, who they avoid:
- The object they'd save from a fire:
- A habit the reader sees three times before it matters:
- The scene where they surprise you (leave blank until it happens):