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ink-fireplace-coffee · 1 year

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Notion Wip Tour Part 3: Characters

part 1 ; part 2

aka what @memento-morri-writes and @italiangothicwriteblr asked for (sorry for being late, life got in the way and I had group project drama... anyway)

yay characters!

for characters I simply type "Characters" in a h2 and then I insert a gallery view of an empty database. It should look like this

which honestly... sucks for a lot of reasons.

But don't worry! Cause Notion does take into account both aestheticd and personalization, so we are going to use that opportunity haha

first things first: erasing that useless "untitled" on the top of the database. I already have a title! (You can create multiple gallery views and sort them out by main characters, secondary ones and antagonists, but I use tags for that)

So what we are going to do is go to the three dots on the right side of the gallery view (next to the blue "new" button that appears when you hover above it), and then click on Layout. You'll get another menu and here you can: change the layout (I use galleries cuase pretty pictures, but you can also make a list format or a table!), hide the database title, choose what you want to preview before opening each "card" (can be the contents of the page OR the cover OR leave them blank. I personally choose covers, but you do you), choose the size of the cards (if you have a tin of characters, I do recomend the small one), decide if you want the image to fit or not and finally, choose if when you click each individual card you want it to open in center peek (a medium size square in the middle of your screen), side peak (a page to the size of your databse) or full page.

Phew that was a lot. So by hiding the databse title, choosing the cover to be the content preview of the cards and making them small, we get to this

Do not forget the three buttons cause we are going to be looking into the other functions in a minute. For now, let's create each character and let me show you the wonderful world of ✨templates✨

When you open the first card, this is what it will show

Personally I have no needs for to-dos, so I erase that as well as the created feature on top, and I change my font and size exactly as you would on a normal notion page, as well as allowing full width. I also erase that "Add a comment..." line by going hovering in the "Tags" line, clicking on the six dots, clicking on Customize Page and selecting Off in "Top Level Discussions"

This is what we've done so far:

see the difference? I personally like it better :)

Before even typing your beloved OC name, you are going to click on the little underlined part of the text called "create a template"

templates save my life in Notion. Specially with characters. Cause I don't have to type stuff a hundred times, just once.

so you click on create a template and suddenly this pops up!

Nothing's wrong, you are not editing your page, just your template. As you can see you can name it (I personally name it Character's template), and change the font, the size... all that. It's like a new page, essentially.

THIS IS A TEMPLATE MEANING YOU ARE NOT GOING TO ANSWER ANY OF THE POINTS YOU ADD TO IT!!!

Quick N/A: If you don't know, I'm a psychology student. And I've learnt how to writr clinical reports for one of my classes, so I use whatever applies to that for my OCs. This means my character's sheets are really technical in some ways.

Personal Data

I add a title (h2), in here I create a bullet list with the following:

Full name, nicknames, age (in years or months, I tend to use how we write it on reports in class so year:month), birhtdate, gender, pronouns, sexual orientation, social status, working status, ethnicity (if applies), race (if applies), and then sometimes height and weight.

Story Goal

This section I usually put it to the right of the first one, by creating another block (h2) and then dragging it to the right side of my other title, until I see a blue line. After that remember to select all the bullet points you've added to the previous block and drag them right under the Personal Data title or you'll get this weird gap.

In the Story Goal I simply write that: what does my character want to achieve at the beginning of the story? why is it so important for them? and what happens if they fail? you can write it plainly, but I like making a callout (/callout) and typing it there (nice thing about callouts, you can change the emoji or the icon that shows!)

In my case I added some strst cause it goes with the theme of my wip :)

With the extra space, you can choose to add a picture or embed a playlisy of your character if you have one! (don't do it yet tho, we are on the template, remember? no individual details yet)

Traits

(here's when you are gonna see the psych student influence haha). Basically, I make a toggle with bullet points inside, dividing them by Central Traits and Peripherial Traits.

A central trait is an attribute in someone’s personality that is considered particularly meaningful, in that its presence or absence signals the presence or absence of other traits. Which, basically means the things you are "extremely" (for example, I consider myself to be a an extremely creative person because it's a trait I use to define myself usually)

A peripherial trait is not as meaningful, or impactful for the person. Following my previous example, I consider myself to be extremely creative yes, but no so much idk talkative, even if i could be talking for hours with the right person. It's not as important, not as strikcing.

Anamnesis

okay my psych student side keeps showing on this one. BUT i warned I was basing on off my psych report so that's how it is haha

when writing a clinical report the anamnesis is also called clinical history and it's basically that. A recap of everything that happened to the patient that might or might not be related to well the problem they present OR IN THIS CASE the story goal.

Basically write a backstory. that's it. (Again, not in the template. please)

As I explained it on the ask I answered about how I organized my character's info (and the reason why I am doing this): usually childhood stories. Why and when is the goal they have born? what causes them to want to achieve them? Are there any critical moments in their life up until the start of the story that are relevant to their character development?

Just, go nuts.

Likes and Dislikes

you can also toggle this or make bullet points or just write it as a list... I don't have a preference but I do love toggles (as you can guess).

Likes and Dislikes are usually for me but not only: food, hobbies, colors, fashion sense, weather, people... Everything and anytihng really. Go crazy. The more you flesh these blorbos of yours, the happier you'll be. trust me

(Also I know this goes after Anamnesis but I usually put this on the right side of the Traits section. Idk I just think its neat but of course your character template your rules so just grab what you like and tweak it so it's yours)

Connections

yayy the last part! On here I create yet another toggle (are you tired of them yet?) and list all the important relationships my character has. I write a short description of what that person means to my character and sometimes their first impression or initial thoughts of them.

If you want to add a Pinterent or Spotify or any other link, go to the top of the page and add a property called URL. You can add a few and change the name to whatever the link is <3

After you are done editing your template, simply click the back button on the top left and you'll be back to the character's card we clicked on at the start. This time with a major difference tho:

now you can choose the template we've done and it'll automatically appear not only in that card but for every single one you decide to create on that database <3

And this is the end result for one of my OC's:

as you can see I've added a tag called "main character" so that I can filter through them. For that, hover over the Gallery and you'll see two different options: Filter and Sort.

I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions let me know!! I absolutely adore Notion and I am obsessed over my wip page <3

#notion #notion tutorial: wip pages #wip pages

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