Character generator
Random characters for fiction, each with a name, age, role and job, what they want, what they fear, a secret, a contradiction, a telling detail and a note on how they talk. Choose a genre, generate, and copy any character as a sheet.
Runs in your browser. No AI, no account, and nothing you save is sent anywhere.
Names come from the same lists as the character name generator. Ages fit the job; the rest is yours to change.
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Juan Carlos Juárez González
Literary · Mexican name
- Age
- 46
- Role
- Protagonist
- Occupation
- Out-of-work actor
- Wants
- To be good at one thing.
- Fears
- Being found out.
- Secret
- He is not who his papers say he is.
- Contradiction
- Talks constantly and says nothing about himself.
- Telling detail
- Never finishes a meal.
- Voice
- Speaks two languages and switches when he wants privacy.
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Ekaterina Morozova
Young adult · Russian name
- Age
- 60
- Role
- Wild card
- Occupation
- Head coach
- Wants
- To earn enough to stop worrying about money.
- Fears
- Losing her memory.
- Secret
- She still writes letters to someone who died.
- Contradiction
- Honest with everyone except herself.
- Telling detail
- Salts food before tasting it.
- Voice
- Never uses contractions.
Your cast
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How to turn a random character into someone real
A generated character is a set of facts. A real character is those facts under pressure, making choices. These steps take a sheet from the generator, or one you wrote yourself, and give it a life on the page.
Make the fear threaten the want
The parts arrive separately. Your first job is to connect them: if a man wants to be taken seriously and fears being laughed at in public, every scene where he speaks up costs him something. When the fear stands between the character and the want, you have conflict without inventing any.
Use the secret as a clock
Ask who could find the secret out, how, and when. A secret that nobody can discover is backstory. A secret with a person and a date attached is plot.
Put the contradiction in a scene
Generous with strangers and stingy with family is a description. A man tipping a waiter twenty dollars and then splitting the bill to the cent with his sister is a scene. Write the moment where both halves show within a page of each other.
Let the detail carry weight
A telling detail should tell something. Decide what the pocketknife with someone else's initials means before you use it, then let the reader see it three times: once as decoration, once as a question, and once as the answer.
Test the voice with a page of talk
Write a page in which the character explains how to do their job to someone who does not care. If you can hear the voice note (short sentences, questions answered with questions) without labelling it, the voice is working.
Change at least two things
Keep what interests you and replace two facts with your own. The character becomes yours, and you learn what you actually wanted from the choices you make.
What goes on a character sheet, and why
| Field | The question it answers | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Name and age | Where and when were they born? | Pick the name for their birth year and family, not for the story's mood. |
| Role | What job do they do in the plot? | A mentor, a rival or a witness needs scenes that let them do that job. |
| Occupation | What do their days look like? | Work gives a character skills, habits, vocabulary and somewhere to be. |
| Want | What are they trying to get? | Drives choices. Should be specific enough that you would know when they have it. |
| Fear | What would they do almost anything to avoid? | Works best when it blocks the want. |
| Secret | What do they hide, and from whom? | Becomes plot when someone can find it out. |
| Contradiction | Where do they not add up? | The source of surprise; readers believe people who are inconsistent in a consistent way. |
| Telling detail | What would a stranger notice? | One concrete image that does the work of a paragraph of description. |
| Voice | How do they sound? | Lets readers know who is speaking without tags. |
Worked example: from a generated character to a scene
One of the characters the generator produced, exactly as it came out:
Generated character (literary)
Juan Carlos Juárez González, 46. Protagonist. Out-of-work actor. Wants to be good at one thing. Fears being found out. Secret: he is not who his papers say he is. Talks constantly and says nothing about himself. Never finishes a meal. Speaks two languages and switches when he wants privacy.
Connect the parts
An actor who is not who his papers say he is has been playing a part offstage for years, which explains why he talks constantly and says nothing about himself. He wants to be good at one thing, and the cruel answer is that he already is: he is a superb liar and a mediocre actor. His fear of being found out and his want pull in opposite directions, because the one role he is best at is the one nobody can know about.
Make the secret a clock
His sister in Guadalajara, the only person who knows his real name, is coming to his city for the first time in twenty years. He has nine days.
Use the detail and the voice
He never finishes a meal because as a boy he was never sure there would be another, and he keeps the habit as a kind of superstition. When his sister arrives she will notice the half-eaten plate before anything else. When he wants privacy he switches to Spanish, which is fine until his sister answers him in it in front of his friends.
Scene premise
Goal: Juan Carlos must get through a dinner party with his theater friends and his sister at the same table. Conflict: she calls him by a name none of them have heard. Turn: he laughs it off in the best performance of his life, and sees on her face that she will not cover for him again.
Every fact in that scene came from the sheet; the scene came from asking how the facts collide. For a fuller method, see the guide to outlining a novel scene by scene, and pair the character with a premise from the plot generator.
Questions writers ask about character generators
Can I use a generated character in a book I publish?
Yes. You do not need permission or credit. Character ideas and names are not protected by copyright in the United States (US Copyright Office, Circular 33); what you write about the character is yours.
Where do the names come from?
From the same curated lists and sound rules as our character name generator: real given names and surnames from 30 cultures, some by era, and invented names in fantasy and science fiction styles. Match the genre picks a fitting source: period names for historical, fantasy styles for fantasy, colonist names for science fiction, and any of the 30 cultures for contemporary genres.
Is this an AI character generator?
No. Every want, fear, secret, contradiction, detail and voice note was written by a person. The page picks and combines them in your browser and checks that they fit the character's age, so a teenager never gets a secret about a marriage.
Can I use it for tabletop games or role-play?
The characters work well as non-player characters: a name, a motive and a secret are most of what a game master needs. There are no stats, classes or abilities, because it is built for fiction.
How do I keep a character I like?
Press the star to save the whole sheet to Your cast, in this browser. Copy puts the sheet on your clipboard as plain text, one field per line, ready to paste into your notes. Copy a link to these characters shares the exact set.
How many characters does a novel need?
There is no right number. Most novels have a small core, often three to six people the reader follows closely, and a wider ring of minor characters. Give the core full sheets; minor characters need a name, a want and one detail.
Juan Carlos
46. Out-of-work actor. Not who his papers say he is.
His sister
The only person who knows his real name. Arrives in nine days.
Guadalajara
Where his sister lives. She has not come to his city in twenty years.
Keep your cast on the Canvas
In Feldar each character can be a card on the Canvas, beside the manuscript and linked to the places, factions and plot beats around them. Paste a sheet into a card and it is there when you plan scenes in the Outline. When Feldar helps you write, it draws on those cards, and its suggestions stay only if you accept them.
See how Feldar works