Character Studies

Every character gets a study page: a document in a Characters folder in Research & Notes, for everything you know about them.

A page is added when you create the character, whether with @ in the editor or with Add Character… in Cast & Places. It's titled with the character's name and follows the name if you rename them.

Fill in the page

The page starts with a label for each area to think through: role in the story, appearance, personality, voice and speech, background, wants, needs, fears and flaws, arc, relationships and details to remember. Write after each label, delete any you don't need, and add your own.

Above the text, a header shows the character's other names, birth date and how many scenes they appear in. Choose Show in Cast & Places to edit those details.

Photos

Add pictures of faces, clothes, places and anything else that helps you see the character:

• On Mac, drag pictures onto the photo strip above the page, or click Add Photos.
• On iPad and iPhone, tap Add Photos to choose from your photo library.

Click a photo to see it full size. To remove one, Control-click it (or touch and hold) and choose Remove Photo. Photos are resized for sync and kept with the project, so they're on all your devices.

Any document can have photos: use the Photos section of the inspector.

Your own character notes

If Research & Notes already has a folder called Characters or Cast, as many Scrivener projects do, Five Rooms uses it. A document in it titled with a character's name becomes that character's page, and its text is kept.

Turn study pages off

Study pages are never compiled and don't count towards your manuscript. If you don't want them, turn off Study page for each character in Cast & Places. Pages you've already written are kept. A page you delete isn't recreated.

In Cast & Places, choose Open Study Page to go to a character's page. Plan's Story ▸ Character study shows what the page says beside where the character appears and who they share scenes with. A paragraph that starts with a bold label, such as Wants:, becomes an answer there.