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Last updated on Mar 08, 2024

How to Create the Ultimate Character Profile [+ Template]

Ask any great novelist and they’ll likely tell you that good writing starts with good characters. But sharp character development is also one of the toughest hills to climb, especially if you’ve struggled to think through those tried-and-true questions that keep you up at night:

• Are my characters convincing?
• Do my characters have depth?
• How do I make sure my character  has an arc ?

If you’re having these doubts, you might want to turn to the age-old solution: a character profile. 

What is a character profile?

A character profile is a detailed biography of a persona that covers everything from their age and appearance to their relationships with others. By understanding parts of their life that readers might not discover during the course of the story, an author can better understand that character’s life, personality, motivations, and their function within a story.

In this post, we will show you our three-part process for assembling a character profile.

What makes a good character profile template?

Many character bibles present exercises that ask you, “If your character was a color, what color would they be?” For many writers, this is either overkill or a bit too 'woo-woo' for their tastes, and they prefer to create a profile that deals in verifiable facts: height, age, and profession.

Our suggestion lies somewhere between those two approaches, where you build a holistic picture of your character in the context of your story. Our character profile worksheet is in three parts. If you treat a person like an apple, they’re going to have three layers of depth: the “skin,” the “flesh,” and the “core.” (Otherwise known as their physical appearance, backstory, and psychology.) That’s how this character profile template is structured — and if you have a particular area that you’d like to hone, you can skip to it below. Otherwise, this character bible will start with the eagle eye’s view of your character.

We strongly recommend our character profile template in a PDF format and fill it out as you go along. 

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Reedsy’s Character Profile Template

A story is only as strong as its characters. Fill this out to develop yours.

The Three-Part Character Profile Template:

• The Outer Layer, or Physical Appearance
• The Flesh, or Backstory
• The Core, or Psychology

Part 1. The Outer Layer

To be able to identify a criminal, detectives build a painstakingly thorough file of said criminal’s physical characteristics.

That’s the goal of this section, which covers the “skin” of your character: everything from their outer appearance to the way that they speak. Think of it as a kind of offender profile — one that can help you spot your character in the middle of a crowded Times Square.

The Basics 📖

• Place of birth
• Current location
• Nationality

Physical Appearance 👀

What's their:

Do they have any distinguishing features (tattoos, scars, birthmarks)?

What's their preferred outfit?

Do they wear glasses? 👓

What accessories are ALWAYS associated with them (cane, pipe, necklace, etc.)? 🌂

What's their usual level of grooming?

• Smart, very put together
• Untidy but clean

Do they have any distinguishing “tics” and mannerisms?

What's their health like? Do they suffer from chronic illnesses? 🏥

Describe their handwriting (sloppy, neat, careful, unintelligible). ✍

How do they walk? 👣

• Confident, powerful strides
• Lazy stroll
• Fast, walks at a clip
• Distracted, eyes on the ground

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Speech and Communication 💬

How do they talk (rapid, slow, measured, drawl, etc.)?

What's the style of their speech (elevated, educated, peppered with slang, etc.)?

Do they have an accent?

• Stiff, military
• Casual and relaxed
• ‘Turtle,’ tired

Do they gesture?

• Only when agitated or eager
• Doesn’t gesture
• Compulsive “hand-talker”
• Controlled, only to make a point
• Other? If so, explain:

How much eye contact do they like to make (direct, shifty, etc.)?

What's their preferred curse word?

What's their catchphrase?

Any speech impediments?

What are any distinguishing speech “tics”?

What's their laugh like? What do they tend to find funny?

Describe their smile?

How emotive are they? Do they wear their emotions on their sleeve? How easily can others read them?

They have a resting _____ face.

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Part 2. The Flesh

Characters don’t exist in a vacuum — they’re a product of their environment.

This section in the character template dives a bit deeper into your character and covers their “flesh”: the people, circumstances, and formative influences that filled them out and made them who they are today. It’s the springboard to your character’s biography.

What's the name of their hometown? 🏡

What type of childhood did they have (sheltered, neglected, etc.)?

Describe their education. 🍏

Were they involved in organizations and clubs at school?

• Gay / Straight Alliance

At graduation, they were named Most Likely To ___________ in the yearbook. 🎓

Jobs (if applicable)? What would their résumé look like? 💼

What was their dream job as a child? Why?

Who were their role models growing up? Describe them. 👨‍👦

What's their greatest regret?

What were their hobbies growing up? ⛳

Favorite place to be as a child?

What's their earliest memory?

What's their saddest memory?

What's their happiest memory?

What's their clearest memory?

What are their skeletons in the closet? 💀

If they could change one thing from their past, what would it be? Why? ⏳

Describe the major turning points or “life beats” in childhood.

What are three adjectives to describe them as a child?

What advice would they give to their younger self?

List their criminal record. ⚖

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• Age (if living)
• Briefly describe their relationship with your character
• What are their names and ages?
• Briefly describe their relationship(s) with your character

Children 👶(if applicable)

Extended family 👴

• Grandparents
• Uncles and aunts

What's their family's economic status? 💰

How often do they see their family in a year?

External Relationships 💜 

Who are their closest friends? Describe them.

Who are their other significant friends? 👋

Enemies? Describe them. 😡

How are they perceived by:

• strangers in the street?
• acquaintances at a work function?
• colleagues in the office?
• authority figures?
• friends in their friend circles?
• the opposite sex?
• extended family?

What social media platforms are they on?

• X (formerly known as Twitter)
• Other? If so, explain.

How would they use their social media platforms?

How would they fill out an online dating profile for themselves? ✨

What’s their role in a group dynamic? 💡

Who do they depend on for:

• practical advice?
• emotional support?
• moral support?

How quickly do they respond to emails? 📨

What do they want from a relationship?

Who would be their ideal partner? 💖

Who is their significant other? Describe them. 💕

How many people would attend their funeral?

Part 3. The Core

We’ve come now to the “core”: who your character is deep down.

This section in the character profile worksheet covers the “heart” of your character. If a backstory shapes a dynamic character , this will define them. More importantly, it will help inform the two most important points leading up to your novel: the character’s story goal and story motivation .

Psychology 💭 

What do they do on rainy days?

• Street-smart or book-smart
• An optimist or pessimist
• Introverted or Extroverted

What is their favorite sound? 🔊

Favorite place in the world? 🌎

What secrets do they keep? What are they most afraid of people finding out? 🔒

What do they want the most? 🔍

What's their biggest flaw?

What's their biggest strength?

What's their biggest fear?

What is their biggest accomplishment? 📈

What is their idea of perfect happiness?

What's their favorite quote? 👌

Do they want to be remembered? What for? ⌚

How do they approach:

What is the one object or possession that they would rescue from their burning home? 🔥

What (or who) bores them? 💤

What makes them angry? 💢

What do they look for in a person?

How strong is their moral compass? When, specifically, are they willing to compromise their morals?

List the last 10 books they read. 📚

Which fictional world would they most wish to visit?

If they didn’t have to sleep, what would they do with the extra time?

What are their pet peeves? ⚠

If they won the lottery, what would they do?

Describe the character’s bucket list at the ages of 15, 20, 30, and 40.

List the 10 songs that would occupy their All-Time Most Played playlist on Spotify. 🎵

What is the best compliment that someone ever paid them?

In an elevator, do they push the elevator button more than once? 🚪

What would they want their tombstone to say?

The Present and Future 🔮 

What is their story goal? (answer in a single paragraph)

Story motivation (answer in a single paragraph)

In other words: what does your character want in the story? Why do they want it? Every other answer in the character profile template builds up to this. This is critical information to know because it’ll make up the unshakable foundation — and  raison d'être — for your story. Whenever you feel like your story is straying off course, go straight back to your character’s story goal and motivation.

24 responses

Rachel Mendell says:

02/06/2018 – 12:23

excellent! so much info - thank you.

↪️ Reedsy replied:

07/06/2018 – 04:37

Our pleasure, Rachel. Glad that it helped!

Diane says:

07/06/2018 – 08:50

Wow! I tried to find such kind of list many times. Thank you so much! Creating character is always difficult for me. I imagine tutoriage character but it was not full. With this list Finally I will finish it.

22/01/2019 – 15:37

Nice I was gonna make one myself but this is great since normally I obsess to the point of procrastination.

Gwendolyn Clark says:

13/05/2019 – 00:09

I was never sent a copy to download

↪️ Martin Cavannagh replied:

13/05/2019 – 08:20

Hi Gwendolyn, could you drop us an email at [email protected] and we'll sort you out with a link :)

Sabrina Douglas says:

08/06/2019 – 16:40

I have not received the PDF yet.

10/06/2019 – 13:48

With Gmail, our emails often can be found in the Promotions folder. if it's not there, send us an email at [email protected] and we'll sort you out :)

Tactical Weasel says:

08/06/2019 – 23:18

I was never sent a copy to download either.

Ibidun says:

02/07/2019 – 01:47

This is a developed list of questions for sure. Thank you!

susannelorraineharford says:

21/08/2019 – 08:01

Thanks! Great help in this articke. X peace, susanne

james bolin says:

22/08/2019 – 21:05

This my be a crazy question, but I am writing a science fiction book, and I already made character profiles for my ow use. But, that being said, would it make sense to also include a section in the book that includes all the main characters profiles. It would serve as a reference in case someone wants to know the characters hair color, birth date, and other details. any advice would help thanks

23/08/2019 – 09:04

It would be a somewhat unusual move — but it's not for me to say if it's wrong. Often, you see books provide family trees and brief histories of the 'world' of the story... but that tends to be so that readers can check up on facts that are highly relevant to relationships and plot of the book. In almost all cases, readers won't really need to know things like hair color or date of birth. So, I'd think hard before putting a character stat sheet in your book.

↪️ Nyla replied:

02/09/2019 – 16:12

I don't see why not! Some books did it (sort of); Wings of Fire, Tailchaser's Song, Warriors... I don't think including one would be a bad move. Definitely not something that would kill your story. Keep in mind that I'm a beginner when it comes to books, so I may not know any better. I'm just saying that in my opinion, I don't think it's a bad move.

Satyajay Mandal says:

25/08/2019 – 04:31

You can tweet me to get more updates on the story I'm directing

02/09/2019 – 16:13

What do you mean by "education"? Like what school they went to?

17/09/2019 – 09:02

Yup. Are they a college grad? What did they study? Did they leave school at 18 and take up an apprenticeship — that sort of thing.

27/09/2019 – 14:03

Will i ever get the document to download!

07/10/2019 – 15:48

Hi Sky, if you're still having trouble downloading the template, could you drop us a message at [email protected]? Thanks! Martin

20/10/2019 – 03:56

I will update you about all the details

Max Sangers says:

23/03/2020 – 20:16

I like it, just pls refrain from bad language :)

26/03/2020 – 04:49

No need to refrain from using bad language, if it is assigned to the villains instead of the heroes/heroines

26/03/2020 – 05:02

No need to refrain from using bad language if it is assigned to the villains instead of the heroes/heroines

28/03/2020 – 05:01

This is @*#$ing AWESOME!!!

Comments are currently closed.

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How to Write a Character Bio (With Examples!)

If you’re starting a new roleplay (RP) or Tabletop Roleplaying Game (TTRPG), then one of the things you will be expected to provide is a character biography. If you aren’t familiar with writing character bios, then you might be a little stumped on what exactly needs to be included, and what is better left out. 

Although there is no perfect, established way of writing a biography for a character, there are a couple of things you could do to make it more effective and useful to your fellow roleplayers and TTRPG players. But first, you should make sure you understand exactly what a character bio entails before writing your own.

This article is specifically about creating character bios for roleplays, tabletop games, and other collaborative writing settings. If you’re looking for how to create a character for a story, try checking out How to Make Characters Interesting, Complex, and Unique instead.

What is a Character Bio?

A character bio, also known as a character profile or character biography, is a brief overview of your character that you can provide to others prior to the start of a game or roleplay. It gives them an introduction to your character before the narrative actually begins, which makes it easier to create plots and interact between characters. 

Generally, a character bio includes basic information about the character, such as their name, appearance, and behavior, but it can also include topics such as backstory and motivations. Bios can look different depending on what they are being used for, the genre of the story, and the other players’ preferences. 

Why is a Character Bio Important?

Character bios make it much easier for other players or RP partners to get to know your character. By providing information on your character up front, you can allow others to get to know them, build relationships between characters, and come up with ideas for the story based around your character’s information.

In addition to that, having a good character bio can be helpful to reference later, especially if they are part of a long campaign. Bios help keep your characters consistent and true to their original design. Even the best writers forget things about their characters over time, so it’s a good idea to write everything down anyway. When I take notes on my characters, I usually keep the character’s bio at the top of the page and simply add to it as events unfold in the story. 

How Long Should a Character Bio Be?

One of the most important things to keep in mind when writing a character bio is that it should be short . You need to keep it clear, concise, and brief. You aren’t trying to give away your character’s life story, after all. You just want to break the ice and introduce them to the other players and characters. After all, if you gave away all their secrets at the beginning, there wouldn’t be any mysteries to uncover over the course of the story. 

As a general rule, you should try to keep your character bios shorter than a page (which is typically about 300-500 words). If you make it much shorter than that, you likely wouldn’t be doing your character justice. If you wrote much more than that, however, most people probably wouldn’t get around to reading the whole thing. Character bios aren’t exactly known for being riveting literature. 

What to Include in a Character Bio

When you’re writing your character’s bio, you don’t need to create an entire novel about their life and exploits. You only need to include the details that are important for others to know from the beginning. Some things aren’t even important enough to share at all. 

Although some people have preferences about the ways they want character bios to be formatted, this is the generally accepted formula for writing a good character bio.

The Most Basic Character Elements

The first thing you should establish in your character’s bio is the most basic elements of who they are. That includes things like their:

• Species (if applicable)

You don’t need to get fancy here. This is the easy part—just give the basic information and move on to the next section.  

The Character’s Physical Description

Next, you’ll want to give a basic description of what the character looks like. For this section, you’ll want to consider their:

• Physical details
• Clothing style

You can cover this information in bullet points, but I find that it is much more effective to write this part in paragraph format. That makes the bio feel more like an introduction to the character, and less like some kind of legal document.

If you need some pointers for designing your character, check out Tricks for Describing a Character’s Appearance (With Examples) . 

Remember to keep this part brief. Physical appearance is only one small part of a character, and you don’t want to waste too much time and energy describing what they look like—especially since you don’t want their bio to be too long.

The Character’s Personality

Obviously, most of the character’s personality should come out as you are playing them, but it’s still a good idea to give your RP partners or TTRPG players an indication of their personality before the game or RP begins. 

As with the other sections, this part should be kept brief. You just want to cover the most important aspects of their personality. You know, the traits and behaviors that define who they are. That could be anything from “grumpy” or “hot-headed” to “innocent” or “creepy.” Just give a few adjectives to describe them, and describe some of their dominant behaviors. This section shouldn’t be any longer than a few sentences. 

The Character’s Backstory

This section is the tricky part. You want to explain enough of your character’s backstory to explain how they got where they are in the present day, but you don’t want to give away too much and make your character a completely open book. Not only that, you want to make sure the information you are providing is meaningful to the story, and not just useless facts. 

When summarizing the character’s backstory for their bio, you should cut out everything except for the bare bones. The details aren’t important now (and you can reveal more over the course of the story anyway). Instead, draw attention to a few milestones in the character’s life, whether that relates to family, education, tragedy, or something else. 

What happened in their past to turn them into the person they are at the beginning of the story? Focus on those points, and leave out all the rest. 

If your character doesn’t have much of a backstory yet, you might want to check out this article before moving on: How to Create Compelling Character Backstories . 

What Motivates the Character

When you’re creating a bio for a character, you’ll want to consider their motivations and goals. A character without a direction is boring, so make sure you have some idea of what your character wants before the story begins. Do they want to start their own business? Hunt ghosts for a living? Avenge their dead brother? What is going to motivate your character to actually do something ? 

This part of the bio is often labeled as “present day,” or it’s lumped in with the backstory section. Regardless of how you choose to format it, the point is worth drawing attention to by itself. This part is particularly important for RPs and TTRPGs because it gives partners and fellow players the context they need to understand how this character operates.

The Character’s Quirks and Flaws

I cannot stress this enough: every character needs to have flaws.

All characters need flaws. No one is perfect, so none of your characters should be either. Even if your character is perfect in one regard, they need to be flawed in some other way. The best sharpshooter in the world might be afraid of snakes. The world’s most mesmerizing dancer might have self-confidence issues. 

Quirks are also important! They operate a lot like flaws, though they don’t interfere with the character’s ability to live their life normally. Having a weird sense of humor or a tendency to fidget isn’t necessarily flawed behavior, but it is worth mentioning in this section as well. 

Flaws and quirks are indispensable when it comes to creating interesting characters. They create conflict, and make characters more realistic and sympathetic. Without those details, your characters just won’t resonate with other players. Or worse—you’ll get accused of creating a Mary Sue . 

If you want more information on creating flaws for characters (and why they’re so important for stories), check out How to Create Complex Flaws for Characters .

Miscellaneous Traits and Abilities

Finally, you’ll probably want to include a miscellaneous category at the end of the bio. Depending on your personal preference and the genre of story you’re creating, this part could also go closer to the top. You could also use a different term, or include this category as part of the character’s basic info.

This is the section in which you include anything important that wasn’t covered in the other sections. This could include things such as the character’s:

• Magical Abilities
• Special Skills 
• Languages known

Basically, this section is meant to cover anything else that your RP partners or TTRPG players need to know about your character. 

What NOT to include in a Character Bio

That “miscellaneous” category probably has you scratching your head. If that’s supposed to cover the other important parts of your character, how do you know where to stop? 

There are many things that you should never include in a character bio, but there are two distinct reasons why things should be left out: either the point is boring and doesn’t matter, or it is much more fun to reveal that particular piece of information over the course of the story instead. 

Here are some things that should be left out of character bios because they are uninteresting :

• Their Zodiac sign
• Every single detail of their appearance or personality
• Their entire life story
• Their birthday
• Their entire family tree
• Their favorite food/color/etc

Here are the things that should be left out because they would make good plot points later :

• Their secrets
• Their relationships with other characters
• Their strengths and weaknesses
• Their past trauma or struggles

Character Bio Examples

Character bios don’t have to show off your best writing skills. The point isn’t to impress the pants off the other players, and it’s definitely not to prove you’re a better writer than anyone else. You aren’t showing off, you’re just providing a resource on your character that is necessary for the game or RP. 

With that said, here are some examples of character bios to give you a better idea of how to apply all this information. 

Sample Character Bio 1

Name: Rory Bannon

Sex/Gender: Male

Species: Human (Superhero)

Superpower: He can float.

Power Drawbacks: He’s not very good at controlling his ability, and it is dependent on his mood. Sometimes, he will begin to float when he gets excited. 

Appearance: Rory is tall and lanky, and his limbs almost look too long for his body. He has brown hair with a stripe of orange in the front. He has a goofy smile, and he holds a lot of childish optimism in his sunny green eyes. He always wears a suit no matter where he goes, believing that dressing for success is the first step to achieving it. 

Personality: He’s chipper and optimistic, and all his friends agree that he’s a bit of a hopeless romantic. He’s a dreamer, and his head is often stuck in the clouds. 

Backstory: Rory is an only child from a loving home. He decided to attend a school for young heroes to learn how to control his powers, with the full support of his doting parents. 

Goals: He wants to learn how to control his powers and use them to help others.

Quirks: He’s gotten pretty good at floating up—just not at coming back down again. 

Sample Character Bio 2

Name: Alice Howard

Nicknames: Red, Little Red, Pumpkin (by her father)

Sex/Gender: Female

Appearance: Alice is the preppy, pretty girl at school, with a figure that makes boys drool. Her long hair is a gorgeous shade of reddish-brown, and delicate freckles dot her petite, pale features. She is careful to keep her makeup perfect, and she is always pushing the limits of what her school’s dress code allows.

Personality: Despite her looks, Alice is remarkably insecure. She thrives off compliments and bases her entire self-worth on what others think of her. One bad pimple is enough to get her to skip school, and she takes even the smallest insults to heart. Despite how she feels about beauty and her own self-image, she always tries to be uplifting and encouraging to other girls, and would never say anything nasty about the way someone looks. 

Backstory: Alice lives with her grandparents since both of her parents are deployed Marines. Her grandparents are getting quite old, and they often require her help more often than she needs them. She does her best to be responsible, but she often regrets that she can’t get out as much as other girls her age. 

Goals: Alice has a history of bad relationships. All she wants is a good boyfriend and real friends. 

Quirks: She has a tendency to be clingy and physically affectionate with her friends. 

Misc: Alice’s one true love is food, specifically greasy, tex-mex food. 

Sample Character Bio 3

Name: Samson Anders

Nickname: Sams

Species: Half-human, half-demon

Height: 6’2”

Hair: Long, Brown

Eye Color: Hazel

Skin Color: Medium-light

Physical Details: He has a large scar over the left side of his neck and collarbone, and multiple smaller scars all over.

Personality: Harsh, cold, and unapproachable. He has a softer side for those he cares about.

Past: He isn’t one to talk about his past. Most of his friends know that he had a rough childhood, but no one knows the details.

Present: He is living with a friend in a one-bedroom apartment, and the duo are professional ghost hunters. 

Goals: Secretly, he hopes to learn more about his demonic side.

Quirks/Flaws: He tends to grow out his facial hair when he is feeling down, simply because he can’t be bothered to shave.

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The Ultimate Character Bio Template: 200 Character Development Questions

POSTED ON Feb 6, 2024

Written by Angelica Hartgers

A character bio template is a shortcut for developing realistic characters. It's the key to creating believable protagonists and antagonists that come alive through your writing. Character bio templates include guiding questions to help you shape your main characters as you write. 

*** Remember, writing great fiction starts with writing great characters!***

By answering significant questions about your character's development, not only will you be able to understand a character inside and out, but you’ll also be able to show your readers the depth of your character. 

Creating life-like characters goes beyond just plopping your character into the storyline, giving them a name, and describing a few traits.

And it’s not just for fiction – but for non-fiction , too. Are you writing a memoir? A biography? A self-help book using “case studies” or examples of people in particular situations?   Experimenting with creative writing prompts ?

You’ll want to fill out a character bio template for your main character if you’re writing one of these non-fiction books as well! 

Even if your character is modeled after a real person, that’s not enough to make him or her come alive for the reader. As an aspiring author , the first rule of thumb is to fully develop your character. You need to create an individual with a story of their own that readers want to engage and connect with as they read your book.  

Your character’s development should not be an afterthought – after all, you’re telling a story, and the story likely centers around the characters.

Invest the time to answer these questions in our character bio template, and you’ll see just how real your character will become.

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This blog on character bios will cover:

What is a character bio.

A character bio is a document or template that outlines the biography of a character in a story. Commonly used in the form of a character sheet template, which includes in-depth questions that highlight the character's traits , descriptions, and journey, the character bio is used as a resource for the writer's reference.

A character bio template helps the writer keep track of the character's arc, background, and preferences which then helps the reader understand the character's dynamics through the story. By creating a character with a past, present, and future, storytellers are able to paint a vivid picture of the character's behavior and actions as displayed in the story.

The main goal of using a character profile template is to increase the realistic attributes of the character, to ultimately make them more believable and relatable for the reader.

Character bio templates are used mainly by fiction writers and authors, screenwriters, and other storytellers. Character profile templates should be filled out for all main characters in the story, including antagonists, to improve the overall character development.

Why is character development important?

Character development is important because the more developed a character is, the more realistic the character is – and readers want to invest in characters that are believable. 

Have you ever been so connected to a book or story that you were devastated when you finished reading it? You were sad to say goodbye to the characters. You wished you could open up the portal to that world forever. 

If you’ve experienced that, then you were emotionally invested in the characters and their lives. You connected with them – you felt like you truly knew them. And that’s because the writer did such a phenomenal job developing the character, that they seemed real to you as the reader.  

That’s exactly what you want to do with your own writing. You want to write characters that are so fully developed, the reader will become invested in their lives.

And the secret to fully developing characters lies in being able to answer detailed questions about your character, which is how this character bio template will help you. 

Top character development tips to use when writing:

• Start with a mind map or outline of your character's journey in the story.
• Brainstorm the character's main characteristics as needed for the story's plot.
• Practice writing about your character to get a solid idea of who the character is.
• Give your character a main goal, purpose, motivation, and flaw.
• Fill out the character bio template to fill in any gaps and get clear on their history and small details.
• Interview your character to build their perspective.
• Complete writing exercises from your character's perspective to fully develop the character's mindset.
• Begin writing your story with your fully developed character in mind.

Why should you use a character bio template? 

Using a character bio template will help you create realistic characters that your readers will believe in, and connect with. 

You should develop a character bio to create believable characters for two reasons. 

First, by answering character development questions in a character profile template, you’ll know the character like the back of your hand, which helps you tell your story better. 

Second, the character sheet template will help you create an actual individual by painting a comprehensive, detailed picture of who they are – from what they look like to their personality quirks to their biggest mistakes in life. 

Reasons to use a character bio template:

• To help you tell your story better
• To prevent inconsistencies in details
• To create a life-like character, full of personality with a comprehensive living history
• To use as a reference when incorporating details about your character
• To improve your character's development
• To help readers connect and relate to your character
• To immerse your reader in your story

What should a character profile include?

A character profile template should include all of the relevant details that the writer needs to incorporate into the story, to fully develop the character.

Some writers use a basic character bio, with only relevant details that show the character's arc within the story, while other writers use an advanced, comprehensive character bio with specific details about the character's life, personality, aspirations, and internal and external features.

The type of character profile you include will depend on several factors, such as the type of work you are creating (ex: novel, short story, film), and the type of writer you are (ex: do you need a comprehensive profile, or just a one-page summary?). At a minimum, you should include the specific details about your character that highlight his or her role in the story, and how they develop within your story.

What to include in your character profile template:

• Character basics such as name and age
• Physical description of the character's appearance
• The personality traits of the character
• Overview of the character's health
• Career and education details
• Preferences and motivations of the character
• Description of the character's family life
• Overview of the character's main relationships
• Important life stages and milestones
• Character perspectives, outlook, and opinions
• Character's role in the story's development

How to use this character bio template 

This particular character bio template is comprehensive, and designed to be used as an in-depth resource with more advanced character development questions. Novel and short story writers will benefit from this character sheet template to create a full character bio.

Fill this template out fully for each of your main characters (protagonist and antagonist), and use the sheet as a reference for your writing. 

Click here to jump to the Character Template!

It’s best to complete the character bio template once you have your story’s outline, but before you actually start writing your rough draft. If you’ve already started writing your rough draft, that’s okay – you can still use this character bio template and it will be helpful as you edit and complete your draft.

Read this article if you want to learn more about how to write a book outline . 

How to use a character bio template to improve your character's development:

• Start with a good idea of your character's creation , like who they are and what their purpose is in your story.
• Know your character's flaws , motivation, main goal, and purpose.
• Begin filling out the basic section in your character bio template.
• Get clear on the physical descriptors of your character.
• Fill out health section of the character bio template.
• Next, build out your character's career details .
• Think about what your character prefers .
• Dig into the family history in the character's bio.
• Then, move on to the relationships section of the template.
• Narrow down your character's main life stages .
• Develop the character's perspectives and views of the world.
• Next, build the character's story development .
• Review the full character bio template to make sure every detail connects, and that there are not any inconsistencies.
• Practice writing from your character's perspective to get a natural feel for the way your character thinks and acts.
• Practice writing about your character from different perspectives (as a narrator, as a friend/lover/enemy of the character).
• Repeat all the above steps for any major characters in your story.
• Reference your completed character bio template as you begin writing.

Following the tips above will help you to develop a realistic character that readers will be invested in.

Don’t just share this character bio template directly with your reader – it is meant to be a complete guide for you as you write about who your character is, and how he or she affects the story.  

This character bio template serves as a skeleton for developing a realistic character, so you should be able to answer each question. You need to be able to answer everything about your character, but your reader only needs to know the details that help tell the story.

These character development questions are comprehensive, so this doesn’t mean you need to tell your reader everything about your character. Only give your reader what they need to know about your character as it pertains to your story.

If you’re writing a genre or story that requires more questions, feel free to add more as you see fit! For example, if you’re writing a sci-fi novel, maybe you need to answer more questions about your character’s species, or the special powers that they possess. 

As you write, you’ll want to have a copy of your completed character bio template nearby so it can be retrieved easily and referenced. This will help you tell your story more accurately, by avoiding little mistakes or inconsistencies in your plot and story setting . 

For example, let’s say you start the story by describing your character as a vegetarian, but later on have your character order a hamburger at a restaurant. This is a detail that many engaged readers will notice! 

Tips for using this character bio template in your writing:

• Complete the character bio after your outline is completed. Start filling out the character bio sheet after you complete your story outline , but before you start fully writing your chapters. This will ensure you have a solid idea of what details make sense based on your story's main events, but still gives you the opportunity to incorporate the small details into your actual story.
• Use the character template as a reference guide when writing. Don't just fill out the template and share it with your readers. This exercise is meant for you, as the author, so that you can fully develop all the intricacies of your character, and incorporate relevant details to shape who your character is, and their purpose in the story.
• Don't skip any questions that can be answered. Answer as many questions about your character as possible. Obviously, if a question does not apply to your character (like if they are a child and do not have any past relationships), skip it. But don't avoid questions simply because you don't want to think. Cutting corners in this way will reflect in your character's development.
• Only give your reader what they need to know when you're writing. Just because you answer every question in the character development sheet, doesn't mean that your reader needs to know all of those details. Only give what's necessary, and what will help your reader understand your character better.
• Add more questions as needed. This character bio template is meant to be a starting point for you. If you need to add more questions, do so, especially if you're writing a genre like hard science fiction where your characters are non-human.
• Think about the small details. Once you start writing, the character bio template will bring value to your dialogue , scene setting, and plot. Don't be afraid to focus on the small details.

200 questions for your character bio template

Here are the questions you should answer about your character in order to bring them to life:

Character bio template basics 

Begin by answering these basic questions about your character. These character development questions are the surface-level facts that you can use to start building your character.

These are the essential facts to fill out for your character, such as name, birthday, race, gender, etc. This section should be particularly quick for you to fill out since you most likely know all of these details for your character already. These questions help show your character's development on a surface level.

These are the basic questions for your character bio template:

• What is your character's name?:
• Do they have any nicknames?:
• What is the meaning/significance of their name?:
• What is the character's gender?:
• How old are they?:
• When is their birthday?:
• Do they have a death day?:
• What is their zodiac sign?:
• Where do they live?:
• Where were they born?:
• What is their ethnicity?:
• What is their nationality?:
• What is their race/species?:

Physical descriptors

Now you can start building out your character’s physical appearance. These are external questions that will paint a physical description, so your reader can envision what your character looks like. 

The physical attributes for your character bio template are important because they will also help you write vivid descriptions and actions in your book.

These are the physical appearance questions for the character bio template: 

14. What is their physical appearance?:

15. What is their skin tone?:

16. What is their complexion?:

17. What is their natural hair color?:

18. What is their height?:

19. What is their weight?:

20. What is their body type?:

21. What is their build?:

22. How is your character's posture?:

23. Do they have any birthmarks?: 24. Do they have any scars?:

25. Which is their dominant hand?:

26. What age does the character appear to others?:

27. Do they have a dyed hair color?:

28. What is their usual hairstyle?:

29. Do they have any tattoos? What is the meaning behind them?:

30. Do they have any piercings?

31. What is their makeup style (if any)?:

32. What is their clothing style?:

33. What is their clothing size?:

34. What is their shoe style?:

35. What is their shoe size?:

36. How is the appearance of their nails?:

37. How are their eyebrows shaped?:

38. What do their facial features look like?:

39. What is the character's face shape?:

40. Do they have facial hair?:

41. What does their voice sound like?:

42. What distinguishing feature about them do people notice right away?:

The character's personality 

Now it’s time to start scratching beneath the surface to better understand the type of personality the character has. These character development questions focus on describing the personality traits within the character’s demeanor as they are in the present time of the story. 

For example, most people who are naturally introverts will always be introverts. But, maybe your introverted character has only recently developed a habit of talking to people on the subway as they commute to work every day.

These are the personality questions for the character's development: 

43. Are they an introvert or extrovert?:

44. What are their personality traits?:

45. What is their MBTI personality type ?:

46. Are they an optimist or pessimist?:

47. How is their temperament? Are they generally hot-headed, or cool as a cucumber?:

48. What mood are they often in?:

49. What everyday attitude does your character have?:

50. What are their strengths?:

51. What are their flaws?:

52: What are their mannerisms?:

53. What are their habits?:

54. Are they an early bird or a night owl?:

55. Do they have any pet peeves?:

56. Which of the 7 deadly sins does the character most represent?

57. Which virtue does the character possess most?:

58. What are the character's weaknesses?:

59. What are their strengths?:

60. Are they expressive? How do they express themselves?:

61. Are they ruled by heart or mind?:

62. What is their mindset?:

63. What is their philosophy?:

64. What are they motivated by?:

65.  What words or phrases does the character often say?:

66. What is their life motto?:

Character health bio

This section is all about your character’s health. It covers everything from mental and physical health, to major surgeries, to allergies.

If certain questions don’t pertain to your character, feel free to skip them. Or, if anything needs to be added, do so. Make this section as relevant to your character as it needs to be.

These are the health questions for the character bio template:

67. Is your character more active, or sluggish generally?: 

68. Does your character often forget people’s names, or do they have a photographic memory?: 

69. Is your character impaired in any way?:

70. What is your character scared of?:

71. Does your character have any addictions?:

72. Are they fast learners? Do they have poor problem-solving skills? 

73. Is your character  mentally tough ? What are their mental strengths?:

74. In what aspects is your character  mentally weak ?:

75. What are their physical strengths?:

76. What are their physical weaknesses?:

77. Do they have any major past illnesses?:

78. Have they had any surgeries?:

79. Have they been in any accidents?:

80. Is your character emotionally stable?:

81. Do they have any allergies?:

Career details

Now it’s time to cover what your character does for a living – or how they spend the majority of their time. Is your character making a living doing a job they hate, but attending night school to get their dream job? 

A person’s choice of career, or their type of dream job, says a lot about that person’s qualities and interests, or lack thereof. That's why it's important to add career questions to your character bio template.

These are the career questions for the character bio template: 

82. What is their job title?:

83. What company do they work at?:

84. What type of career do they have?:

85. What is their education level?:

86. Did they go to college? Where? For what?:

87. How is their work ethic?:

88. What is their job history?:

89. What is their income?:

90. What political party/organizations do they belong to?:

91. Do they do any volunteer work?:

92. What is their dream job?:

93. What job would they do poorly?:

94. How is their job satisfaction?:

Character preferences

Everyone has their likes and dislikes, from books to activities to the time of day. By answering all of these questions about your character in your character bio template, you’ll be able to build up a person that’s realistic and believable. 

These are the personal preference questions for your character bio template: 

95. What is your character's diet like?:

96. What are their favorite foods?:

97. Favorite drinks?:

98. Favorite movies?:

99. Favorite music?:

100. Favorite books?:

101. Favorite animal?:

102. Favorite place?:

103. Favorite activities?:

104. Favorite time of day?:

105. What makes them happy?:

106. What makes them sad?:

107. What are their hobbies?:

108. What are their interests?:

109. What do they love to do?:

110. What do they hate to do?:

111. What are they inspired by?:

Family life of the character

Let’s face it – family, or a lack thereof, shapes a person. The same is true about your character. 

This section is all about your character’s family life, from their parents to extended family, and even pets. 

By knowing the family your character came from, you’ll also learn a lot about your character and why they are the way they are. 

These are the family life questions for the character bio template: 

112. Who were they raised by?:

113. What is the status of their parents?:

114. What is their mother's name?:

115. Mother's age?:

116. Mother's background?:

117. What is their father's name?:

118. Father's age?:

119. Father's background?:

120. How is their relationship with their mother?:

121. How is their relationship with their father?:

122. What is their parenting type?:

123. Are they an only child? First, middle, or youngest?:

124. How many siblings do they have?:

125. What is their relationship with their siblings?:

126. Do they have kids of their own, or do they want them in the future?

127. What are some interesting details about their other relatives?:

128. Is their family close-knit or distant? How has family life shaped the character? Do they have any sibling rivalries, or are they best friends with a particular sibling?:

129. What do they like most about their family?:

130. What do they like least about their family?:

131. What are their children like (if applicable)?:

132. Do they have any pets?:

Character bio relationships

In this section, you’ll be answering all the questions that have to do with your character’s relationships – from friends to lovers to enemies. 

Think about all of the influential relationships your character has been involved with. Each person, and each relationship, is different, so keep that in mind as you fill out this section of the character bio template.

Each of us becomes involved with people who teach us lessons, whether these individuals stay in our lives long or not. The same is true for a well-developed character!

These are the relationship questions for the character bio template: 

133. Who are their best friends?:

134. Who is their worst enemy?:

135. Do they have many acquaintances or a few close friends?

136. What is their sexual preference?:

137. Their sexual orientation?:

138. What is their relationship status? Are they happy with it?:

139. Are they married? Divorced? Widowed?:

140. Who was their first love?:

141. Who is their current or aspiring love?:

142. Are there any exes that influenced the character, either positively or negatively?

143. Who does your character love best in terms of their friends and relations?:

144. Who does your character dislike in terms of enemies and acquaintances? 

145. Who knows the character best?

146. Who is closest to your character?

Character template life stages

It’s time to cover your character’s life stages. If your character is an adult in your story, then you’ll want to fill out quick details on each question in this section. If your character hasn’t reached a certain stage yet, just skip that part. 

For each life stage, you can write a few sentences to describe the overall time period for the character. Don’t feel the need to list out every single thing that happened to your character in a certain life stage – unless you want to. 

These are the life stage questions for your character bio template: 

147. What was their childhood generally like?:

148. Did anything significant happen in their childhood?:

149. What were their teenage years like? Did anything significant happen?:

150. What were they like as a young adult? Did anything significant happen?: 

151. Have there been any significant events in their adulthood?:

152. When did they really grow up and come into themselves? (Their “coming-of-age moment”):

153. Are there any important moments or experiences that shaped them?:

154. How have they changed as a person throughout their life?: Were they raised as a spoiled only child, but later became a Buddhist monk?: 

155. Are there any major regrets the character has from their life?:

156. What are the biggest life lessons your character has learned?:

Character perspectives 

Next, we’ll go through the questions that will help show us how your character thinks about the world and perceives things.

This is important because it helps shape your character’s mindset, especially if you are narrating the character’s inner thoughts and dialogue. 

Filling out this section of the character bio template will also help you as you practice writing in your character's point-of-view, and will give you a sense of your character's thought process, and how their mindset affects their actions.

These are the perspective questions for the character bio template:

157. What are your character's religious beliefs?:

158. How was their upbringing?:

159. What are their core values?:

160. How are their morals? What does s/he believe is evil? What does s/he believe is good?:

161. What would your character risk their life for?: 

Character's story development

Now it’s time to answer all of the questions that have more to do with your character’s thoughts, actions, and role within your storyline. 

You need to know what’s driving your character in the story, and what’s getting in their way. Answer each one of these questions as it relates to your story.

For example, when describing the character’s main goal, don’t answer it in terms of their entire life’s main goal – think of the main goal in terms of your story. Maybe your character’s main goal is to live without regrets. But how does that relate to your story? You need to make it more specific to your plot. Maybe your character’s main goal within the context of your story is to help hide persecuted children, even if it means death and dishonor.

These are the story development questions for your character's development:

162. What important things will happen to the character in your story?: 

163. What will they achieve?:

164. What will they fail at?: 

165. What is your character’s lifestyle like as it pertains to your story’s time period or setting?:

166. What are some traits your character will possess during your story?: 

167. What culture do they identify with?:

168. What is their main goal in the story?:

169. What are some minor goals they have in the story?:  

170. What does your character desire?:  

171. What are/were their biggest mistakes?:  

172. What would “rock bottom look like for your character?:

173. What is their dream life like?:  

174. What is their worst nightmare?:

175. What are their favorite memories?: 

176. What are their least favorite memories?:

177. What are some things they want in life?: 

178. What are some things they don’t want in life?:

179. What obstacles are currently in their way?:

180. Do they have any secrets?:

181. What is their worldview?: 

182. Who is their personal hero?:

183. What internal conflicts do they have?: 

184. What external conflicts do they have?:

185. What do others think of them?:

186. What do they think of themselves?: 

187. What do they wish they could change?: 

188. What do they wish they could have?:

189. What gets them fired up?:  

190. What do they cherish most?:

191. Things they take for granted?: 

192. What inspires them?:

193. What do they have doubts about?: 

194. What makes them feel alive?: 

195. What makes them want to do better?: 

196. What do they want to be remembered for?:

197. How will other people's perceptions of them change?:

198. How will the character change?:

199. What will your character be doing by the end of the book?:

200. How will your character feel at the end of the book?:

Now that you’ve quickly read through each section of the character template, your brainstorming wheels should be turning as you start to hone in on certain questions about your character that you hadn’t thought of before. 

Once you’re ready to start, you can use the blank template below to fill out for each one of your main characters. Remember – keep a copy of your character template sheets nearby for reference as you begin writing! 

• Static vs Dynamic Characters
• What Are Stock Characters?
• What Is A Round Character?

Make the most of your character bio template

So there you have it – your very own comprehensive character bio template. Remember, it doesn’t matter what genre you are writing about. Every book should have well-developed characters that come alive through using writing strategies, techniques, and literary elements .

At the heart of every well-written story is a believable character that readers are engaged with and connected to. To create that character, you want to make them as realistic as possible, and you can do that with the help of a character bio template. 

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Character Bio Templates: How To Write & Examples

Whether crafting fiction stories or developing character studies for performance work like theater, detailed character bios bring your protagonists to life by capturing rich backstories, motivations, personalities and defining moments launching their on-page journeys. Compelling character biographies set the stage for fully formed figures audiences relate to.

This guide explores tips for developing multidimensional character bios along with template examples to model helpful starting approaches capturing both critical plot details and resonating personality essences in your own casts. Let’s start by reviewing key elements to include when profiling characters.

Elements to Include in Character Bios

Impactful character biographies encompass:

Backstory Facts

Overview context like date and location of birth, family members and pivotal settings establishing identity and explaining inherent perspectives tied to upbringing. These building blocks lend realism grounding decisions. Share only most relevant lifestage moments contributing to current outlooks.

For example: Grew up as shy middle child on remote 1960s Midwest farm inspiring solitary hobbies like birdwatching and reading.

Vital Statistics

Capture defining physical traits and biographical data helping envision characters through memorable filters establishing cohesive first impressions around age bracket, appearance and more subtleties like speech patterns.

For example: 32 years old, wiry red hair with slight limp from early injury making self-conscious in crowds.

Personality Profile

Showcase 1-3 standout character attributes through demonstrative examples that make your protagonist compelling, quirky or praiseworthy. These memorable personality hooks attract reader investment through relatability, likability or intrigue.

For example: Brutal honesty regardless of social cues frequently gets her trouble yet she can’t resist exposing hypocrisy. Vlad has signature booming laugh immediately distinguishing his presence.

Motivations & Goals

Explore innermost values and ambitions driving your character’s journey. Are they seeking redemption for past wrongdoings or trying attaining career success to support family? Detail complex psychology through emotional wounds, pressing needs and hopes adding depth.

For example: Seeks trailblazing scientific discovery before disease progresses rendering him bedridden like ancestor inventors. Vies being first female taekwondo champion proving petite athletes mighty.

Let’s examine some example character bio templates putting these key dimensions into action across common creative settings.

Character Bio Examples & Templates

Here are five sample character bio templates spanning fiction stories, theater script development and role preparation best practices covering different core focal points:

Fiction Story Character Bio Template

Full name: Cassandra “Cassie” Brianne Jacobs

Birthdate & Zodiac: March 19th, Aries

Physical: 5’2” petite frame, shoulder-length brown curls, hazel eyes

The younger of two daughters, Cassie grew up outside Portland enveloped in Pacific Northwest evergreen wilderness inspiring a vibrant imagination and wonder of natural worlds. Childhood haemophilia curtailed wilderness adventures leading to solitary hobbies of writing fantasy stories set hiking misty forests. Witnessing inequality towards her disabled father despite diligent provision for their family instilled an innate impulse challenging injustice through thoughtful rebellion from youth through college women’s rights protests.

Personality profile

* Champion of human rights & environmental protection

* Habitual journaler processing observations into reflective action

* Temperamental debater quick to challenge faulty logic or oppression

* Enthusiastic laughter breaks tension Showcases both strengths and growth areas

Motivations closing paragraph

Today, Cassie feels restless in unfulfilling admin role yet fears pursuing activist writing career won’t make ends meet. She decides embarking solo camping trip along Oregon coast for clarity on how to interweave world betterment with personal purpose beyond conventional checklist chasing cultural validation she inconsistently desires. But fate has unexpected encounters in store...

Theater Character Biographies Template

Character Name & Vitals

Natalia “Nat” Cresswood 36 years old5’5” lean dancer physique, shoulder-length curly black hair often worn pulled back in messy bun, green eyes peering intensely taking everything in

The middle daughter of three to an affluent Boston investment banker and philanthropic mother, Natalia grew up participating in gymnastics and ballet dancing from age 4. While she demonstrated natural physical gifts starring incompetitive dance troupe performances through adolescence, Natalia felt increasingly creatively confined by strict choreography regiments and passive gender social norms encouraged among her elite social circles. At 19 Natalia moved to NYC to pursue commercial dancing career and avant garde performances allowing embracing her feminist, queer identity.

Personality & Quirks

* Signature move involves spinning from floor into powerful stance signifying empowerment

* Communicates through spare, precise language and sustained eye contact

* Habitually observes her surroundings before entering new spaces

* Fidgets hands when frustrated suggestive of restricted inner voice

Goals for This Story

Having sacrificed artistic fulfillment the past 10 years for commercial stability paying bills, Natalia realizes sculpting empowerment stage work fusing dance, music and monologues must take priority now before time passes by. But reconciling lingering internalized social expectations around women’s “proper place” remains Natalia’s hidden conflict throughout her visionary choreographic journey.

Method Acting Character Background Exercise

Character basics

Full name: Jonathan “Johnny” Mikeal Vincent

Age & DOB: 43 - January 18th 1980

Physical: 5’10” muscular builder’s frame, close cropped salt & pepper hair with soul patch, hazel eyes

Origins & Upbringing

Born in working class Boston neighborhood, Johnny grew up youngest of 5 children stretched thin by his father’s meager construction wages. Witnessing his overwhelmed parents’ arguments over tight budgets and bringing up 5 kids persevering through scarce means imprinted practical resourcefulness and protective loyalty towards family from young age. Streetfights defending younger siblings also molded reflexive physicality meeting perceived threats with force versus diplomacy - qualities that both served and hindered future dealings rising ranks of local crews.

Personality Qualities

* Brash boldness asserting needs without hesitation

* Observant assessing surroundings before acting

* Generous providing for inner circle no questions spared

* Temper simmers erupting if boundaries crossed

Present Day Motives

Now a rising lieutenant managing illegal arms trade bypassing moral discomfort by rationalizing providing for family above all. Yet Johnny’s protective loyalty gets tested through unforeseen medical crisis forcing reflection on how far he’ll go for kin, crew and his own legacy.

Mix and match components from these templates to build rich multidimensional character biographies fueling vibrant personalities advancing your creative storylines or performances.

Tips for Crafting Standout Character Bios

Beyond covering the core factual and personality elements in your character profiles, apply these additional writing best practices:

1. Uncover defining Epiphany Moments - Explore when your character’s worldview or approach shifted through pivotal interactions altering their place (e.g. first heartbreak, missed promotion, act of betrayal) then map effects on current perspective.

2. Ask probing Questions - What does your character dread most? Dream of late at night? These emotional drivers shape reactions.

3. Contrast Public vs Private Selves - We all portray polished public personas hiding trickier private truths. Expose both along with what formed each.

4. Leave Mysteries - Avoid overdetailing every past moment that defined them. Allow pockets of ambiguity leaving gaps to fill in later keeping intrigue high.

With robust profiles assembled for your leads, supporting roles and antagonists, let’s go over some FAQs on applying character bios improving creative development across different mediums:

Character Bio FAQs

Here are answers to common questions around leveraging rich character biographies to enhance storytelling potency:

Do novels require character bios?

While not mandatory, crafting detailed character profiles outlining backstories, motivations, personalities and pivotal moments often allows authors tighter continuity referencing these key origin details subtly dropping them through dialogue, narration foreshadowing and dramatic irony. Keep bios handy avoiding uneven character shifts.

How do actors use character biographies?

Performers heavily reference developed character bios and backstories to assume roles more immersively through informed emotional connection versus surface reciting of lines. Bios prompt harnessing personas psychologically manifesting authentic expressions, reactions, mannerisms aligned to complex figures crafted through writing phases.

Can you reuse character bios across multiple stories?

While core human psyche chronicling transferable personality types and motivational scenarios applies across fictional mediums, reinvent character bios customized aligning backstories, growth arcs and role details to each storyline’s unique setting and journey to retain authentic freshness avoiding recycled caricatures. Each story deserves wholly original casts.

Do graphic novels require detailed character bios early on?

Visual novelists can reference abbreviated character profiles covering formative memories, key attributes and story goals guiding illustration development translating writing notes into consistent graphic panels showcasing tangible personalities emerging through imagery, action and dialogue. Expanded textual bios help inform ongoing narrative strides.

Robust, thoughtful character profiles translate into richer, more relatable leads engaging audience investment through complex facets, agonies and triumphs mirroring human condition. Immerse in their world to share impactful stories.

Now that you grasp the core components of resonant character biographies and how to leverage them improving your creative process, let's briefly spotlight a few historical examples demonstrating powerful essence-capturing personas:

Examples of Compelling Character Bios

Anna Karenina - Anna suffers ongoing identity crisis straddling refined aristocratic expectations, maternal ambivalence and impassioned yearning for uninhibited romantic transcendence ultimately ending her life by suicide. Complex dimensionality intrigues.

Tom Sawyer - Clever schemer skilled at winning friends through imagination and charm yet haunted by lingering orphan heartache seeking worldstage validation outshadowing humble beginnings. Celebritized psyche timelessly relatable.

As these classic protagonists epitomize, detailed rendered biographies manifesting signature psyche facets, wounds and worldviews lie at the heart of artistic legacies spanning generations. Dive deep conjuring your cast’s complete essence through biography.

How to Use Just Think AI for Character Bio Templates

Just Think AI makes creating compelling character bios easy. Here are tips:

• Share key details about the character - name, age, personality traits, background, abilities etc.
• Provide the story genre and setting details as context
• Indicate if the character is a protagonist, antagonist, supporting role etc.
• Specify any unique attributes, quirks, or details to highlight

With this information, Just Think AI can generate a customized character bio template covering their history, physical description, personality overview and role details in an engaging narrative style.

Just Think AI Prompts for Character Bio Templates

When requesting a character bio template from Just Think AI, provide:

• Character details - name, age, descriptors, abilities etc.
• Genre and setting the character exists within
• Character role in the story
• Any special attributes or details about the character

Supplying this context allows Just Think AI to draft an effective character bio template bringing your creation to life!

Let Just Think AI handle the busywork of composing compelling character bios so you can focus on developing captivating stories!

How to Write a Character Bio

What is a character bio.

A character bio, sometimes called a character profile, is information about your characters that will directly or indirectly inform the story you’re writing.

A character bio can be pages long or can be short and sweet—I.e., Tara, age 15, lives with her father and stepmother, is self-conscious about her height, and has the power of time travel.

Why write a character bio?

Writing a thorough character bio can help you create dynamic, believable characters with depth.

Knowing about who your character is, both on and off the page, can make writing your story easier. Let’s say your protagonist gets on an elevator with a rival colleague, but you’re not sure how to write the rest of the scene. Your protagonist’s character bio—which might include things like how they feel about their career, their insecurities, and how they’ve learned to handle conflict—can help you write a realistic response to that situation.

While you’re writing a character bio, you could uncover ideas for new plotlines or scenes. For example, you decide that the character has a terrible fear of heights. If so, you might consider putting them on the observation deck at the top of the Willis Tower on a first date.

Do you need a bio for every character?

Not necessarily. Character bios are most valuable for primary and secondary characters, or those who feature prominently in the story and undergo some sort of change.

If you’re writing about conflict between parents and their three children, you might need bios for all five characters. Let’s say a family argument erupts while at a fancy restaurant; you don’t likely need to develop a full bio for the waiter who’s left to clean up the food they’ve thrown at each other (though it might be worth it to consider what that waiter’s day has been like).

Plenty of writers work without writing backgrounds for their characters, though you would be hard pressed to find one who doesn’t have some information on a character that doesn’t make the published page.

What does a character bio include?

Your character bios can be as cursory or detailed as you like. Here are points and questions to consider as you write.

Start with biographical basics:

• Age or date of birth
• Race and ethnicity
• Sexual orientation
• Where they’re from
• Where they live
• What they do for a living
• Socioeconomic status
• Physical description: Are they tall, average, or short? Do they have dreadlocks down to their waist or a shaved head? What kind of clothes do they wear? Etc.
• Do they have a family?

As well as information directly related to the story you’re writing:

• What’s the character’s goal? What’s the motivation?
• What are they most afraid of?
• What are their flaws?
• What are their strengths?
• How will they change by the end of the story?
• What is their role in the story?

Questions to get a clearer picture of what they look or sound like:

• What kind of clothes do they wear?
• What’s their hair color and hair style?
• How do they dress?
• Do they have any distinguishing physical characteristics? For example, perfectly straight teeth, a giant scar across their chest, or blue hair? If so, why is this the case and how does it affect their daily life?
• What are their mannerisms like?
• Do they have an accent? How do they feel about their accent?
• Do they have distinguishing speech habits? I.e., do they stop and think before answering a question or do they blurt out their feelings? Does their voice crack when they’re nervous?

Questions to uncover emotional and mental characteristics:

• What does your character want out of life?
• What was their childhood like?
• What are your character’s relationships like? With their parents? With siblings? With extended family? With their spouse or significant other? With friends?
• What are their romantic relationships like?
• Are they good at making friends? Why or why not?
• What kinds of people do they gravitate toward?
• What kinds of people do they avoid?
• Do they have any pet peeves?
• Has your character experienced a monumental or traumatic event? For example, abandonment in childhood or the sudden death of a friend?
• How does your character feel about the way they look?
• Do they have any insecurities?
• How do they feel about their job or career? If they weren’t doing that, what would they be doing?
• What’s their political affiliation?
• What’s their relationship to authority like?
• How do they deal with conflict? With confrontation? With pain? With happiness?
• Do they have any vices?
• What disappointments have they experienced? Successes?

Questions to explore their tastes:

• What kind of music do they listen to? What kind of books do they read? What kind of movies do they watch? Etc.
• What kinds of music, books, and movies do they not like?
• What kind of food do they like?
• How do they spend their free time?
• What kinds of things have they tried and not liked?

How to write a character bio

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the idea of creating a character bio, consider that it doesn’t have to read like a traditional narrative. It can take any form: a list of bullet points, a question-and-answer format, or roughly scribbled notes. Whatever helps you get to know your character and keep track of the details.

Begin building your character bio with the basics: basic biographical information and their role in the story. You can then write an entire bio from start to finish, considering all the questions above, or you can fill it in as you write your story. For example, let’s say your character is having a particularly good day and her father calls—no, her stepfather—and he has bad news. As you write this scene, you should make some notes on her family history (you didn’t know until now that she had a stepfather) and how she deals with stress or conflict.

Some writers will “interview” their character and write the answers in the character’s voice. This can be helpful when trying to identify a character’s voice and speech patterns or when writing dialogue.

Feel free to tinker with a character’s biography as you write and edit your story. If a trait no longer fits with the arc, you don’t have to be married to it. Let your writing process be fluid and organic.

How to use a character bio

There’s no limit to what you can mine from a character profile, but in general, bios can:

• Create depth in your characters and storyline: Simply understanding who your characters are and what they’ve experienced off the page will help you introduce believable reactions and scenarios.
• Maintain consistency: You can use your bios to track information as you introduce it into the story and reconcile inconsistencies. For example, if you write that your protagonist is shorter than average on page five, but on page ten they reach the top of a library shelf with no problem, you can flag the inconsistency and track the accurate description in your character bio.
• Spark new plotlines: When exploring your character’s background, you discover that, as a child, they wanted to be a musician, so in your story you decide to introduce a plotline in which they secretly moonlight as a jazz singer under a mysterious stage name.
• Fight writer’s block and solve problems: If you’re unsure where to take your story, working on a character’s bio can help you get out of a writing rut.

Other ways to explore your characters

• Take a personality test, like this one from 16 Personalities , answering the questions as your character
• Write a scene from their perspective
• Draw or describe their house in detail
• “Interview” your character, answering questions in their voice
• Write their resume
• Write a few journal entries in their voice
• Ask to shadow someone who has the same job or hobbies your character has
• Go interview someone with similar experiences
• Go explore their hometown

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One comment on “ how to write a character bio ”.

THIS IS SO INFORMATIVE

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How Do You Write A Character Bio? The Road to GREAT Characterisation

Character bios can be an essential part of writing your character. There is no story without a character, just as there is no character without a character bio.

Every writer needs some semblance of a bio before they can start writing because it is the only way to truly know who your character is. Without one, it’s harder to feel their existence as something tangible.

The best way to think of a character bio is as it being their passport. A certificate of identity to give them life and authenticity. It’s an official record of them, something to prove their existence on paper.

Characters are built through their bios. They start out as non-existent or simply ideas in the head, but through the process characters become layered. They become real.

In this article, we’ll highlight the key tips to creating your own character bio. We’ll provide the essential information on building a bio that both births a character and helps establish the story.

It might often feel like extraneous work, but writing a character bio can be the difference between a two-dimensional functional character and a rich, layered one.

Table of Contents

The writing style of character bios, voice of a character bio, 1. outline the basics of your character(s), 2. add life to a character, 3. add color to a character, 4. immersion in a character bio, the character’s purpose, how character bios help writers, why a character bio is important to the writer and the story, an acronym to help:.

Character bios can be created in multiple ways. There is no set way. Ultimately, they must be crafted in the best way for the writer. And most importantly, they need to be accessible and easy to understand.

Some ways of creating a character bio include…

• On a blank document: Probably the most common way. This is easy to execute, follow and allows for you to let rip with words. Just fill a document with as many words as you can about your character. Let it all spill out, without limitations.
• On PowerPoint: This allows a character bio to become more like a character portfolio. PowerPoint allows both text and images to be added, which gives a visual dimension to the character. It’s also easy to access and one can select what slide is needed for certain writing times.
• On a Spreadsheet: Establishes a critical perspective, as the writer will be dissecting and labelling each aspect that makes up the character.
• In a Notebook: Having a hard copy character bio makes it easier to access when writing on a laptop. This way multiple tabs aren’t open. It can help you not only literally separate out your character bio from your other writing but mentally too, allowing you to work on your character bio and feed in its details to the wider document.
• On Post-Its: Easier to add new details to a character, and have them around you when writing.

All of these different styles have their own benefits due to their form. PowerPoint is arguably the best way as it lays out each aspect of the character clearly, and encourages the visual side of the character too. This is ultimately what character bios are best for, visualizing your character.

Another feature of the style of writing a character bio is what personal tense to use. Both First or Third person could be used. And using either of these styles when writing a character bio can have a different meaning…

• First Person: This suggests that the writer is the character, so it becomes more personal and intimate. However, it also makes it harder for the writer to view themselves just as a writer if they are the character, as the lines could become blurred, and confusing when dealing with multiple characters.
• Third Person: This provides a more analytical character bio as the writer is shaping who/what they want the character to be, so it is somewhat easier to access them as a character. However, it can distance the writer, so they are less involved in the world they are creating, as they are on the outside looking in.

Both styles of voice have their pros and cons, but both do formulate solid character bios that will allow the characters to come to life. Some writers may prefer a more immersive approach, some may relish a more objective, analytical approach. But both allow the writer to sit with their characters and let them spill out onto the page.

Finding the voice to write in for your character bio is one thing, but what are the key elements to tackle when writing your character bio? Let’s take a look…

The starting point of a character bio is to determine the basics of the character(s). Starting the character bio with the basics is essential, it’s like laying the foundation for a house. Without the foundation it becomes unstable. The same goes for character. If you don’t know your character solidly, then the story will fall apart.

Basics include…

• Name – Obviously, the major starting point. It is how your character will be known and in many ways, it defines them. So, the name has to represent who they are. And a distinctive yet believable name is always the best bet, particularly when it comes to main characters.
• Physical appearance. What they look like is obviously important for reading through and remembering the characters but also for aspects of production like casting.
• Personality traits. How does their conflict manifest? What are they like? What kind of figure do they cut within the action?
• Family. What are their relationships like? How have these relationships shaped them into who they are?
• Where the character is from. What is their background? How does this manifest, for example, in their accent, in their outlook and in their character arc in general?
• Where the character lives. What is the context they live within? And most importantly, how does this shape their character arc and the story overall?
• Career. What do they do for a living? Whether important to the story or not, their job and how they spend their daily life is important to understand.

When determining the basics what needs to be apparent is the character’s relatability. Their personality traits, past, relationships and context help to provide relatability, giving the audience an insight into the character and an opportunity to connect with them. Without this, the story is harder to find a way into.

After determining the basics of a character in their bio, the next step is to go more in-depth. This stage allows a writer to establish a character’s goals, flaws, and quirks. It is a character’s goals and flaws that make the story because this it almost always what the plot revolves/evolves around, particularly as it pertains to the protagonist .

What to add to develop a character bio…

• The character’s wants and needs.
• Their niches and quirks.
• What are their goals?
• What are their flaws and foibles?

By being thorough at this stage, the character is getting more and more real. They start to take their first steps. Every minor detail that may seem unnecessary e.g., a character’s minor behavioural ticks, is vital to a character bio.

For example, by knowing some small detail about a quirk of behaviour, a character’s state of mind, background, self-esteem and sense of self can all be determined.

It is these intricate features that not only bring life to a character bio but also improve the narrative. Each detail of the character works synchronously with the story as a way to build on the plot. But it also ensures each character’s reaction fits the plot and explains who they are.

Adding color acts as a double meaning in this instance. The literal meaning is to choose colors that can be associated with the characters (through clothes, for example) to match their personality/moods.

It’s this meaning that aids in furthering the character bio as the colors chosen can represent who the character is and what they will become. Breaking Bad is perhaps the greatest example of this. Throughout the series, the colors are used to represent the characters’ shifting motivations.

Color also carries the meaning of making a character real. Adding color as visualizing them, how they walk, how they talk, how they interact. What is it that makes them real? That is the next step of writing a character bio.

“I demand the right to be them, I demand the right to think them.” – Quentin Tarantino

To add color the writer has to completely submerse themselves into the characterisation- every choice the writer makes regarding the character, particularly in relation to visuals needs to weave into narrative and characterisation.

The goal of the character bio is to make a character real. And the only way to make a character real is for the writer to become one with the characterisation. This means looking into and focusing on aspects that seem unimportant or useless.

A character bio needs to act like an extension of the writer’s self, drawing from themselves and their real life in general. It is a part of them but it’s not them. By adding color the writer is able to work multidimensionally between building the character and partially being the character.

There needs to be the ability to move between perceiving how the character functions as a person, whilst disconnecting in order to look at the big picture of crafting the story.

Following on from adding color to a character bio, and the necessity to work multidimensionally, is immersion. To become immersed in a character bio means the ability to view yourself as a writer whilst also having the perspective of a character.

The writer’s voice needs to become the character’s too.

Exercises for the writer’s voice to become the character’s include…

• Write a journal/diary entry as the character: This allows the writer to directly access the character’s thoughts and behaviour.
• Write a letter from the character to another, or even to the writer: This technique encourages two different styles, one being for the writer to become the character, and the other being the writer accessing the character’s voice whilst being aware of themselves as a writer.
• Carry out an interview with the character: By doing this the writer is able to concurrently carry the role of the writer as well as the character.
• Make a specific list about your character’s likes and dislikes – including, for example, everything from their favorite color to their favorite food to their favorite pastimes.

These exercises are almost a form of method writing , getting into the character’s headspace and indulging in them as if they were real. Again, some of these details may seem unnecessarily specific, but they might help in building a convincing and realistic vision of your character.

The character’s purpose is what needs to shine through the bio as it is that which will be explored and built on throughout the narrative itself. The writer being able to find the character’s voice within making a character bio helps to make the character as close to real as possible.

By being clear and pliable, the character bio guarantees that even if the story alters as it is created, the core of the character(s) can remain the same. And this core is the character’s purpose. This is what’s driving them through the story and consequently, particularly in relation to the protagonist , driving the story itself.

You might find your character’s purpose when writing the bio, or you might have it already before the bio. Either way, a key aim of writing a character bio should be to understand what that character’s purpose and function is within the story as a whole.

Without purpose, the character could seem two-dimensional or unnecessary, no matter how fleshed out in specific detail they are.

Character bios are priceless to a writer. They allow writers to get to know their character(s) much as they would a person in real life. If a character doesn’t feel real and relatable then the audience or screenplay reader will struggle to connect with the story.

They help the writer to conceptualise all that exists in their head. Before creating a character bio, a character is simply a writer’s thoughts of a person. But once the bio is on paper those thoughts start the process of transforming into a fully-formed person.

• A character bio can also help writers to establish the arc that characters will go on throughout the narrative.
• It acts as a blueprint. If a writer loses track of their character(s) and their arc, the bio is there to act as the heart of a character.
• It is what births and maintains the character’s existence.

Character bios help provide security for the writer as they can map out the story through the eyes of the character(s). This means that no matter what happens in the writing process the bio is always there to refer to.

The ability to get inside a character’s head is essential to a successful narrative, as often the audience perceives and responds to the story through their relationship to the characters.

Character arcs are a key part of the narrative or are the narrative itself, and a crucial way to track an arc’s success is with the bio. It is the character’s flaws that are tied up with the story and the flaw that needs to be resolved or handled by the story’s end.

A bio is what fleshes out characters, making them feel human. They become a part of the world you are creating, both feeding into and feeding off the depth you are gradually building.

They can also be important to both the writer and the story for continuity reasons.

• Change happens in a story, both in the actual narrative evolution and redrafts.
• So, for a bio to act as a continuity guide provides assurance that characters won’t become debased.
• They will retain their strengths as independent characters whilst ensuring the story itself doesn’t fall flat.

Connection is what a character bio provides. They allow the writer to establish the traits of that character that an audience can connect/relate/empathise with. Every character needs to have a perspective on humanity whether it be a positive or negative one. And crafting a bio helps identify what this perspective looks like.

As discussed, there are multiple ways to write a character bio, but it must be…

• E xpressive

So, think of CREATE when creating a character bio, and you’ll be in the best place possible to write one.

A character bio is a tool to helping you understand your character and what shapes them. It brings a character to life on the page. And it is this aliveness that feeds the life of the story.

Bios are pivotal to both the writer and story as they are the glue that holds it all together, whilst ensuring organisation and coherence for the story and writing process.

– What did you think of this article?  Share It ,  Like It , give it a rating, and let us know your thoughts in the comments box further down…

– Struggling with a script or book? Story analysis is what we do, all day, every day… check out our range of  script coverage  services for writers &  filmmakers . 

This article was written by Libby Laycock and edited by IS Staff.

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4 thoughts on “How Do You Write A Character Bio? The Road to GREAT Characterisation”

Dealing with characters that are 98% Native American, I knew from the start in writing the book, I needed to distinguish the characters.Thank you for the information it was very helpful in going forward with the teleplay.

This article is definitely a good, clear reminder why character matters in driving the plot. If your plot isn’t working, the answer often lies with character; and as painful as it is, that means you have to step back from the direct script writing and do more research. That’s what this article has made me do. Thanks.

Thanks Angela, glad we could help!

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The Elements of a Biography: How to Write an Interesting Bio

• March 30, 2022

While these books are generally non-fiction, they may include elements of a biography in order to more accurately reflect the nature of the subject’s life and personality, Writing about someone who actually existed, whether it’s a family member, close friend, famous person, or historical figure, involves certain elements. A person’s life story is being told, and the subject’s life needs to be organized in such a way that the reader is interested and engaged. 

Biographies can easily read as boring announcements of only a human’s accomplishments in life, and if you want the bio you write to stand out, you should try to avoid that.

When you’re writing a biography or even a short professional bio, ask yourself what sorts of things you’d like included if someone was writing your biography. 

You would most likely want people to get a feel of who you were as a person, and to be able to understand the way that you felt, what moved and motivated you, and what changes you wanted to see and make in the world.

Do the same thing when you write about someone else. Do the subject the favor of treating them like a real person instead of a stiff and boring character that students will dread having to learn about at school each year. Getting students excited about history, historical figures, and people of interest can inspire them to work hard to make a difference as well.

What Does Biographical Mean?

The term “biographical” is an adjective that means having the characteristics of a biography or constituting a set of personal information or details. For instance,  biographical notes  contain information about a specific person’s life or narrate stories and experiences of that person. Another example is  biographical details . Biographical details include who the person is, what they have become, what they have struggled with, and any other information unique to them.

Keep It Real

Don’t fictionalize the life of the person you are writing about, but remember your sense of humanity when you write, and do what you can to make sure that your subject can be viewed as a real person who existed, rather than just a name on a monument.

It’s a thin line between rumor, speculation, and fact when telling the stories of people, especially people who are long dead and can’t verify or refute it for themselves. Be sure that if you do research and something is speculated, you state that in your writing.

Never claim something is fact when it’s isn’t a known and proven fact. This will cause you to lose credibility as a nonfiction writer.

What to Include in a Biography

When you read or write a biography, most of them have the same basic details of a person’s life. The person’s date of birth, date of death, and the major accomplishments and key events in between those two dates are all important to include in the writing process. These are elements that need to exist within the story of the person to be considered a full biography.

Keep in mind that these are the minimum elements that need to be included. Expanding on these elements and adding meat to the bones of your story will engage readers. 

If you only include important dates and accomplishments, you might as well direct the reader to visit the headstone of the person you are writing about, and they’ll get almost as much information.

Personal details offer a more intimate look into the subject’s life and can help the reader to relate or at least understand some of the decisions made by the person, as well as the influences that played a part in steering the person’s life. 

If the subject had any passions that he or she voiced throughout his or her life, mentioning those in your story of their life will elevate your biography.

Relevant Information

Family members are often mentioned in biography and major details of the person’s career. If the person was known for their accomplishments in their field of work, there is often more content there than a brief career summary.

The result is usually more of a professional bio than a personal one. Basic facts of the person’s education are often mentioned as well. If you are writing a biography about someone, try to remember to write about more than just their job.

Remember that you aren’t writing a resume, and the subject isn’t asking you to help them get a job. You are tasked with writing about the entire life of someone. You are more than your job, so the subject of the biography you are writing should get to be more, as well.

Personal Information

Biographies don’t have to be boring. Personal stories, interesting stories, and funny quips are sometimes used to make the readers identify with the subject. 

When included in a biography, these details give the reader a chance to feel as though the subject was a real person with opinions, feelings, flaws, and a personality, rather than a stuffy person who is significant to history and not much else.

Providing the audience with these lighthearted but not necessarily crucial elements of a biography will make the biography more interesting and appealing.

Narrator and Order

Point of view.

An important element in most biographies is establishing the point of view. You don’t want to write it like a novel and have it written in a first-person point of view. This will result in something that is somewhat fictionalized and something that more closely resembles an autobiography, which is the personal story of a person’s own life.

Biographies should be written in the third person point of view. In third person, someone outside of the story, who has all of the information, is the narrator. 

Try not to be biased. Stick to the basic facts, major events that you have researched, and keep the story interesting but accurate. A biography is not meant to be a fictional adventure, but the subject’s life was significant in some manner, and the details of that can still be interesting.

Chronological Order

Biographies usually begin, well, in the beginning, at the birth of the subject. The first sentence usually includes the basic information that a reader needs to know: who the person is, where the person is from, and when the person was born. A biography that doesn’t include these details but starts at the most important life events can exist, but they aren’t common. You may see this tactic used in a short biography or a brief bio.

Usually, chronological order is the best course of action for a biography. A person’s life begins in childhood, so details of that childhood, even briefly, are necessary before getting to the subject’s adult life.

Describing the subject’s early life to the audience usually means you should research and write about the family they came from, their early education, what kind of student the person was, where they came from, any close bonds they had as children with people. 

As well as their interests and whether or not they pursued the life they ended up with as an adult, or if greatness and accomplishments were thrust upon them by events outside of their control.

As you progress into a subject’s adult life, you should add achievements to the biography. Focus not only on the major achievements as acts but also try to fill the audience in on what the motivation for the achievements was.

For example,  Abraham Lincoln  was the sixteenth President of the United States. That’s a well-known fact. Students learn about him in American grade schools and then over and over until their educational careers are over. In a bio about Lincoln, you may discuss the fact that Lincoln freed the slaves.

While this is true, you need to research deeper into that. Just stating that a person did something doesn’t make it an interesting read. Ask yourself why he freed the slaves.

Do your research, speak to an expert, and search for journals and letters that a subject might have written to describe how they felt to the audience and how they drove the person to do what they did.

Focus on the Impact the Person’s Life Had

After you have gone over the person’s life in the biography, you should share with readers what impact the subject’s life had on the rest of the world, even (sometimes especially) after their death. Many of the important people in history who have biographies written about them are deceased.

When you write a biography, ask yourself why anyone cares what that person accomplished. What did they do for one or two people to make them important enough to have a biography?

For example, many students learn about George Washington. He gave America the sense of hope and patriotism that they needed to declare and then achieve freedom from English rule. 

When we search for information about Washington, we find not only his bio and his painted picture, but we also see and learn about the things he influenced, inspired, and the feelings he invoked among the people around him.

When we give a well-rounded look at not only what the person did in their lives, but how they changed the world, even just for those around them, we start to see the bigger picture and appreciate the person more.

Students can go from being bored and obligated to reading sentence after sentence about a boring guy who lived hundreds of years ago to being excited to learn more about the founding fathers. As a writer, it is your job to inspire these feelings for the reader.

When you write a biography, it’s important that you thoroughly research and fact-check everything you are writing about. Everyone knows that Lincoln freed the slaves, but you should still research it to ensure that everything is accurate as far as dates, places, speeches, and motivations go.

Make sure that you are getting your information from reputable resources. If you are interviewing live people, be sure to verify their credentials and use a tape recorder when doing so.

A biography is not an opinion piece or a novel, and there is no room for error, miscalculation, or falsification when you write a biography.

Actor Bio Example

An actor’s bio tells about the details of a specific person with regard to a person’s acting career. Below is an example. ( This example is created to serve as a guide for you and does not describe an actual person .)

Edgar Anderson and his family reside in Washington. He is currently taking up a Business Management course and striving to achieve a balance between schooling and his career. Edgar first experienced acting when he was still a junior high school student in 2015, where he played  Horton  in a Seussical-inspired school theater play. His manager discovered him in 2018 when the former watched him portray the lead role in a play about the history of their school during the school’s Foundation Day.

In 2022, he got his first nomination for best actor at the Oscars. Recently, Edgar has found a new set of hobbies. He enjoys learning karate and foreign languages. Edgar often thanks his family and friends because they have fully supported him in his acting career. He also extends his gratitude to the directors he has worked with and the talent agency that has helped him ascend the ladder of his career.

He dedicates his early success to all who have believed in him over the years. According to Edger, he loves his career even more because of the overflowing love and support he continually receives from his fans and loved ones.

The Importance of a Biography

It is important to include all of the elements of a biography because a biography is the story of a person’s life, and that’s a big undertaking. The subject is often no longer alive and can’t dispute what we write about them, so we have to get the information right and do the best we can when writing.

Students work on writing biographies and research papers about people in school so that they can learn more about the people who helped us get to where we are today in terms of society.

We teach students the skills and elements of a biography so that the practice of telling the story of a person’s life never gets lost. We need to focus on the future, but we cannot do that without understanding the past.

Other people may one day come along and write your bio, and when that happens, you have to hope that the first step they take is to do the research thoroughly so that they can do your story justice. That is what we owe the person we are writing about when we start to search for information about them.

Be respectful of the biography because it is the telling of those who came before us and can serve as a guidebook for the future or even a warning.

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Character Bio Template for Creating the Perfect Characters

by Holly Riddle

The best books offer characters that feel like real people, characters that are so fleshed out and thorough that you feel as if you really know them. But creating those types of characters is easier said than done!

Once you sit down to start drafting a new short story or novel, you may find that your characters are feeling lackluster at best, or entirely dull at worst. How can you fix this? No matter what stage of the writing process you may be in, creating a character biography using a character bio template can be a great help.

What is a character biography?

A character biography is a reference sheet that tells you everything you might need to know about your character, for any scene that you write. A character bio includes information on your character’s background, personality, day-to-day life, appearance, and more. While not all this information will make it into your story, it’s still useful for plotting your character’s arcs.

Why is having a character biography important?

If you consider yourself more of a pantser than a plotter (i.e., the type of writer who goes into drafting flying by the seat of their pants versus the type of writer who plots and outlines their work ahead of time), then you may wonder if you really need a character biography—especially when you look at character bio templates that ask you for far more information than you might think you need (do you really need to know your main character’s childhood pet’s nickname?).

However, no matter your drafting style, a character biography can be an invaluable resource. The more information you have at the ready, the more well-rounded your characters will be. You might even find that having a character bio template as you write will help you unravel other writing issues that go beyond flat characters, like plot holes or character or story arcs that don’t quite arc .

Things to keep in mind before you write your character biography

Before you write your character biography (using our handy template below), there’s one big thing you need to think about: each character’s purpose within the story .

Often, writers will begin building a character first, thinking about things like personality and appearance and motives—and then wait until they’ve developed this character before actually giving the character a purpose within the story.

This can be problematic for a few reasons, but primarily because you may end up trying to force characters into roles where they don’t belong.

Before creating any character bio or filling out any character template, consider why you need this character in the first place. How are they going to pull their weight?

Think beyond the very baseline role that they might play, as, for example, a main character, love interest, antagonist, or the comedic relief. Think about what they need to be and what they need to offer the plot and your other characters. What makes them so essential to the plot that they absolutely cannot be cut from the story or book?

Once you nail down why this particular character must exist in your fictional universe and exactly what they offer the plot and main character that makes it so, you can begin filling in the more extraneous details that might not matter quite as much, such as basic info and appearance. On the contrary, once you decide on your character’s purpose, you may just find that those details aren’t so extraneous and are, in fact, all the more meaningful.

How to write a character bio (using a template)

When you download your character bio template and begin filling it out, whether you print it and write out all the details by hand or type everything into the Word doc, you’ll notice there are a few details that you need to include.

This is likely all information that you have stored away in your brain somewhere, so getting it down on the page should be no problem.

Think all the information that anyone might be able to find out about your character if they either knew them as a brief acquaintance or looked them up online and discovered a social media profile.

This might include things like:

Nationality

Religious beliefs

Home town and current place of residence

Marital status

Economic status

Core values

If there are any stand-out likes or dislikes, or pet peeves, you can also list those here. For example, does your character prefer to only communicate via snail mail, or does your character dislike chocolate with a passion? List it here!

Appearance and physical characteristics

Think not just of your character’s physical appearance, body type, and personal style, but also how their appearance impacts how they act and how they’re treated.

Do others approach them differently than they might another character, all because of appearance? Does your character like their appearance? Why or why not? How does this impact how they interact with others?

For many characters, health—or the lack thereof—plays a major role in their decision-making and motives. Think about your character’s health and the areas where they might be struggling.

Does your character drink regularly or have any addictions? Bad habits? Does your character smoke? Were they in any sort of traumatic accidents that have made their health a challenge?

Think about your character’s life up until the point were your story begins. What was it like?

Did they have a good or bad childhood? How were their teenage years? Are there any major changes between the way they grew up and the way they live now (i.e., changes in religion, place of residence, best friends, or social or economic status)? How does that influence their behavior and beliefs now?

In real life, background heavily influences the way a person acts and the choices they make, so the same should apply to your characters.

Relationships

What is your character’s relationship with the other people within the story? How do they feel about the other characters? This includes romantic relationships but also those with friends, family, and work colleagues.

Explore how these relationships and all the emotions that go with them impact how your character behaves.

Personality, mental characteristics, and emotional characteristics

What is your character’s personality? Are they shy? Hot-headed? Temperamental? Stubborn? Does your character prefer being around people just like them, or do they love variety?

When building your character profile, think of both your character’s emotional strengths, as well as your character’s emotional flaws.

Your character’s personality will directly play into their thorn, which leads us to…

Character thorns

A character thorn is something that’s stuck in your character’s side. It’s always there, paining them, nagging at them, making their life a little bit worse.

This thorn will eventually propel them to some sort of action and they’ll eventually learn to either live with, or remove, their thorn, but it needs to be there at the start of their fictional journey.

A character thorn could be a bad relationship with parents, a spouse that always outshines them, or a belief that they’ll never be quite good enough. Whatever it is, though, it’s something they can’t ignore.

Every character needs a desire. What do they want? Or, better yet, what do they want so badly that they’re going to end up going after it over the course of your story or novel?

This desire should make sense according to the other information that you’ve already inputted into your character bio template, such as background, thorn, personality, etc.

For example, a character who grew up in an impoverished household with an emotionally neglectful parent, who doted on their other siblings first and foremost, might desire a high-paying career that will allow them to outshine their sibling while also buying their impoverished parents a new house, thus winning their favor and proving themself better than the sibling.

Character development

Your character’s desire and thorn should play into your character’s arc and development. How will they change over the course of your story?

Consider writing up a brief description about your character’s existence at the start of the story—what their life looks like, both externally and internally—and then another brief description about where you’d like them to end up at the end of the story.

Mistakes to avoid when building character bios

As you consider the above details, make sure you avoid some of the most common mistakes that writers are likely to commit when building out, and then using, a character profile.

Using every single detail in a character bio template

This is the big one.

Yes, you’ll have a lot of valuable information in your character bio template. However, you don’t want to merely dump all of that information into your story as soon as you introduce a new character.

The reader doesn’t need—or want—to know all that information at once. They want to gradually learn that information as they get to know your character, over the course of the story.

Don’t dump everything about your characters’ appearances onto the page at once, either. Doing so can make a passage feel stilted and awkward.

After all, when you meet a person for the first time, you don’t automatically think about every color they’re wearing, every brand of clothing they have on, their hair color, eye color, weight, and face shape, all at once. Instead, you maybe notice a few stand-out features until something gives you reason to notice another detail of their appearance.

Do the same when you begin writing a character’s physical description.

Adding details that don’t make sense

Every part of your character’s life should make sense. Their personality, their decisions, their lifestyle—it’s all a result of things that have happened throughout their life.

Don’t pick personality traits or background information at random. With every character detail, ask yourself, why? Truly think about why your character is the way that they are, and ensure every detail is believable.

Does every character need a character bio?

You’ll find that many characters within your story don’t need a full character bio. Minor characters that only play a small role within your story don’t need to be fleshed out to this degree.

However, it’s advisable to create character bios for all of your main characters, and also your secondary characters , including love interests, villains and other characters whose actions heavily influence your main character and/or the plot of the story.

Remember—every character in a story, no matter how large or small their role, has a background, motives and goals. Sometimes, knowing all this and more can help you make the writing decisions that result in believable characters and plot lines.

The Scribophile character bio template

Need more help?

Download our character bio template for an easy, fill-in-the-blanks approach to character template building.

You’ll still need to thoroughly consider every aspect of your characters’ personalities, lives, backgrounds, motives, and more, but, with our character bio template and comprehensive list of questions, you’ll be that much closer to uncovering all the need-to-know details to bring your characters to life.

Download the Character Bio Template (docx)

Download the Character Bio Template (pdf)

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The Best Original Character Bio Template (250+ Traits Sheet)

August 17, 2023

The best character template to help you include traits you would never consider. Even expert OC designers can't figure out all the details without some prompting!

Do you have an OC you’re making and want to build your character up? We got you covered!

There are many different approaches to character creation! Using a character sheet can help your character feel more well-rounded.

Even experienced character designers can't keep all the character details without some prompting! This original character template can help include key motivations, background info, and traits that you would never consider.

How To Use This Free Character Bio Sheet

Whether you're a pro or just starting out, this template will help you develop your character!

The best way to use this template is to start with the basics. Don't feel like you have to fill everything out. That's too much! The goal is to use these traits and prompts to brainstorm.

You can also post your OC to CharacterHub ! On CharacterHub, these prompts are built in. The tool helps you brainstorm and keep track of all your characters and worlds. Once you post your character, you can get feedback from the community, meet other OC creators, and share art and stories!

Original Character Sheet:

Basic info:.

• Gender/Pronouns
• Appearance (physical features, style, etc.)
• Personality (positive and negative traits)

Physical Traits + Appearance:

• Facial Hair
• Specific Features
• Facial Features
• Dominant Hand
• Teeth (straight, crooked, missing)
• Voice (pitch, pacing, etc.)
• Sense of fashion and style
• Health (disabilities, illnesses, conditions)

Other Characteristics

• Personality Type
• Cultural Background
• Speech Patterns
• Most Used Phrases/Words
• Habits (good and bad)
• Intelligence
• Education level
• Sense of humor
• Problem-solving skills
• Emotional Intelligence
• Introverted or extroverted?
• Political views
• Core Values
• Beliefs about morality and ethics
• Beliefs about happiness and success
• Beliefs about the world and society
• Stance on social issues
• Personal Philosophy
• Self-perception
• Optimism vs. Pessimism

Motivations:

• Darkest Secret
• Biggest Dream
• Deepest fear
• Inner Conflict
• External Conflict
• External Pressures
• Insecurities
• Worst nightmares

Relationships:

• Significant Other
• Family (and family dynamics)
• Co-workers/Professional Relationships
• Mentors/Mentees
• Past Romances
• Best Friends
• Close Friends
• Acquaintances
• Strained Relationships
• Supportive Relationships
• Toxic Relationships
• Role Models
• Most important relationship
• What do they like about their relationships?
• What do they wish could be improved about their relationships?
• Special Powers
• Supernatural Abilities
• Fighting Style
• Physical Strength/Endurance
• Persuasion Ability
• Survival Skills
• Spiritual Abilities
• Technology Skills

Entertainment:

• Online usernames
• Social Media Usage
• Technology Usage
• Followers/Following
• Favorite Apps
• Communities Apart Of
• Favorite forms of entertainment
• Favorite movies
• Favorite TV shows
• Favorite games
• Favorite book
• Favorite outdoor activities
• Celebrity Crush
• Comfort Food or Activity

Other Favorites

• Favorite food
• Favorite drink
• Favorite place
• Favorite animal
• Favorite color
• Favorite song
• Favorite band
• Favorite sports team
• Favorite brand
• Favorite store
• Favorite thing to do
• Favorite weather
• Favorite season
• Favorite mythical creature
• Favorite joke

Professional Traits:

• Income Level
• Volunteering
• Professional Goals
• Professional Reputation
• Career Challenges
• Professional Skills
• Feelings about job
• Feelings about co-workers
• Personal history (childhood, past events, etc.)
• Social class
• Criminal Record
• Notable life events
• Accomplishments
• Key Memories
• Childhood influences
• Major life decisions
• First Heartbreak
• Life Lessons
• Cherishable Moments
• Major Failures
• Most embarrassing moment
• Most meaningful possession
• Most difficult decision

Fandom (if the character lives in a fan universe):

• Is this character part of an existing fandom or universe?
• How does this character relate to the canon world?
• Are there any notable relationships to that universe?
• What special powers (if any) do they have from that universe?
• Have they influenced history in any way?
• Do they have any notable accomplishments within the universe?
• What are their roles and responsibilities?

Character Development Questions:

• How does your character handle conflict and difficult situations?
• How does your character relate to others and form relationships?
• How do your character's personality and actions change in different environments and social circles?
• How did your character's childhood shape their personality and worldview?
• How does your character cope with their emotions and vulnerabilities?
• Why does your character make the choices they do and what motivates them?
• How has your character's personality changed over the years?
• How does your character handle success or achievement?
• If your character could have any superpower, what would it be and why?
• If your character could travel through time, where and when would they go?
• If your character could have any famous person as their mentor or role model, who would they choose and why?
• If your character could have any one wish granted, what would it be and why?

Roleplay Details (for a character roleplay bio):

• Types of characters this character interacts best with
• How the character’s personality ideally evolves in a roleplay
• Roleplay role (is this character typically a protagonist? Antagonist? Supporting character?)
• Common starters: prompts or starter stories that fit this character well

Other Character Bio Creation Tips:

• Write journal entries as your characters. This helps you think as your character, making them feel more realistic. The Posts function on CharacterHub is good for this.
• Map out your character arc. Characters need to develop over the course of your story! After filling out these details, outline what the character learns and the emotional development the character goes through.
• Practice writing about your character . Pick another character in your universe. Write about them as another character to get a more comprehensive view of the character. Answering writing prompts can help you brainstorm.
• Use the character template even if you won’t utilize all the traits . Knowing everything about a character helps them feel more real, regardless of if you ever use specific details. The info can slightly alter how they react, respond, or behave in ways that aren’t tangible.

Creating Characters on CharacterHub

No need to store your OC Character Sheets in Google Doc anymore! CharacterHub provides simple tools to help you brainstorm and keep track of all your characters and worlds! Post characters, build an audience, get fan art, and store everything. You can find it all on CharacterHub !

Table of Contents

Share on social, unlock your character's full potential, join characterhub for exclusive access to revolutionary character-building tools and a like-minded community.

41 Best Public Domain Characters You Can Use

The Basics Of Character Design: Mastering The Fundamentals

11 Best Character Design Websites Every Character Creator Needs

Definition of Biography

A biography is the non- fiction , written history or account of a person’s life. Biographies are intended to give an objective portrayal of a person, written in the third person. Biographers collect information from the subject (if he/she is available), acquaintances of the subject, or in researching other sources such as reference material, experts, records, diaries, interviews, etc. Most biographers intend to present the life story of a person and establish the context of their story for the reader, whether in terms of history and/or the present day. In turn, the reader can be reasonably assured that the information presented about the biographical subject is as true and authentic as possible.

Biographies can be written about a person at any time, no matter if they are living or dead. However, there are limitations to biography as a literary device. Even if the subject is involved in the biographical process, the biographer is restricted in terms of access to the subject’s thoughts or feelings.

Biographical works typically include details of significant events that shape the life of the subject as well as information about their childhood, education, career, and relationships. Occasionally, a biography is made into another form of art such as a film or dramatic production. The musical production of “Hamilton” is an excellent example of a biographical work that has been turned into one of the most popular musical productions in Broadway history.

Common Examples of Biographical Subjects

Most people assume that the subject of a biography must be a person who is famous in some way. However, that’s not always the case. In general, biographical subjects tend to be interesting people who have pioneered something in their field of expertise or done something extraordinary for humanity. In addition, biographical subjects can be people who have experienced something unusual or heartbreaking, committed terrible acts, or who are especially gifted and/or talented.

As a literary device, biography is important because it allows readers to learn about someone’s story and history. This can be enlightening, inspiring, and meaningful in creating connections. Here are some common examples of biographical subjects:

• political leaders
• entrepreneurs
• historical figures
• serial killers
• notorious people
• political activists
• adventurers/explorers
• religious leaders
• military leaders
• cultural figures

Famous Examples of Biographical Works

The readership for biography tends to be those who enjoy learning about a certain person’s life or overall field related to the person. In addition, some readers enjoy the literary form of biography independent of the subject. Some biographical works become well-known due to either the person’s story or the way the work is written, gaining a readership of people who may not otherwise choose to read biography or are unfamiliar with its form.

Here are some famous examples of biographical works that are familiar to many readers outside of biography fans:

• Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow)
• Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Caroline Fraser)
• Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson)
• Churchill: A Life (Martin Gilbert)
• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Simon Winchester)
• A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar)
• The Black Rose (Tananarive Due)
• John Adams (David McCullough)
• Into the Wild ( Jon Krakauer )
• John Brown (W.E.B. Du Bois)
• Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (Hayden Herrera)
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot)
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
• Shirley Jackson : A Rather Haunted Life ( Ruth Franklin)
• the stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit (Michael Finkel)

Difference Between Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir

Biography, autobiography , and memoir are the three main forms used to tell the story of a person’s life. Though there are similarities between these forms, they have distinct differences in terms of the writing, style , and purpose.

A biography is an informational narrative and account of the life history of an individual person, written by someone who is not the subject of the biography. An autobiography is the story of an individual’s life, written by that individual. In general, an autobiography is presented chronologically with a focus on key events in the person’s life. Since the writer is the subject of an autobiography, it’s written in the first person and considered more subjective than objective, like a biography. In addition, autobiographies are often written late in the person’s life to present their life experiences, challenges, achievements, viewpoints, etc., across time.

Memoir refers to a written collection of a person’s significant memories, written by that person. Memoir doesn’t generally include biographical information or chronological events unless it’s relevant to the story being presented. The purpose of memoir is reflection and an intention to share a meaningful story as a means of creating an emotional connection with the reader. Memoirs are often presented in a narrative style that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Examples of Biography in Literature

An important subset of biography is literary biography. A literary biography applies biographical study and form to the lives of artists and writers. This poses some complications for writers of literary biographies in that they must balance the representation of the biographical subject, the artist or writer, as well as aspects of the subject’s literary works. This balance can be difficult to achieve in terms of judicious interpretation of biographical elements within an author’s literary work and consideration of the separate spheres of the artist and their art.

Literary biographies of artists and writers are among some of the most interesting biographical works. These biographies can also be very influential for readers, not only in terms of understanding the artist or writer’s personal story but the context of their work or literature as well. Here are some examples of well-known literary biographies:

Example 1:  Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay  (Nancy Milford)

One of the first things Vincent explained to Norma was that there was a certain freedom of language in the Village that mustn’t shock her. It wasn’t vulgar. ‘So we sat darning socks on Waverly Place and practiced the use of profanity as we stitched. Needle in, . Needle out, piss. Needle in, . Needle out, c. Until we were easy with the words.’

This passage reflects the way in which Milford is able to characterize St. Vincent Millay as a person interacting with her sister. Even avid readers of a writer’s work are often unaware of the artist’s private and personal natures, separate from their literature and art. Milford reflects the balance required on the part of a literary biographer of telling the writer’s life story without undermining or interfering with the meaning and understanding of the literature produced by the writer. Though biographical information can provide some influence and context for a writer’s literary subjects, style, and choices , there is a distinction between the fictional world created by a writer and the writer’s “real” world. However, a literary biographer can illuminate the writer’s story so that the reader of both the biography and the biographical subject’s literature finds greater meaning and significance.

Example 2:  The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens  (Claire Tomalin)

The season of domestic goodwill and festivity must have posed a problem to all good Victorian family men with more than one family to take care of, particularly when there were two lots of children to receive the demonstrations of paternal love.

Tomalin’s literary biography of Charles Dickens reveals the writer’s extramarital relationship with a woman named Nelly Ternan. Tomalin presents the complications that resulted for Dickens from this relationship in terms of his personal and family life as well as his professional writing and literary work. Revealing information such as an extramarital relationship can influence the way a reader may feel about the subject as a person, and in the case of literary biography it can influence the way readers feel about the subject’s literature as well. Artists and writers who are beloved , such as Charles Dickens, are often idealized by their devoted readers and society itself. However, as Tomalin’s biography of Dickens indicates, artists and writers are complicated and as subject to human failings as anyone else.

Example 3:  Virginia Woolf  (Hermione Lee)

‘A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living’: so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don’t stay still, so life-writing can’t be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going ‘ahead of the rest of us, like the miner’s canary, testing the atmosphere , detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions’. So, ‘There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation’. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story.

In this passage, Lee is able to demonstrate what her biographical subject, Virginia Woolf, felt about biography and a person telling their own or another person’s story. Literary biographies of well-known writers can be especially difficult to navigate in that both the author and biographical subject are writers, but completely separate and different people. As referenced in this passage by Lee, Woolf was aware of the subtleties and fluidity present in a person’s life which can be difficult to judiciously and effectively relay to a reader on the part of a biographer. In addition, Woolf offers insight into the fact that biographers must make choices in terms of what information is presented to the reader and the context in which it is offered, making them a “miner’s canary” as to how history will view and remember the biographical subject.

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10 Key Characteristics, Origin, Types And Classification Of A Biography

We explain what a biography is, its origin and how this writing is classified. Also, what are its features, extension and more.

What is a Biography?

Origin of the term biography, genre of the biography, biography background.

biography types

• Authorized.  The one that has the approval of the biographer or his heirs and executors, that is, the one that has survived a certain process of censorship.
• Unauthorized. That written without approval and revision of the biographed character or his heirs.
• False. It is known as false autobiography or false biography to works of fiction that pretend to be biographical writings.

Delimitation of the biography

Objectivity of the biography

Biographical approach.

biographical novelty

Biography extension.

Biography Value

Kalum Talbot

MA student of the TransAtlantic Masters program at UNC-Chapel Hill. Political Science with a focus on European Studies. Expressed ideas are open to revision. He not only covers Technical articles but also has skills in the fields of SEO, graphics, web development and coding. .

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Character Traits in Biography

My ultimate goal for teaching is to help the students I teach to discover who they are, who they want to become, and how to be contributing citizens who make a difference. I want good character to be emphasized through the literature that we read so my students continue to develop from learning about the contributions of others. I want my students to be critical thinkers and intelligible readers by knowing that there is sometimes more to a story than just what the author may include, and therefore ask questions about what is missing...and even seek out answers. Students should also be able to transfer and integrate what they learn and do in reading to their writing by exploring and applying the same ideas and concepts. I am creating this curriculum unit for my second grade students in response to what I am learning at the Yale National Initiative in the Seminar The Art of Biography with Seminar Leader John Gaddis.

The goal of this unit for my second grade students is for them to engage in the genre of biography while reading and writing and becoming experts about a historical person, including themselves. My students will read biographies and autobiographies in order to identify the characteristics of the genre as well as to learn about real people who made distinguishing contributions to various fields, including arts, sports, politics, literature, music, and exploration. They will read on their level and engage with various text types including picture books, graphic novels, websites, encyclopedias, and identified apps. My second grade students will also write their own autobiographies. In doing so, students will be taught how to decide what to include and what to leave out. They will have discussions with their peers about their choices and why they made them in order to learn how to make decisions and defend them. Students will continue to craft their own autobiography throughout the school year, adding events or chapters that shape their time in second grade.

I am designing this curriculum unit for second grade students, but it could easily be applied to other elementary grades, especially 2-5. I am a second grade teacher in a self-contained classroom in a large urban public school district, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. Teachers on my grade level work together and create thematic units with integrated connections across the subjects of math, science, social studies, and language arts. We develop and use a relevant and rigorous curriculum for students. As we implement the national Common Core standards for Language Arts and Math and state-created Essential Standards for Science and Social Studies, prior knowledge of students along with observations and assessments inform instruction in the classroom. Student assessments include district mandated tests in the subjects of reading, math, science, and social studies, self-reflection, portfolios, grade level pre- and post-unit assessments, formative and summative assessments, and classroom observations. In the classroom and at the school, students have access to numerous technologies including computers with internet and instructional software, calculators, overhead and data projectors, TV, VCR/DVD player, CD player, and cassette players. Some students have access to technology at home, while others have limited resources at home. My PreK-5 school has an average student population of 900 students, but a lot of students come and leave throughout the year. There is an approximate one to twenty-five teacher to student ratio on my grade level. The student population of my school includes 66.2% African American, 14.6% Caucasian, 10.6% Hispanic, 3.9% Asian, and 4.7% other. Approximately 63.6% of our students meet the state's poverty level.

Content Objectives

In the story Horton Hears a Who! author Dr. Seuss wrote, "A person's a person, no matter how small." This story features a large elephant trying to protect small creatures. One of the primary messages of the story is that everyone is important. Thinking about the subject of biography, the central idea I can teach my students is that everyone's story is important. By reading biographies about people throughout history, they will begin to learn important things, events, and people from the world they live in. By writing autobiographies and sharing them they will learn mutual appreciation and respect for their peers. Students will be encouraged to dig deeper and ask questions to better understand the thoughts and motives of a historical person, while reserving judgment of them. They will also do the same exercise of discussing personal things about their peers while encouraging their peers to share aspects about themselves. This helps create great readers and writers who think critically and make connections to things they read and observe.

Learning to respect others while asking questions to explore things deeper aligns language arts standards with social studies standards. I will use the knowledge I gain in seminar from reading biographies written for adults, but I will apply it when reading second-grade "friendly" biographies as read-aloud books to help my students learn about historical figures in the context of reading, writing, science, social studies, and math. I will use biographies to introduce topics in the various units that I have to teach.

In social studies, second grade students are expected to "understand how various sources provide information about the past." When we study history, I will share The Picture Book of George Washington, The Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr ., and The Picture Book of Christopher Columbus with my students (along with picture biography books). When we study the "relationship between sound and vibrating objects" in science, I will read The Value of Giving: The Story of Beethoven where students can learn about how Beethoven was able to feel the music even though he was beginning to go deaf. When we learn about money in math integrated with financial literacy in social studies where students are expected to "understand basic economic concepts" I will read The Value of Saving: The Story of Benjamin Franklin. My goal for students is to have a wide knowledge of people who have helped to shape our country, our music, our literature, our discoveries, our problems, our solutions, our arts, our sports, etc. By reading biographies and connecting people to various topics second grade students learn about, they will begin to understand and be able to make deeper connections to the big ideas and vocabulary they need to know in second grade. Students will be able to observe changes over time and how varying perspectives can understand and interpret the same thing.

In addition to reading, my students engage in writing for various purposes throughout the school year. Currently we teach non-fiction writing in the spring and the students create an "All About Me" book using various text features that they learn about in reading. I'm going to develop my curriculum unit to introduce "All About Me" books at the start of a school year. I learn so much about my students through reading their "All About Me" books. I want to find a way to introduce them to autobiography where they can use the craft and principles employed in this genre and apply it to their own writing. Then (if there's time in the calendar) students will create a biography of a peer in the classroom. They will compare their biography to the autobiography that was written in order to learn the big idea that not everything that is written tells the whole story. This exercise will particularly highlight how individual authors tell or write stories in different ways.

Background Knowledge

In order to better understand the genre of biography and autobiography, the authors Hermione Lee and Nigel Hamilton have written short books on the craft. I recommend these books as overviews, explanations, and references for the genre of biography. I teach second grade scholars and although I have been required to read numerous biographies and autobiographies in my own career as a student (although The Diary of Anne Frank is the only one I can recall right now), I do not regularly take the time to think about the idea of what makes a biography a biography. Nor do I frequently think about the shape and format that biography takes when teaching it to my students.(1)

In Biography: A Very Short Introduction , Hermione Lee suggests "Ten rules for biography." This would have been very helpful up until the tenth rule, which simply states "There are no rules for biography." Nevertheless, for a teacher who does not explore language arts at a scholarly or more specific level, the book was very helpful to read various understandings of the term biography as well as useful information to think about when reading and writing biography. Biography can be described as many things – "Life, Life-history, Life-writing, memoir, and profile." I write this because some fellows in the Art of Biography seminar prefer to use a different terminology to describe what they are going to have their students do, and you might want to as well.(2)

Plutarch, in "The Life of Alexander the Great" says, "For I am writing biography, not history. When a portrait painter sets out to create a likeness, he relies above all upon the face and the expression of the eyes, and pays less attention to the other parts of the body. In the same way, it is my intention to dwell upon those actions which illuminate the workings of the soul, and by this means to create a portrait of each man's life. I leave the story of his greatest struggles and achievements to be told by others...."(3) This sentiment is also explored by Hermione Lee, and my second grade students will practice this idea by interpreting a portrait and writing a biography to match it (see Teaching Strategies – Art Integration).

There are several definitions of biography in various sources, but my favorite one that would resonate and be comprehensible for second graders is "biography is a story of a person told by someone else" from Hermione Lee. Because there is no clear answer as to what biography is, in my teaching I am going to have students create their own meaningful definition and rules of biography. (Reference Classroom Discussions under the Teaching Strategies heading). Since my students are very literal, this will help them know what is expected and how their writing should be shaped. In my classroom I hang anchor charts which are visual reminders for things we are learning. We will create an anchor chart with the ideas that come out of our discussion.

"Do we read biography because we want to learn about people who are different than ourselves, or do we read biography because we want to learn about people who are very like ourselves?" There is a short video where Hermione Lee introduces her book Biography: A Very Short Introduction and asks this question. I will share this three minute video with my students to implore them to think about that question and have a connection to the answer through each biography that they read.(4)

There are many styles in which the genre of biography is presented. Students can illustrate their autobiography using a comic-strip, as modeled (for adults) by author Chester Brown in Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography . Comic-Strips are very appealing to elementary students, so this is a great option to teach them. Other strategies used in this book that are very applicable to the elementary level are to include maps to show where events occurred, and to choose a particular point or event in someone's life to write about, without telling the whole story. Elementary students can explore choosing one time period in history to write about by beginning to practice writing and including details in their writing by retelling only one specific day in their life or even one moment or time period in their life. (5)

When reading and writing a biography or autobiography, students need to be taught to consider how much truth is in a biography and how much of the story is embellished or fictionalized. Students can explore this idea in conversation and share with their peers what they think is important to hold closely to the truth, on the one hand, and, on the other, what they may want to change or write differently because it would better captivate their reader or because it's closer to what they think or wish. Students can also use this topic as a springboard for reading as well. When reading non-fiction, it is important for students to ask questions to get more information and to realize that an author may embellish or add details beyond what is strictly true. Or the author may leave out important information and students should ask questions like what is missing and why? These ideas are especially highlighted in Orlando by Virginia Woolf.(6)

Second grade writers are encouraged to focus on small moments and elaborate on them with great detail. In Orlando the author goes into great detail about the Queen's hand. "It was a memorable hand; a thin hand with long fingers always curling as if round orb or scepter; a nervous, crabbed, sickly hand; a commanding hand; a hand that had only to raise itself for a head to fall; a hand, he guessed, attached to an old body that smelt like a cupboard in which furs are kept in camphor;..." Virginia Woolf takes almost a whole page to describe the Queen's hand. Page 22 in the novel can be used as a mentor text for what describing a small moment would entail. Accompanying the text of the book, teachers can also show an image of Queen Elizabeth I, whose hand is being described in the passage. (Use Google image and type in "portraits of Queen Elizabeth I." There are multiple images of her that include the hands being described in Woolf's novel).(7)

In the biography The Years of Lyndon Johnson – Means of Ascent by Robert A. Caro, the author uses a strategy of zooming in and zooming out. He zooms into the life of Johnson and what he is doing on the campaign trail and then he zooms out to write information about the state of Texas and what Johnson's competitor is doing. Caro also does a really good job of developing character, something that students can be taught to do. Johnson's opponent is portrayed as an upstanding citizen who is highly respected in the state of Texas and maintains a moral character throughout the biography. Johnson's character is very aggressive and is seen as a risk-taker. When students are writing their autobiographies, it is important for them to think about their character and how they will maintain their character traits throughout all their writing.(8)

Setting also plays into The Years of Lyndon Johnson – Means of Ascent. Although I've never been to Texas, nor was I alive in the 1940s, I can imagine what that time and place was like from the description in the book. "Hill Country roads were as rudimentary as ever. Without rail connections to the rest of the state, trucks or wagons were the only means for the area's ranchers and farmers to get their produce to market, and because of the condition of the roads their produce was often spoiled by the time it got there." From this example, I can teach my second graders to spend time in their writing detailing information about the world and what is happening while they are writing, as well as the place where they are living and writing.(9)

While the biographies of Louis Riel and Lyndon Johnson focus on specific moments in time, The Confessions of St. Augustine spans Augustine's life from infancy. It also captures some of the "warts" (a word biographers use to capture flaws in a person's character, or things that make a person more real) in Augustine's character. Students need to consider, as Augustine did, who the intended audience is and the "warts" their audience will relate to. I especially like the part where Augustine describes not liking school because he cannot play games. "What miseries and mockeries did I now experience, when obedience to my teachers was proposed to me, as proper in a boy, in order that in this world I might prosper...Next I was put to school to get learning, in which I knew not what use there was." This sentiment echoes true with many of our students' attitudes toward school and learning. Augustine's character also changes in the story. "I heard that young men studied there more peacefully, and were kept quiet under a restraint of more regular discipline." This text will allow me to show students that someone from 407 AD did not want to concern himself with school when he was their age, but about 20 years later he developed an appreciation for education. A timeline from then until now can be mapped out to show similar trends in thinking and attitudes from back then until present day. It shows a change in character, which students could discuss in the context of their own personal changes.(10)

Teaching Strategies

While engaging in the Art of Biography seminar, I learned various strategies to use with the students in my classroom. Here I will describe how I will employ the different strategies I read about, observed through the seminar experience, listened to other teachers share, as well as what I think are best practices for students in second grade.

Keeping a Writer's Notebook

My school and school district is adopting the Reader's and Writer's Workshop approach constructed by Lucy Calkins. Meanwhile, the university we partner with houses teams of teachers involved in the National Writing Project. With these influences I have learned the value of having students keep a writing notebook. In order to get students to see themselves as writers, it's important to give them a special place for writing. By introducing students to a Writer's Notebook they are hooked into writing and this space marks the beginning of their little lives as writers for the year. One of the things I like to do is wrap notebooks and give them to students as gifts. Once students receive their Writer's Notebook, they are given time to decorate the cover to make it special for them. This allows students to create artistic ownership over their book and makes them care for it even more.

Keeping a writer's notebook lends itself greatly to the idea of autobiography. In her book Living Between the Lines Lucy Calkins writes that "notebooks have embodied the idea that we put bits of our lives and our thinking into print not only to produce compositions but also because we do not want to walk around unwritten." The purpose of keeping a writing notebook is for students to keep track of their lives. "Notebooks can become a habit of life, one that helps us recognize that our lives are filled with material for writing." Another great thing about keeping a writer's notebook is that students have something to reference when they are writing. They can flip back through and use information from their own writing to start creating drafts of stories that highlight their living and who they are as a person. It is very important for teachers to model keeping a writer's notebook her/himself, in order for students to see it as a habit and best practice. The teacher must have experience and motivation to use it first. "If we keep notebooks ourselves and move from those notebooks into larger writing projects, then we can anticipate and respond to the predictable problems that will emerge. But more than this, if we keep notebooks, we will expect and welcome diversity." (11)

Art Integration

Integrating art into the content of reading and writing provides an opportunity for students to engage with visual representations and make meaning of them. It is sometimes easier for students to interpret art than it is for them to do with text. It can provide students with the opportunity to practice the skills they learn on an easier task, and then apply it to something more difficult – their autobiography. As the classroom teacher I will provide my students with portraits. Some schools have these resources available through an art department. They can also be printed in color from various websites and apps. Several resources you can explore to find art for use in your classroom include:

- Artspan: http://www.artspan.com/ (art is organized by categories, types, locations, and you can search just for "portraits")

- Devianart: http://www.deviantart.com/ (contemporary art including portraits of people students may recognize)

- Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/index.html (you can search by location, theme, time period, etc)

- National Gallery of Art: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/education/kids.html

- Art Gallery: +3000 Artists (this is a FREE iPad App)

- Google Images: https://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi (you can type any category or topic into the search bar and access many responses)

*A caveat of advice is for the teacher to prepare the images for the students to view. You may not want to conduct this search in front of your students as some of the results will not be age/grade appropriate.*

I will group students into partners or small groups and they will look at the same portrait and respond to it. Students will initially respond to the art through journal writing so that they reflect using their own personal ideas and reactions before listening to someone else's. This gives all students the opportunity to have a voice in responding to the subject. Then students will engage in a discussion with the other students who are sharing their portrait. This allows students to practice conversation skills of listening and thinking to understand different perspectives and develop an appreciation for how someone else may interpret something. When looking at the portraits, students will brainstorm and write about:

• What they see – describe the details of the portrait or the subject of the portrait
• What questions they have – what do they wonder about the portrait or the subject
• What connections they can make – does it relate to or make them think of anything they already know either from their own life, or from a book or from the world

Once students have responded to these questions in their notebook and discussed their responses with a peer or small group, then I will have them research the portrait for more information. Students can look up information about the portrait, the artist, the time period, etc. in order to learn more about the work. Our school has limited technology in the classroom and second grade students are only beginning to understand and fluently use technology as a tool for researching information they want to learn more about. So they will work with a partner in order to be more supported and successful at accomplishing this task.

After students have practiced looking at portraits, examining them in detail, and drawing their own conclusions, they can practice with other genres of art that involve characters within a setting. Students will begin to write a story related to the piece of artwork describing the scene that they see and how they interpret it. They will write about what is happening in the picture and create conflict and resolution for it. They will determine what is important to include in their story and what does not need to be described.

Creating Timelines

A springboard for students to use to start thinking about their own story is to create a personal timeline. Second grade students in North Carolina are expected to use timelines to sequence events, and a good indicator of their being able to accomplish this is by making a timeline to detail important events in their life. Second grade students have lived for about seven to eight years and will have certain memories and experiences. They may not necessarily know exact dates when things occurred, but they usually have a good idea of how old they are or in what season things happened. One way to help students get started is for the teacher to create a timeline modeling significant events in his/her life. In modeling a timeline for my students, I would start my timeline to include my birth date, the birth of my siblings, the month and year I started Kindergarten, High School, College, Teaching, and Graduate School. I would go back and add in the years I took memorable trips or when special things happened to me like graduations and my wedding. I would also make sure that there would be room on my paper to add on so students know that my timeline is open for more events to occur in my life.

After I have modeled how to create a timeline for my students, students will create theirs. I will encourage students to work independently for 10-15 minutes so they can focus on thinking about their own life, but then allow them the opportunity to talk and share so that they can piggy-back off the ideas and memories of their peers. One thing that as a class we will need to be sensitive to is that everyone's life and experiences are different and that it's important to value and respect each other's differences as well as similarities. This attitude will have to be fostered during beginning of the year activities, but depending on the students, it may need to be revisited before students share something personal like a timeline from their life.

Graphic Organizers

All students will be writing an autobiography and a biography in narrative form, but students benefit by having access to an organizer to help them gather their thoughts and ideas in order to sequence events, recall and highlight details, pick out important ideas, and dig deeper to gain more information. Especially when writing a biography, students can research important information, but use a graphic organizer to have it all available in one place for when they start the writing process. A great interactive website that allows students to do this is available on www.readwritethink.org. ReadWriteThink, sponsored by the International Reading Association has an interactive "Bio Cube" creator. It asks students for specific information and provides fields for them to input the information and creates a template for a 6 sided cube that can be printed on paper and cut, folded and pasted together in the shape of the cube so students can role it like a dice and share the information from each box. Because so many students are kinesthetic or active learners, this is a great way for them to be moving (by rolling the cube) and learning new information (by reading each box). Whether students are using it for biographical or autobiographical purposes, the same information is requested and it includes boxes or fields for: the person's name, time period, and place, personal background where a student can narrate or list important events, personality traits, significance, obstacles, and an important quote from the person.(12)

Another biography graphic organizer is one that I have created and use in my classroom. (See Appendix II and please feel free to modify to suit the needs of your classroom). I make a copy available to each student as a way for them to organize information as well as know what information to learn about when students are reading various sources. There is also space on it for "fun facts" where students can decide what is important or how they connect to their subject. If students are using the graphic organizer for an autobiography, what doesn't fit into the other categories that they want people to know about themselves can be included in the "fun facts" section.

Second grade students are very literal and while hopefully creativity will come out in the narratives that they write, they usually need to be directed into what should be included or how to start thinking about what they are doing. By providing them with a graphic organizer, students cannot use the excuse of "I don't know what to write."

Technology Integration

Second grade students at my school love using technology. Although our classroom has limited resources (by my standards), I try to use our three computers as much as possible. Throughout the unit students will be using the internet to conduct searches of biographical information about a chosen person. Websites I have found that include biographical information in very elementary-friendly language includes:

• Biographies for Kids – Famous Leaders for Young Readers http://www.gardenofpraise.com/leaders.htm
• Multimedia Biographies http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/biographies/index.html
• America's Story http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/index.php
• Biographies for Kids – Life Stories http://www.ducksters.com/biography/
• Bio.Classroom http://www.biography.com/tv/classroom

All of the above websites are linked to my classroom website and students have found them helpful when searching for information. The text and vocabulary are friendly and words are easily readable to a second grade student. In addition to searching for information about a person online, students can use the computers to create a presentation (either using PowerPoint or Prezi.com) to publish and share what they are learning about a person they are studying. Students can also use the computers to create a Bio Cube (described in the Graphic Organizer section).

Classroom Discussion

Second grade students are responsible for demonstrating success in speaking and listening standards. These standards expect students to participate in collaborative conversations, recount or describe key ideas and details, ask and answer questions about what a speaker is saying, tell a story or recount an experience, and produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation.(13) In order to provide students the possibility of learning from their peers, this curriculum unit naturally allows the opportunity for various classroom discussions. One of the things I like to do before starting a classroom discussion is to give students time to individually prepare to talk. I generate a prompt or idea and give students time to brainstorm their own response to it through journal writing or sketching. This is a great strategy to use because it sends the message to students that everyone is capable of having an idea and everyone's idea is important. It also allows students the time to organize their thinking so that they don't ramble on and on about something and kill the momentum of a conversation. Once students have been given an opportunity to individually respond to a discussion topic, they will then in small groups share their thinking with their peers. Some of the discussion topics or questions that naturally flow from the study of biography that can be discussed by second grade students are:

• What is biography?
• Why do we study biography?
• Who are your favorite types of people to learn about? What specific questions do you have about other people? What do you like to learn about other people?
• If someone was writing a biography about you, what would be important for that author to include?
• If you were to write a biography about someone you loved, who would you write about? Why would you write about that person? What important information would you make sure to include in that biography?
• What are some common characteristics you read in most biographies? (Students will have already have needed some experience with reading a variety of biographies either independently or as a read aloud prior to being able to discuss this topic).

Writing a Memoir

Lucy Calkins describes memoir as "the genre of our decade," arguing that it is about more than just a single moment, but also "about the plot lines or patterns that bind those moments together. The purpose of a memoir is to explore the significance of events." Through the writing of memoir students are "encouraged to tell not only what they did during those moments, but also what they thought and felt, and in this way, to make the moments add up, to make them reveal life as a whole." Beginning writers, like second graders, typically pick important moments from their life to write about – a birthday, a day at Carowinds (our local amusement park), going to a football or basketball game, playing in a soccer game, etc. In encouraging students to write memoir, Lucy Calkins claims it "has everything to do with rendering the ordinariness of our lives so that it becomes significant. Rather than recalling facts, we need to re-create worlds. Rather than writing with statistics, we need to write with scenes. Rather then reporting on our time line, we need to explore the truths that underlie it."

An exercise you can do in the classroom to get students to start writing a memoir is to have them start thinking about memories. This can be done through quiet reflection as well as sharing and discussing ideas, and of course capturing them and writing them down so they aren't forgotten. Students can brainstorm a list of memories they have and then think about the ones that are more vivid that they can use to craft their memoir. Once students begin recalling their memories, they're faced with turning them into memoirs. "The challenge of memoir is to discover memories that no one talks about, to document stories that haven't been told, and to draw conclusions that haven't been drawn."(14)

Lucy Calkins summarizes themes that are discovered in reading memoirs of others. "Memoirists often write about the places of their lives. Memoirists often write about their imaginations, about what they fantasize and fear, about their private, subjective experience of events. Memoirists often place themselves within their family tree, telling something about their familial roots." (15) Authors Tomie dePaola and Patricia Polacco write memoirs that can be read aloud to second grade students as mentor texts for how to write a memoir.

Mentor Texts and Read Aloud

There are several sets of biographies by a common author or publisher that I am going to read to my students or have them read independently or with a partner, throughout this unit. It is a good idea to share biographies with students so they can learn about different people, but also so they can make comparisons between books about the same person or between styles of the same genre. There are three very appropriate sets of books that I have available to me in my classroom and school library, as well as at the public library. (They can also be purchased on amazon.com).

These sets include The Picture Book of (insert name of famous person) . These were written and illustrated by David A. Adler and are very engaging to young readers. They have painting-like pictures and a list of important dates related to the person. A little bit longer, but also appropriate for elementary readers is the Who Was ? (insert the name of a famous person before the question mark). These books have various authors, but are written in the same style. They are published by Grosset & Dunlap and an example would be Who Was Albert Einstein? by Jess Brallier. They have large text size and sketched illustrations throughout the book and are organized in chapters which second grade students get excited about because it's a big deal for them to transition from picture books to chapter books. Another series is ValueTales. An example is The Value of Respect: The Story of Abraham Lincoln by Ann Donegan Johnson. ValueTales have different authors for the different stories, but are written in the same style where they tell the life of a famous person and have cartoon images. Each person also has an imaginary friend who acts like their conscience in a way, so there is a fictional element to the stories. There is more advanced vocabulary in these books and therefore I usually use them as a read aloud in order to discuss harder words or unfamiliar ideas.

Classroom Activities

Each of the individual activities described below (identifying character traits, researching a famous person, and writing an autobiography) should take no less than two weeks to complete. They can occur simultaneously in reading, writing, and social studies because the ideas support all curriculum standards and expectations.

Identifying character traits

While engaging in the Reader's Workshop Process, students will be making the connection between the challenges characters face in a story to the challenges they face as readers. Second grade students will study characters in stories in order to better understand the story, and eventually to make connections among characters and learn about greater themes in life. Second grade students are expected to "demonstrate understanding of characters, setting, or plot and to describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges." Students start with identity and identify traits or characteristics of the main characters in the story. (16)

1. After reading a biography to students I will model for them how to complete a + graphic organizer where they note the characters, setting, problem and solution (see Appendix III). We will have already used this graphic organizer throughout our fiction unit so students will be familiar with it, but I will show students how to apply it towards biography. In the character box, students not only need to write the name of the person, but also character traits or attributes they learn about him/her. In the setting box they need to describe the years and places he/she lived and anything significant they know about that time period and place. In the problem and solution boxes students may write about problems or struggles the person encountered and then accomplishments and how the person overcame any struggles. At the bottom there is a section for notes for students to write additional information, connections, and questions. This is where I want students to think about how the person's challenges may compare to theirs and what character traits the biographical person exhibited that helped him/her overcome the challenge.

Procedurally, I will probably do two short read aloud books over two days modeling this process so students can become familiar with completing the graphic organizer before they have to do the work independently or with a partner.

2. Students will then self-select biographies to read and create a graphic organizer on. I want them to choose their own so they have an invested interest in the person they are reading about. I will make sure to have numerous biographies available in my classroom for them to choose from. I will probably work with a group of struggling readers to help them through this process.

Students will repeat this process over the course of a couple of weeks, setting individual or a class goal of how many biographies they should read to gain an understanding of the genre, of various people, and of history.

Researching a famous person in history

After students have read a variety of biographies, they need to choose one historical person and become an expert on that person. Students will access various sources of biographical information in order to accomplish this goal, and they can use the Biography Graphic Organizer (see Appendix II) to keep track of the information they are learning.

• They can read a biography book along with an internet article about the person and identify different styles the authors of the two sources used to convey the information about the person. The second graders can also make judgments about why one author chose to include certain information.
• My classroom website will have direct links to biography websites (see Technology Integration under the Teaching Strategies section) that are on a second grade reading level. Students will have computer time to look up more information about their person beyond what may be contained in one or two books we have available in our classroom collection.
• Another goal of the plan for the Reading Workshop is for second grade students to engage in nonfiction reading clubs and for students to become experts around a particular topic exploring a variety of texts on that topic with a peer. Students will design the time to meet and goal for what learning they want to share during that meeting. The main task of the club includes "reading and talking about books, ponder questions, develop ideas, develop theories, and celebrate discoveries."
• This directly aligns to the common core standards for second grade students, which include "follow agreed-upon rules of discussion, build on others' talk in conversations by linking their comments and remarks to others, and ask for clarification and further explanation as needed about the topics and texts under discussion." After students have built their confidence of sharing information with their reading club they will create a published piece which records everything they have learned and present it to the class.
• Second grade students are expected to "participate in shared research and writing projects like reading a number of books on a single topic to produce a report." I will give students the flexibility of deciding how they want their published report to look like, whether it's a written narrative, PowerPoint presentation, poster board, cereal box, song, collage, etc. The students will have several days and access to a variety of materials to complete this work and time will be set aside in the schedule for individual presentations about the information they learn.

Writing an autobiography

One of the strategies I described is creating a timeline. This is a springboard for students to compose their own autobiography or memoir. Second grade students are expected to "write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

• I will start this lesson by introducing beginnings and having students think about how they want to start their work – do they want to write it sequentially, do they want to hook their reader with a short story describing a memory.
• Students will list character traits they want their reader to know they have and then think about a story or stories they can tell to describe how they show ownership over each trait.
• Students will write about a flaw in their character to show that they are human.
• We'll talk about endings. Students will first engage in a class discussion about endings and how they should end their autobiography. If they're struggling for an idea, they can be encouraged to re-read the endings of biographies or other selected books. They can also think about ending with a wish or a hope for their future. I'm hoping students will generate a list of really good ways to end their autobiography.

Throughout all of these brainstorming and mini-lesson sessions, students will be writing down their ideas for their narratives. Then they will take them through the writing process, revising their work independently, with a peer and with me, making sure to have consistency and a common voice throughout. Finally, students will publish their work, either writing a clean copy or typing their narrative using a word processing application.

Through hearing biographies read as well as engaging in reading biographies students will begin to understand and ask questions about events and things that happen in history. They will build an understanding about the world and what type of person they want to become in the world and how they want to contribute to make it a better place. The autobiography they write will not only reflect who they are as a writer, but who they are as a person, and their history will be recorded because each of my students is important.

Adler, David A., John C. Wallner, and Alexandra Wallner. A Picture Book of George Washington . New York: Holiday House, 1989. This picture book gives biographical information about the life of George Washington.

Adler, David A., and Robert Casilla. A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Holiday House, 1989. This picture book gives biographical information about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Adler, David A., John C. Wallner, and Alexandra Wallner. A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus . New York: Holiday House, 1991. This picture biography outlines the life and achievements of Christopher Columbus

Apple. "Art Gallery: +3000 Artists." iTunes Preview. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/art-gallery-+3000-artists/id648853882?mt=8 (accessed July 14, 2013). This is a free digital app offered for apple products. It features art from numerous collections.

"Biographies." Harcourt School Publishers. http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/biographies/index.html (accessed July 13, 2013). This website offers biographical information on a variety of people. The text is appropriate for elementary students to read and understand.

"Biographies for Kids, Famous Leaders for Young Readers." Garden of Praise. http://www.gardenofpraise.com/leaders.htm (accessed July 13, 2013). This website offers biographical information on a variety of leaders. The text is appropriate for elementary students to read and understand.

"Biographies for Kids: Inventors, Athletes, World Leaders, Women." Ducksters: Fun Kid site with safe search, sports, games, jokes, and homework help. http://www.ducksters.com/biography/ (accessed July 13, 2013). This children's website offers biographical information on a variety of people.

Brown, Chester. Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography . Montreial: Drawn and Quarterly, 2003. This comic-strip biography details the adult life of Louis Riel, a Canadian leader and politician.

Calkins, Lucy . A Curricular Plan for the Reading Workshop . Portsmouth: Firsthand Heinemann, 2011. This teacher reference book details how to introduce and teach the Reading Workshop in 2nd Grade.

Calkins, Lucy. The Art of Teaching Writing . Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1986. This textbook for teachers organizes how to teach writing and run a writer's workshop.

Calkins, Lucy, and Shelley Harwayne. Living Between the Lines . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991. This book reads like a narrative textbook for teachers offering advice, encouragement and instruction on how to create a classroom of writers.

Calkins, Lucy. A Curricular Plan for the Writing Workshop . Portsmouth: First Hand Heinemann, 2011. This teacher reference book details how to introduce and teach the Writing Workshop in 2nd Grade.

Caro, Robert A. Means of Ascent . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. This is the second book in a series detailing the life of Lyndon Johnson.

"Contemporary Art: Original Photography, Painting, Sculpture and Prints." Artspan. http://www.artspan.com/ (accessed July 15, 2013). This website offers contemporary art gathered from various sources.

International Reading Association. "Cube Creator." Homepage - ReadWriteThink. http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/cube_creator/ (accessed July 12, 2013). This interactive websites provides an organizer for students to enter information about a biography they read or their own autobiography and it generates it into a cube maker.

Dr. Seuss. Horton Hears a Who! . New York: Random House, 1954. This Dr. Seuss book features a large elephant who tries to protect small creatures.

"English Language Arts Standards." Common Core State Standards Initiative. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy (accessed July 13, 2013). This website lists and annotates the English Language Arts Common Core standards.

"Google Images." Google. https://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi (accessed July 14, 2013). This website can be used as a search engine for finding art and portraits to use in the classroom.

Hamilton, Nigel. How To Do Biography: A Primer . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008. This book offers examples from various biographies as well as ideas for how to write a biography.

"Hermione Lee Biography: A Very Short Introduction." Meet the Author Bringing Books to Life!. http://www.meettheauthor.co.uk/bookbites/1842.html (accessed July 13, 2013). This website has a three minute video clip of Hermione Lee talking about her book Biography: A Very Short Introduction.

Teacher College. "Home - The Reading & Writing Project." The Reading & Writing Project. http://readingandwritingproject.com/ (accessed July 14, 2013). This website offers teachers lots of information and resources for using the reading workshop model and the writing workshop model as described by Lucy Calkins.

Johnson, Ann Donegan, and Steve Pileggi. The Value of Giving: The Story of Beethoven . La Jolla, Calif.: Value Communications, 1979. This character book about Beethoven's life focuses on the theme of giving and how he gives back to others.

Johnson, Spencer, and Steve Pileggi. The Value of Saving: The Story of Benjamin Franklin . La Jolla, Calif.: Value Communications, 1978. This value book describes the life of Benjamin Franklin through a character book with a focus on his attitude toward saving.

Lee, Hermione. Biography: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. This short reference book defines and gives examples of various types, styles, and subjects of biography.

"Library of Congress Home." Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/index.html (accessed July 15, 2013). This website offers a digital representation of art.

"Meet Amazing Americans." America's Story from America's Library. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/index.php (accessed July 13, 2013). This website offers biographical information on a variety of Americans. The text is appropriate for elementary students to read and understand.

"NGAkids Art Zone." National Gallery of Art. http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/education/kids.html (accessed July 15, 2013). This site digitally offers art available at The National Gallery of Art.

State Board of Education. "North Carolina Essential Standards Social Studies." Public Schools of North Carolina. www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/acre/standards/new-standards/social-studies/k-2.pdf (accessed July 13, 2013). This website lists and annotates the Essential Standards for Social Studies that my state follows.

"PLUTARCH on BIOGRAPHY." California State University, Northridge. http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/plutbiog.html (accessed July 13, 2013). This professor's webpage zooms in on how Plutarch regarded biography.

Pusey, Edward Bouverie. The Confessions of St. Augustine . London: J.M. Dent & Sons; 1907. This translated edition of St. Augustine's autobiography describes his life starting at infancy.

"The Partnership for 21st Century Skills." The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. http://www.p21.org/ (accessed July 15, 2013). This website highlights 21st century skills and outcomes expected of College and Career ready students.

Ulrich, Laurel. A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 . New York: Knopf, 1990. This book is a biography written based on the diary of a midwife.

Woolf, Virginia. Orlando: A Biography . New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1928. This fictional biography describes the life of a character Orlando as he transitions from a man to a woman.

"deviantART: Where ART Meets Application!." deviantART. http://www.deviantart.com/ (accessed July 15, 2013). This website offers a digital representation of art on various subjects from different artists.

Appendix I – Implementing District Standards

As a result of this curriculum unit, my second grade students will deepen their understanding and receive continuous practice in the subjects of reading, writing, and social studies. Here are the Common Core and Essential Standards this unit provide students access to.

Social Studies Essential Standards

Students will read biographies to understand the past and create timelines to organize events that happened in history as well as in their own life.

2.H.1 Understand how various sources provide information about the past.

2.C.1 Understand how various cultures influence communities

Language Arts Common Core Standards

Students will read for the purpose of understanding about people in history and historical time periods and situations. They will write their own autobiography after taking their ideas through the writing process as well as create a report about an historical person who they study from gathering information from various sources. Students will discuss the information they are learning about historical people throughout the unit in order to enhance their conversation skills.

RI2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why and how to demonstrate key details in a text.

RI2.3 Describe the connection between a series of historical events.

RI2.6 Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe.

RI2.9 Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic.

RF2.4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

W2.2 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events.

W2.6 With guidance and support use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing.

SL2.2 Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

SL2.6 Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification.

L2.3 Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading or listening.

Appendix II – Biography Graphic Organizer

Appendix iii – reading literature graphic organizer.

1. H. Lee, Biography: A Very Short Introduction

N. Hamilton, How to Do Biography: A Primer.

2. H. Lee, Biography: A Very Short Introduction, 1.

3. "PLUTARCH on BIOGRAPHY," California State University, http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/plutbiog.html (accessed July 13, 2013).

4. "Hermione Lee Biography: A Very Short Introduction," Meet the Author Bringing Books to Life! http://www.meettheauthor.co.uk/bookbites/1842.html (accessed July 13, 2013).

5. C. Brown, Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography.

6. V. Woolf, Orlando: A Biography.

7. V. Woolf, Orlando: A Biography, 22

8. R.A. Caro, Means of Ascent.

9. R.A. Caro, Means of Ascent, 151

10. E. B. Pusey, The Confessions of St. Augustine, 13 & 103

11. L. Calkins and S. Harwayne, Living Between the Lines, 38, 43, 52.

12. "Cube Creator," International Reading Association Homepage, http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/cube_creator/ (accessed July 13, 2013).

13. " English Language Arts Standards," Common Core State Standards Initiative, http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy (accessed July 13, 2013).

14. L. Calkins and S. Harwayne, Living Between the Lines, 165, 166, 168, 169, and 177.

15. L. Calkins, The Art of Teaching Writing, 415.

16. " English Language Arts Standards," Common Core State Standards Initiative, http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy (accessed July 13, 2013).

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The 7 Characteristics of the Most Important Biographies

The Characteristics of good biographies Must be based on authenticity and honesty, should be objective when presenting the lives of subjects and trying to avoid stereotypes.

Biographies are narrative and expository texts whose function is to give an account of the life of a person. At the time of writing a biography, special care must be taken and be truthful throughout the text, since what is narrated are real facts that happened to an individual.

But this is not all, good biographies must present details of the person's life, such as his birth, his family, his education, his weaknesses and strengths, among others, to understand the course of this.

However, biographies can not simply be a list of events, since this would be a timeline.

In this sense, in the biographical texts must exist a thematic progression, which will allow to relate these events, giving meaning to the narration.

7 Main features of biographies

1- general topic: individual.

As stated above, biography is a narrative about a person's life. In this sense, the first thing to take into account when writing a biography is about who is going to be treated.

There is a great variety of subjects on which a biographical text can be written, from figures recognized worldwide, such as Elon Musk Or Marie Curie, to ourselves, which would be an autobiography.

2- Character of the subject

In the biographies, a description of the main elements that define the character of the subject must be included, since this description will allow the reader to understand the decisions that the subject took or the achievements that reached.

For example, if you do a biography about George Washington, you could mention that since he was young he was very mature and had a great sense of responsibility, elements that made him an outstanding military leader and a hero for the United States.

3- Limited theme: focus

Because a person's life has many stages and many events, biography can focus on only one facet of the person.

For example, if you make a biography about Stanislao Cannizzaro , Who was an Italian scientist, professor and politician, could focus the biographical text in only one of these facets, for example, that of the scientist, and thus develop the contributions that this gave to science.

This delimitation should be included in the thesis of the biography, which is in the introduction.

4- Language function: informative

The type of language that should be used in biographies is the referential or informative, since what is sought is to transmit information about the life of the individual studied.

5- Organization

Most biographies follow chronological order. Because it is a narrative about real events, beginning in the early years of life of the figure in question could provide details that facilitate the reader's understanding.

The chronological order can be divided into stages of life; For example: birth and childhood, adult life and death (in case the subject studied has died).

However, the organization of the text will depend on the needs of the author. Some of the most common non-chronological models are:

• By subjects that have affected the studied subject or phases that it has crossed. For example, a biography about the painter Pablo Picasso could focus on the periods of works of this: cubist, blue, pink, black, among others.
• By interviews: In this case, the data presented are obtained through interviews with people who knew, or know, the subject studied. In this sense, the biographical text will be a recount of the testimonies of the interviewees.
• In media res: This is a literary term that refers to the anachronistic order, in which analepsis (jumps in time into the past) and prolepsis (jumps in time into the future) are used.

This means that the text does not begin with the birth of the individual but at some point in the life of the individual, and from there"leaps"to past events, and then return to the point where the story began.

Stuart, A Life Backwards, by author Alexander Masters, is an example of this type of biography.

6- Recount of at least one relevant event in the person's life

The biography must include at least one event highlighting the life of the individual being studied; This will make the text interesting to the reader.

For example, if you make a biography about Antoine Lavoisier , One should speak of its discovery, the law of conservation of mass; If it is a biography about the scientist John Dalton , It would be appropriate to talk about the atomic theory raised by it and how it was influenced by the discoveries of other scientists of the time.

7- Veracity

The most important feature of a biography is that it must be truthful and precise, since it is about the life of a person.

In this sense, the sources of information must be carefully checked, to determine if what they transmit is true or not.

The best sources of information in these cases are autobiographies, books and letters written by the individual studied, interviews with the individual (in case he has not died) and interviews with other people who are related, or who have been related, With the individual.

• How to write a biography. Retrieved on May 9, 2017, from grammar.yourdictionary.com.
• How to write a biography (with examples). Retrieved on May 9, 2017, from wikihow.com.
• Narrative essay biographical essay. Retrieved on May 9, 2017, from phschool.com.
• Biography. Retrieved on May 9, 2017, from yourdictionary.com.
• How do you start a biography? Retrieved on May 9, 2017, from quora.com.
• Biography. Retrieved on May 9, 2017, from homeofbob.com.
• Characteristics of good biographies. Retrieved on May 9, 2017, from education.com.

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Understanding and appreciating the qualities that make us human can be a journey of self-discovery, a tool for character development, or a compass for personal growth. 

Whether you’re a teacher nurturing these traits in your students, a mental health professional guiding your clients, a writer crafting compelling characters, or simply someone seeking to better understand yourself and others — this resource is for you.

At Good Good Good , we celebrate stories of good people making a positive difference in the world . So, it made sense for us to compile this guide of diverse vocabulary to describe the qualities of a good person.

Remember: No one person can have every good quality — but every person does have some good qualities. We each have an opportunity and an obligation to continue to grow and improve ourselves.

Like Maya Angelou said , “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

We’ve curated the most comprehensive list of positive character traits on the internet. From Adventurous to Zealous, this guide serves as a testament to the multifaceted dimensions of character that make us uniquely human.

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Biography And Character Profile Of Joshua From The Bible

M any Christians have learned and sung the song, “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho ” when they were younger. Although the song tells of the famous battle, what many people do not know is that Joshua became the successor to Moses and led the Israelites into the Promised Land. Joshua’s story and character profile is one that all Christians should appreciate.

Joshua’s early life 

We first find Joshua called upon by Moses not long after leaving Egypt to select men and go out and fight against Amalek, whom had come to fight against the Israelites. During the battle when Moses held up his hand and Israel would prevail in battle. However, when he tired of holding up his hand and lowered it, the forces of Amalek prevailed (Exodus 17:8-16).

This gave cause to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and a man named Hur to provide a rock for Moses to sit on so that they could hold up Moses’ hands until the battle was done at sundown. Joshua and the Israelites won the battle and the Lord told Moses to write what happened and tell it to Joshua, adding that he would one day put out of remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. This is the first suggestion that Joshua would play a greater role in the future.

Later, as Moses was called up upon Mount Sinai a second time, he took Joshua with him as his minister (Exodus 24:13). Joshua continued to serve as a minister, or servant, to Moses that proved not only his devotion to Moses, but also to God (Exodus 33:11; Numbers 11:25-30). When Moses came down off Mount Sinai another time after receiving the law engraved in stones by God it was Joshua, who accompanied him, that first noticed the noise coming from the Israelite camp as they were singing and dancing while they worshiped a golden calf (Exodus 32:15-19).

Joshua’s testimony

Joshua proved his faithfulness when called upon by Moses, as directed by God, to choose a man from each tribe to go into the Promised Land and spy out the land and bring back a report (Numbers 13). The men returned after 40 days and gave their report. Ten of the spies reported that the land was flowing with milk and honey and even brought a sample of the fruit they had found. However, they also reported that the land had walled cities and large numbers of people, including the Amalekites, among other powerful groups.

One of the spies, Caleb tried to calm the people and challenged them to immediately go and conquer the land. Instead of being inspired, the other spies began discouraging the people by telling them that the people living there were too strong and could not be conquered. Upon hearing this, the people began an all-night vigil of weeping and complaining that Moses and Aaron had led them into the desert to die. They soon decided that they should get new leadership and return to Egypt. This reaction caused Moses and Aaron to fall on their faces before the people.

Joshua and Caleb could not believe what they were hearing so they tore their clothes in anguish and began speaking to the people. They told of the riches of the land and rebuked them for rebelling against the Lord. The people responded by picking up stones to stone them. Immediately the glory of the Lord appeared before them in the Tabernacle. The Lord told Moses that He was going to destroy the people and make of Moses a greater nation.

When Moses heard this, he pleaded with God not to destroy them. God then pardoned the people and proclaimed that those who were 20 years old and up that had rebelled would die in the wilderness. Those that had not rebelled, along with the little ones, would be led into the land by Caleb and Joshua. This led to great morning among the people.

Long after, God showed Moses the Promised Land from the top of Mount Abram. He told Moses that he would not be entering the Promised Land. Moses responded by asking God to appoint a man over the congregation (Numbers 27:12-23). It was then that God told Moses to take Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest in front of the congregation of people and ordain him as the leader to take them into the Promised Land.

After the death of Moses, the Lord told Joshua to take the people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. Joshua did what God commanded him to do and after many battles and trying times Joshua called the people together to renew their covenant with God (Joshua 24). He challenged them as follows:

Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:14-15)

With this challenge, the people responded that they chose to serve God and reject the other gods of the people who lived among them. Joshua marked their words by building a stone memorial as a witness to their proclamation.

Unfortunately, as the people went back into the land, they did not keep their commitment. Instead they adopted the cultures, practices, and gods of those around them. Likewise, they intermarried with the others as they had said they would not do. This resulted in the angel of the Lord rebuking them. The people were grieved and only then did they serve the Lord while Joshua continued as their leader (Judges 2:1-9).

Eventually, Joshua died, along with all of those of his generation, and a new generation arose after them. They did not know of the Lord or the mighty works he had done for Israel. Without Godly leadership and education, they abandoned the Lord and followed after other gods. This resulted in God allowing them to be conquered and sold into slavery once again (Judges 2:10-15).  

Joshua’s legacy

• Joshua was a servant: Exodus 24:13; Exodus 33:11; Numbers 11:25-30
• Joshua was a man of great faith: Numbers 14:6-10; Joshua 7:6-26; Joshua 24
• Joshua was a man of great courage: Exodus 17:8-16; Numbers 13; Joshua 6
• Joshua was a Godly leader that inspired holiness: Numbers 27:12-23; Joshua 24-Judges 2:9
• Joshua was a prophet: Joshua 6:26; 1 Kings 16:34

Joshua started out as a brave man who served Moses, both as a servant and military leader. As he spent time with Moses, his faith grew to such that he was undeterred by what most people considered to be insurmountable challenges. This led him to be more courageous as he constantly sought God’s counsel and strength. While he was a leader that challenged people to be faithful and holy, his death revealed a weakness in those who came after him to carry on his example to the next generations. Joshua serves as an example to believers of how humility, devotion, and faith can empower us to become great leaders for God.

Take a look at this article about some more men in the Bible: 7 Great Men of the Bible

Resources – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, King James Version

Tagged as: Bible character study Joshua , Joshua , Joshua son of Nun

Article by Dr Michael L Williams

Dr. Michael L. Williams is a pastor, author, Christian educator and Biblical counselor who has served in ministry since 2001. Dr. Mike holds under-graduate through post graduate degrees in Christian Education and formerly worked as a nurse. He is a Christ-centered counselor and in addition to counseling, he teaches how to overcome life issues Biblically on topics such as anger management, marriage, addictions, and other subjects typically referred to as mental illnesses. Dr. Mike has worked in the information technology field for many years and he uses his talents and experience in the ministry for the glory of the Lord. Dr. Mike and his wife, Pamela Rose, live in Northeast Ohio and they have children and grandchildren that live in various states. Learn more about Dr. Mike at Christianity Every Day .

Dr Michael L has written 155 articles on What Christians Want To Know! Read them in the archive below.

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How George Washington’s Personal and Physical Characteristics Helped Him Win the Presidency

Although he didn't campaign and didn't want to leave the quiet life of his plantation, Washington was hardly surprised by the news. After all, he was a national hero for engineering the Continental Army's surprising victory in the American Revolution, and he had the full respect and admiration of his fellow statesmen. As Henry Lee later put it, Washington had become "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

Still, there was a man behind the myth, and it was the combination of his characteristics, some innate and others carefully developed, that made Washington the obvious choice to take charge at this stage of the nascent country's history.

Washington had a strong moral character

While the story of young Washington admitting to felling a cherry tree was invented by a biographer, the fable underscores the degree to which he was held as a person of impeccable character.

Learning to control his ambitions and temper as a young man, he impressed colleagues with an even-keeled demeanor and adherence to strong moral values. Observed Abigail Adams , wife of Washington's vice president, John Adams : "He is polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity; modest, wise and good."

Washington's lofty reputation was upheld by his actions. He refused to be paid for commanding the Continental Army, only requesting to be reimbursed for expenses, and he resigned his military commission after his popularity surged at the close of the Revolution, putting his allegiance to the republic ahead of a desire for personal gain.

He was easy to talk to

Although he was born into the Virginia gentry, Washington did not travel abroad for the private education that was provided to his older half-brothers. So he was acutely aware of his perceived shortcomings and took pains to mold himself into a dignified gentleman.

This involved the memorization of The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation , a guide written by Jesuit priests 150 years earlier, as well as the study of the noblemen in his life and acquired proficiency in activities like dancing, fencing and horsemanship.

Washington's mastery of social interaction naturally translated to the political arena. For all his authority, he came across as agreeable in conversation and sought to find areas of common ground. His political skill went a long way toward bridging the quarreling sides at the 1787 Constitutional Convention and ratifying the document now held sacred in American law.

Washington was large in stature and presence

As befitting a military hero, Washington cut a formidable presence. A contemporary in the 1750s described him as "measuring six feet two inches in his stockings and weighing 175 pounds. ... His frame is padded with well-developed muscles, indicating great strength." The admirer also praised Washington's "commanding countenance," as well as his "graceful" and "majestic" movements.

By the time he became president, the 57-year-old Washington was certainly less agile but even more imposing at upward of 200 pounds. By then he had survived an array of life-threatening situations, from contracting smallpox as a teenager and baptism by fire in the battlefields of the French and Indian War to the harsh winter of Valley Forge, rendering him a larger-than-life figure.

He dressed fashionably

Washington learned the value of sharp attire while studying the Virginia nobility he so admired, eventually noting that "nothing adds more to the appearance of a man than dress." This produced his devotion to a suitable wardrobe after establishing himself as a surveyor and a landowner, ordering garments from a London tailor to accommodate his height and long limbs.

Washington also understood the symbolic value of clothing: He arrived in full military uniform at the Second Continental Congress in 1775, signaling that he was ready to battle the British, and insisted that his servicemen also dress in a professional manner. As president, he dismissed the idea of appearing in the garish robes of European monarchs for portraits, preferring to be depicted in conservative American-made suits.

Washington studied hard so he could command with ease

While not regarded in the same vein as Thomas Jefferson , Alexander Hamilton and other heralded scholars of the era, Washington was no slouch in matters of intellect. From his early setbacks as a young officer, he studied military books to improve his understanding of battlefield strategies, gaining insights that shaped his directions during the crucial moments of the American Revolution.

Afterward, he became fully versed in principles of government and formed his own strong convictions as to what the burgeoning democracy should become. As a result, when it came time to move forward with the presidency, Washington was prepared to follow the guidance of his Jefferson-Hamilton cabinet and he was ready to lead with his own sense of direction, as he had done while commanding the charge for independence on the battlefield.

American Revolutionaries

Cesare Beccaria

Samuel Adams

Andrew Jackson

George Rogers Clark

Roger Sherman

James Monroe

Martha Washington

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The No. 1 personality trait employers always look for, from a workplace psychologist with 10+ years experience: It's 'universally valuable'

As a workplace psychologist with over a decade of experience, I specialize in helping organizations create great experiences for their employees and job candidates. 

I speak with hundreds of executives and HR professionals every year about what is most important to them. While they occasionally have concerns about how to deal with trends like "quiet quitting," hiring good talent is always at the top of their priority lists.

Conscientiousness is the top trait that employers always look for in new hires. Here's what that means, and why it's in demand.

The personality trait employers prize the most: Conscientiousness

You may be familiar with the five factor model , also known as the set of Big Five personality traits.

• Openness to experience : Huge capacity for curiosity and imagination
• Conscientiousness : Organized, responsible and hard working
• Extraversion : Gregarious and energized by social interactions
• Agreeableness : Cooperative and unselfish
• Emotional stability : Secure and has predictable emotional reactions

While each of these personality traits can be important for certain positions, conscientiousness predicts performance across many jobs. That makes it universally valuable for employers. 

Conscientiousness transcends specific job tasks. Very often, the initial role that someone is hired for will change as the needs of the organization evolve. So employees who have this trait are more likely to find success, regardless of the job. 

How you can demonstrate conscientiousness 

During the hiring process, there are a few simple ways you can show potential employers that you possess this key trait.

Many pre-hire personality assessments are rooted in the Big Five, and employers use them to better understand candidates' knowledge, skills, abilities and characteristics.

Then there is the interview itself. Effective interview questions will often ask about a time you engaged in a specific behavior that is relevant to the job as a way to better gauge your organizational skills and work ethic .

DON'T MISS:  The ultimate guide to acing your interview and landing your dream job

When presented with these types of questions, use a consistent structure to demonstrate your conscientiousness: Explain the context, describe what you did, share the results and what you learned from the experience.

Recruiters and hiring managers observe candidates' responsiveness to calls and emails, punctuality and professionalism — subtle cues that are all proxies for conscientiousness. So show up on time and proofread any written material to demonstrate that you can be counted on to take work seriously.

This continues even after you land the job. Employers and managers take note of small behaviors that indicate care, meticulousness and proactivity.

How to become more conscientious

If you're not quite sure about your level of conscientiousness, do some reflection. You can talk with a trusted friend or colleague, or take a Big Five personality assessment online.

If you find that you're conscientious, that's great. Emphasize your diligence and work ethic.

If these traits don't come naturally to you, though, that's OK. You may be able to establish supports where you need them. Introverts, for example, tend to get drained by the constant social interaction that is common in workplaces. But they can still be highly successful by setting boundaries for themselves and carving out dedicated time to focus and recharge.

The same is true for conscientiousness. If you aren't the most naturally organized employee, identify tools to help you stay on top of things, whether that is a digital assistant, time management coaching or a weekly calendar review.

Conscientiousness is a durable, transferrable trait that will always be sought out by employers. For people serious about finding a fulfilling job, it's essential to be true to yourself.

If conscientiousness isn't your strength, don't pretend otherwise. That said, with practice, there are ways to develop that muscle. This will take some effort, but it might just help you land your next big job.

Dr. Benjamin Granger is Chief Workplace Psychologist and Head of EX Advisory Services at Qualtrics. He has over a decade of experience building Experience Management (XM) programs across the globe and leads EX thought leadership and research initiatives across Qualtrics and the XM Institute.

Granger is an instructor in CNBC's new online course How to Ace Your Job Interview , which teaches what hiring managers are really looking for, body language techniques, what to say and not to say, and the best way to talk about pay. CNBC Make It readers can save 25% with discount code 25OFF.

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Technological characteristics and nutritional value of powdered functional mixes

Pavlina Doykina 1 , Dasha Mihaylova 2 , Aneta Popova 1 * and Maria Dimitrova-Dimova 1

1 Department of Catering and nutrition, University of food technologies, 4002 Plovdiv, Bulgaria 2 Department of Biotechnology, University of food technologies, 4002 Plovdiv, Bulgaria

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Commercially available functional blends are products that combine various ingredients to provide specific health benefits. They can be used in the food industry, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other fields. These mixes are usually in powdered form, making them easy to mix into drinks or incorporate into recipes. The ingredients in powdered functional mixes can vary widely depending on the specific product and its purpose. They often combine a range of vitamins, minerals, herbs, plant extracts and other bioactive compounds in a convenient form. The nutritional value of powdered functional mixes can vary depending on the specific ingredients included. They can contain essential vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C, vitamin D, iron, calcium. Some mixes may also include protein, fibre, omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, among others. The present study aims at systematizing the commercially available combinations by highlighting their potential health benefits as well as their nutritional value. In addition, physico-chemical indicators (incl. colour characteristics, water activity, solubility, water-holding capacity, moisture and ash content) of selected functional mixtures and their most common applications will also be presented. Differences in all studied parameters have been established, i.e. aw ranging from 0.38 to 0.54 and vitamin C content (mg %) – from 0.36 to 12.25.

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2024

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RSC Advances

Cobalt-doped zinc oxide based memristors with nociceptor characteristics for bio-inspired technology †.

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Physics, University of Lakki Marwat, Lakki Marwat, KP, Pakistan E-mail: [email protected]

b Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, WI, USA

c Faculty of Chemical Engineering, New Uzbekistan University, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

d Scientific and Innovation Department, Tashkent State Pedagogical University, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

e Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Taif University, P.O. BOX. 110, 21944 Taif, Saudi Arabia

f Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif, Saudi Arabia

g Department of Physics, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Neuromorphic computing is a new field of information technology, which is inspired by the biomimetic properties of the memristor as an electronic synapse and neuron. If there are electronic receptors that can transmit exterior impulses to the internal nervous system, then the use of memristors can be expanded to artificial nerves. In this study, a layer type memristor is used to build an artificial nociceptor in a very feasible and straightforward manner. An artificial nociceptor is demonstrated here through the fabrication and characterization of a cobalt-doped zinc oxide (CZO)/Au based memristor. In order to increase threshold switching performance, the surface effects of the CZO layer are eliminated by adding cobalt cobalt-doped zinc oxide (CZO) layer between the P ++ -Si and Au electrodes. Allodynia, hyperalgesia, threshold, and relaxation are the four distinct nociceptive behaviours that the device displays based on the strength, rate of relapse, and duration of the external stimuli. The electrons that are trapped in or released from the CZO layer's traps are responsible for these nociceptive behaviours. A multipurpose nociceptor performance is produced by this type of CZO-based device, which is crucial for artificial intelligence system applications such as neural integrated devices with nanometer-sized characteristics.

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Cobalt-doped zinc oxide based memristors with nociceptor characteristics for bio-inspired technology

N. U. Rehman, A. Ullah, M. A. Mahmood, N. Rahman, M. Sohail, S. Iqbal, N. Juraev, K. Althubeiti, S. Al Otaibi and R. Khan, RSC Adv. , 2024,  14 , 11797 DOI: 10.1039/D4RA01250J

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• Open access
• Published: 10 April 2024

The genome of Citrus australasica reveals disease resistance and other species specific genes

• Upuli Nakandala 1 , 2 ,
• Agnelo Furtado 1 , 2 ,
• Ardashir Kharabian Masouleh 1 , 2 ,
• Malcolm W. Smith 3 ,
• Darren C. Williams 4 &
• Robert J. Henry   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4060-0292 1 , 2  

BMC Plant Biology volume  24 , Article number:  260 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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The finger lime ( Citrus australasica ), one of six Australian endemic citrus species shows a high natural phenotypic diversity and novel characteristics. The wide variation and unique horticultural features have made this lime an attractive candidate for domestication. Currently no haplotype resolved genome is available for this species. Here we present a high quality, haplotype-resolved reference genome for this species using PacBio HiFi and Hi-C sequencing.

Hifiasm assembly and SALSA scaffolding resulted in a collapsed genome size of 344.2 Mb and 321.1 Mb and 323.2 Mb size for the two haplotypes. The nine pseudochromosomes of the collapsed genome had an N50 of 35.2 Mb, 99.1% genome assembly completeness and 98.9% gene annotation completeness (BUSCO). A total of 41,304 genes were predicted in the nuclear genome. Comparison with C. australis revealed that 13,661 genes in pseudochromosomes were unique in C. australasica . These were mainly involved in plant-pathogen interactions, stress response, cellular metabolic and developmental processes, and signal transduction. The two genomes showed a syntenic arrangement at the chromosome level with large structural rearrangements in some chromosomes. Genetic variation among five C. australasica cultivars was analysed. Genes related to defense, synthesis of volatile compounds and red/yellow coloration were identified in the genome. A major expansion of genes encoding thylakoid curvature proteins was found in the C. australasica genome.

Conclusions

The genome of C. australasica present in this study is of high quality and contiguity. This genome helps deepen our understanding of citrus evolution and reveals disease resistance and quality related genes with potential to accelerate the genetic improvement of citrus.

Peer Review reports

Citrus are among the most valued fruits and are cultivated in more than 140 countries in the world [ 1 ]. There are six wild citrus species which are endemic to Australia. Citrus australasica F.Muell (Australian finger lime) is naturally found in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales and commercially grown in a number of countries around the world. C. australasica is unique among the citrus with finger shaped cylindrical fruits with a distinct pulp which resembles a caviar [ 2 ]. The acidic fruit are often used to prepare jams, sauces and drinks, and dried peel is being used as a spice [ 3 ]. A high natural phenotypic diversity has been recorded for this species with over 65 cultivars described from the wild [ 4 ]. Many cultivars are also being developed by hybridization of C. australasica with other citrus species [ 3 ] and collectively these accessions have been vegetatively propagated by grafting onto a range of different rootstocks [ 5 ]. These accessions are diverse in skin colour [ 2 ], volatile constituents [ 6 ], phytochemical composition of the fruits [ 7 ], taste and seediness of the fruits, and size and shape of the trees [ 5 ]. Sexual compatibility between C. australasica and other citrus has led to the development of hybrids such as Blood lime ( C. limonia Osbeck X C. australasica ), Sunrise lime [( C. australasica X Fortunella sp. (Champ. ex Benth.) Swingle) X C. reticulata )], Sydney hybrid ( C. australasica X C. australis Planch.), Faustrime [ C. australasica X ( C. aurantifolia (Christm.) Swingle X F. japonica (Thunb.) Swingle))], and Minnie Finger Lime ( C. inodora F.M. Bailey X C. australasica ) [ 8 , 9 ].

Huanglongbing (HLB) disease is one of the most devastating diseases causing severe yield reductions and economic impacts to citrus industries [ 10 ]. The disease has caused large scale disruptions in citrus industries in more than 40 countries around the world including those in Asia, Africa and all citrus growing states in the United States [ 11 , 12 ]. HLB is caused by three species of closely related bacteria: Candidatus liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), C. liberibacter africanus (Claf) and C. liberibacter americanus (CLam), with the first strain of these species being the most destructive and widespread around the world. The disease is transmitted by an insect vector; Asian citrus psyllid ( Diaphorina citri ) [ 13 ]. Most commercial cultivars are susceptible to the disease, resulting in reduced yield and a deterioration of quality [ 14 , 15 ]. Tolerance to HLB disease has been identified in a limited number of citrus accessions and related genera including some citrus cultivars with citrons as a parent [ 16 ], Sugar Belle mandarin hybrid [ 17 ], C. maxima (Burm.) (pummelo) [ 18 ], C. hystrix DC. (Kaffir lime) [ 19 ], C. latipes Swingle (khasi papeda) [ 20 ], C. Cavalerie H. Lev. ex Cavalerie ‘2586’ [ 21 ], C. trifoliata L. (Syn. P. Trifoliata ) [ 22 ], and some accessions of Murraya paniculata (L.) [ 23 ]. Australian wild limes such as C. australasica , C. australis , C. glauca (Lindlay) Burkill, C. inodora and their hybrids, have been reported with tolerance/resistance/partial resistance to this disease [ 15 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ].

High quality reference genomes provide a key resource to better understand the genetics underpinning complex plant agronomical/physiological traits. Here we present the high quality, haplotype resolved genome of C. australasica , assembled with PacBio Hifi reads, and Hi-C reads and further manually curated based on our previously assembled C. australis genome. The structural and functional characterization of this C. australasica genome was used to explore important defense related genes, the genetic variation present within five cultivars of the species, and for comparative genomic analysis against the haplotype resolved genome of C. australis [ 27 ]. The genome presented in this study should help to accelerate the genetic improvement of citrus by providing a valuable foundation to study genetic resistance to HLB, better understand the genomic diversity present within the species, and examine comparative biology and evolutionary relationships with other citrus species.

Sample collection, DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing, Hi-C sequencing

Young fresh immature leaves of five cultivars of Citrus australasica (cultivar names and their morphological characteristics are given in Table S1 ) were collected from Herbalistics Pty Ltd private orchard located in Maroochy River, Queensland, Australia. Cultivar 2 (Rainbow) was used for genome assembly and other four cultivars were used for variant analysis. Citrus species reported in this study were given their botanical authorities according to Mabberly, 2022 [ 28 ]. Genomic DNA was extracted from pulverized leaf tissues using a CTAB (Cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide) DNA extraction protocol [ 29 ]. HiFi reads from Rainbow were generated from two PacBio Sequel II SMRT cells at The Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF), The University of Queensland, Australia. Total RNA from Rainbow was extracted from pulverized leaves using Trizol and Qiagen kit methods [ 30 ] and was sequenced at the AGRF, The University of Queensland, Australia. Snap frozen fresh young leaves from the same individual were sent for Hi-C sequencing at The Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics, University of New South Wales, Australia. The Hi-C library preparation was done using Phase Genomics Proximo Plant Hi-C version 4.0. Illumina sequencing for other four cultivars were performed at AGRF, Victorian comprehensive cancer centre, Melbourne.

Genome assembly and annotation

Genome assembly was performed with PacBio high fidelity (HiFi) reads and Hi-C reads using the Hifiasm Denovo assembler [ 31 ]. Detailed assembly pipeline with different parameters in HiFiasm algorithm can be referred in our previous publication [ 27 ]. Contig assemblies generated by hifiasm was scaffolded by Hi-C data using three aligners [Bowtie2 [ 32 ], Chromap [ 33 ], and BWA [ 34 ]], and three latest scaffolding techniques [SALSA [ 35 ], YaHS [ 36 ], pin_hic [ 37 ]. The details for scaffolding are given in Figure S1 and Table S2 and Method S1. The BWA aligner + Arima mapping ( https://github.com/ArimaGenomics/mapping_pipeline ) + SALSA scaffolding pipeline was selected as the final assembly based on the high contiguity, and the presence of telomeres in scaffolds. In this pipeline, Hi-C reads were first mapped to the Hi-C integrated Hifiasm draft assembly with BWA aligner using Arima-HiC mapping pipeline. BWA first built an index of the contig assembly. Read pairs generated from sequencing were first independently aligned to the reference genome (as single-ends) using BWA-MEM using an end-to-end algorithm. Then 5’-side of the chimeric reads were filtered using filter five end.pl script. After filtering, the filtered single-end Hi-C reads were paired using “two_read_bam_combiner.pl,” which output a sorted, mapping quality filtered, paired-end BAM file for each lane of the sequencing. Read groups were added to the BAM file using Picard tools. Then the paired-end BAM files that were sequenced via two Illumina lanes from the same library were merged and PCR duplicated were removed using Picard tools. The final BAM file was converted to a BED file using bamToBed command from the Bedtools package and was sorted to be used by SALSA. SALSA was used in -e option by specifying the restriction site for the Sau3AI/DpnII endonucleases (GATC). Assigning of contigs to pseudo chromosomes were further supported by manual curation as explained in Table S3 .

Genome assembly and annotation completeness was determined using BUSCO in viridiplantae lineage (BUSCO v5.2.2) [ 38 ] and the contiguity was assessed using QUAST (version 5.0.2) [ 39 ]. Scaffolds were aligned with the previously published genome, C. australis [ 27 ] to assign them to pseudo chromosomes using D-Genies v.1.4 [ 40 ]. The telomeres in pseudochromosomes were identified manually and by telomere identification toolkit (tidk) ( https://github.com/tolkit/telomeric-identifier ). Ribosomal RNA gene repeats (5s/5.8s/18s/28S rRNA) and satellite repeats at the ends of the scaffolds were detected by nucleotide BLAST in NCBI. The K-mer analysis was performed using Jellyfish (v2.2.10) [ 41 ] and Genomescope [ 42 ]. Repeat elements in the genome were de novo detected by Repeatmodeler2 version 2.0.1 [ 43 ] followed by soft masking by Repeatmasker version 4.0.9_p2 [ 44 ]. Quality and adapter trimmed RNA-seq reads were aligned to the soft masked genome using HISAT2 [ 45 ]. Structural and functional annotations were performed as mentioned in our previous publication [ 27 ]. Gene prediction was performed using Braker3 ( https://github.com/Gaius-Augustus/BRAKER ).

Structural and functional differences between C. australasica and C. australis genomes

Orthologous gene clusters enriched in C. australasica and C. australis were identified using Orthofinder algorithm incorporated in Orthovenn3 [ 46 ]. Pairwise sequence similarities among the longest protein isoform of each protein coding gene of the two species were calculated with an e-value cut off of 1e − 5. The structure of orthologous clusters was defined with an inflation value of 1.5. Unique and shared gene families in C. australasica collapsed and haplotype genomes were identified using the above same parameters. The biological processes and molecular functions associated with unique genes were retrieved from combined graph module and the associated pathways were identified from KEGG analysis in OmicsBox 3.0.30. The structural and sequence differences between the two soft-masked genomes of C. australis and C. australasica at the whole genome level were predicted using Synteny and Rearrangement Identifier (SyRI) [ 47 ]. The whole genome alignments were conducted with nucmer with --maxmatch to get all alignments between the two genomes including the -c 100 -b 500 -l 50 parameters. The alignments were filtered using the delta-filter tool and subsequently converted to tab-delimited files using the show-coords command. Syri was used with default parameters and the genomic structures predicted by syri was plotted by plotsr.

The variant analysis for five different C. australasica cultivars

All analysis was undertaken using CLC Genomics Workbench v23,0.4 (Qiagen, USA). Illumina reads from the five cultivars (Table S1 ) were quality trimmed at 0.01 quality limit (Phred score of 20 and above). They were mapped to the chromosome level assembly of an unmasked reference genome of Rainbow. The reads were mapped using the “map reads to reference” algorithm and the mapping options of Match score (1), Mismatch cost (2), Linear gap cost [Insertion cost (3), Deletion cost (3)], Auto-detect paired distances – yes, Non-specific match handling – map randomly. Mapping was performed at four different mapping stringencies (Figure S2 ) to select the best mapping setting for the read alignment based on the mapping percentage. The mapping setting of Length fraction of 0.9 and similarity fraction of 0.9 were used as the optimal mapping setting for all the read alignments. The duplicated reads derived from PCR amplification during the sequencing library preparation were removed from the read mappings to avoid creating false positive SNPs in subsequent variant analysis. Structural variant analysis was performed to identify erroneous variants involving insertions, deletions, inversions, translocations, and tandem duplications. Then the local realignment was performed to improve the alignments of the reads in the initial read mapping typically around the erroneous INDEL regions with respect to the reference. The read mappings were then subjected to Fixed ploidy variant detection (FPVD) tool using five minimum frequencies (MF) (Figure S3 ) and 20% MF was selected as the optimal MF to capture the highest number of single nucleotide variant positions (SNVs). FPVD was performed at the settings of minimum coverage (10), minimum count (2) and minimum frequency (%) (20%). The number of homozygous SNVs (homozygous positions) filtered at 100% variant frequency and the number of heterozygous SNV positions with the frequency ranged between 20 − 80% for the two alleles were calculated in all the cultivars in the whole genome and in the CDS regions with respect to the reference Rainbow genome. The heterozygosity for each cultivar was determined by heterozygous SNV positions as a percentage of Rainbow genome size (344 Mb; estimated by genome assembly).

The identification of genes related to metabolic pathways and defense in C. australasica

The key genes involved in the biosynthesis of terpenoids, and anthocyanins were identified by KEGG pathway analysis [ 48 ] using Omics Box 3.0.30 and were further verified by BLAST homology search of other citrus species with an e-value of 1.0E-5, in CLC Genomics Workbench 23.0.4 as mentioned in our previous publication [ 27 ]. The antimicrobial proteins were identified based on functional annotation BLAST descriptions and stable antimicrobial peptide (SAMP) homologs were detected by BLAST homology searches against the published SAMP sequence of C. australasica [ 26 ]. The variations between the gene sequences and the corresponding amino acid sequences of SAMP of C. australasica were identified using Clone Manager Ver. 9. The whole genome short reads of C. australasica cultivars were mapped to the SAMP homolog of Rainbow genome in CLC using the map reads to reference option with mapping settings of Match score (1), Mismatch cost (2), Linear gap cost [Insertion cost (3), Deletion cost (3)], Length fraction of 0.9 and similarity fraction of 0.9. Defense related genes were mapped onto chromosomes using shinyCircos-V2.0 [ 49 ]. Collinear genes in C. australasica genome were identified using MCScanX toolkit. For MCScanX, the homology was first searched using the longest isoform of protein coding genes using BLASTP with an e-value threshold of 10 − 10 [ 50 ]. The collinear file was then trans-formatted for micro-synteny view using TBtools [ 51 ].

Chromosome scale genome assembly of C. australasica

Hifi reads with Q33 median read quality were generated from two PacBio SMRT cells yielding 39 Gb (115X) and 37 Gb (108X) of sequence respectively. Hi-C paired end Illumina reads generated from two lanes yielded a total of 768 M reads with a total of 116 Gb data. Hifiasm was run with two options; Hifi reads only and the Hi-C integrated (Hifi reads + Hi-C reads) option (Table S4 ). The Hifi-reads-only assembly yielded a slightly better contig assembly with a total size of 407 Mb (1,569 contigs), having a 99.3% complete BUSCO and an N50 of 31.7 Mb. The Hi-C integrated Hifi assembly yielded a collapsed assembly with 2,224 contigs (with a total size of 436 Mb), a 99.1% complete BUSCO and an N50 of 31.4 Mb. The two assemblies were independently subjected to scaffolding with Hi-C data.

Scaffolding was performed with Hi-C data using three scaffolding tools using two different pipelines (Figure S1 ). The results were compared by checking the telomeres at the ends of the scaffolds, the N50 for the whole assembly and by aligning the scaffold assemblies with the previously published genome of C. australis [ 27 ] (Table S2 a- S2 g). The Hi-C integrated assembly, assembled by BWA + Arima mapping and the SALSA pipeline was selected as the final best assembly based on the high contiguity, completeness, and the presence of telomeric repeats at the ends of the scaffolds (Method S1, Table S2 e). The scaffolds that could be assigned to chromosome level based on the alignments with C. australis are shown in Table S2 e. The scaffold assembly generated a total of 2,208 scaffolds (with a total length of 436 Mb) with a 99.1% complete BUSCO and an N50 of 33.5 Mb (Table S5 ).

The top eleven longest scaffolds in the collapsed genome were selected to represent the nine pseudochromosomes as they had the same total BUSCO score (99.1%) as the whole assembly and were anchored to pseudochromosomes by aligning with C. australis genome. (Table S5 ). The pseudochromosomes were labeled as Chr1-Chr9 based on the order of C. australis genome. The orientations of the C. australasica chromosomes were determined based on those of C. australis chromosomes (Figure S4 a). Seven pseudochromosomes were composed of one contig. Chr8 was composed of two contigs which were joined by Hi-C. Chr4 was generated by manually joining three scaffolds (manual adjustments) (Table S3 ). Four pseudochromosomes had telomeres at both terminals, three pseudochromosomes had telomeres at one terminal, one pseudochromosome had one telomere at one end and the other at the peri-terminal region, and one pseudochromosome with no telomeric sequences at either end (Figure S4 c). The N50 of the chromosome scale assembly was 35.2 Mb (Table S5 ). There were some scaffolds (SC9, SC10, SC8, SC11 and SC20) with 5.8 S and 28 S rRNA gene repeats at the terminal regions and some scaffolds (SC5, SC9) with high copy number tandem arrays of satellite DNA repeats at their terminal regions (Table S3 ).

Dotplots of scaffolds vs. contig assemblies revealed that some medium sized scaffolds (5 Mb – 1.4 Mb) might belong to the nuclear genome (Figure S4 b). Those scaffolds and two other small scaffolds (0.85 Mb and 0.7 Mb) with telomeres at the terminal regions were included in the final assembly as unplaced scaffolds as they might be parts of the nuclear genome The assembly containing nine pseudochromosomes and the unplaced scaffolds, totaling 344.2 Mb, is henceforth referred to as the “nuclear genome” of C. australasica . The alignment of scaffolds with the C. australasica chloroplast genome revealed the sites of insertion of chloroplast fragments in the nuclear genome (Figure S5 a and S5 b). Some scaffolds smaller than 1.4 Mb might belong to the chloroplast genome (Figure S5 c) and were excluded from the nuclear genome assembly. The heterozygosity of the genome was estimated as 1.28% by K-mer analysis.

The two haplotypes were also assembled using the same pipeline and some manual adjustments were done based on their homology with the collapsed genome. The orientation and chromosome numbers of the chromosome scale pseudomolecules were determined with respect to the collapsed assembly (Figure S6 , Table S3 ). The two haplotypes had 98.9% and 99% BUSCO and an N50 of 32.7 Mb and 34.4 Mb for hap1 and hap2 respectively.

Structural annotation of C. australasica genome

The genome was annotated for repeat elements, and protein coding genes. A large portion of the collapsed genome was covered by interspersed repeats (54.6%) with 34.5% unclassified repeats, 2.64% DNA transposons and 17.5% retro transposons. LTR elements were the dominant type of retroelements where Copia and Gypsy elements were present in equal proportions (6.78%) and Pao elements were found in a very small percentage (0.03%). The other types of repeat elements such as rolling circles (0.42%), small RNA repeats (0.67%), satellite repeats (0.39%), simple repeats (0.97%) and low complexity repeats (0.2%) were found in small proportions in the whole nuclear genome (Table S6 ). RNA-seq trimmed reads (320 million reads, 44 Gb representing 129X coverage of the genome) were used for gene prediction. A total of 36,597 genes were predicted in nine pseudochromosomes of the collapsed genome while 30,050 and 34,139 genes were found for the hap1 and hap2 nine pseudochromosomes respectively (Table  1 ). The annotation statistics of the nuclear genomes (including the unplaced scaffolds) are given in the Table S7 .

Functional annotation of C. australasica genome

The CDS sequences of the collapsed genome (45,935) and the two haplotypes (39,651 of hap1 and 41,516 of hap2) were independently annotated obtaining BLAST hits and GO terms associated with the CDS sequences. BLAST hits were obtained for 40,105 CDS sequences in the collapsed genome and for 35,286 and 39,395 sequences in hap1 and hap2 genomes respectively. Of the sequences with BLAST hits, 21,104 CDS in the collapsed genome, 20,899 CDS in the hap1 genome and 20,966 CDS in the hap2 genome underwent GO mapping and annotation. The majority of the CDS sequences of the collapsed and the two haplotypes received BLAST hits from other citrus species. The highest number of sequences received BLAST hits from C. sinensis (179,114 - collapsed genome, 166,574 - hap1 genome, and 175,964 - hap2 genome), followed by C. clementina (39,949 - collapsed genome, 39,304 - hap1 genome, 39,605 - hap2 genome) and C. unshiu (27,052 - collapsed genome, 26,723 - hap1 genome, 26,784 - hap2 genome) and a small percentage of sequences from other species (Figure S7 a, S7 b, S7 c). Sequences annotated with IPS, their families distribution, GO-levels and enzyme codes of the collapsed genome are shown in Figure S7 d, S7 e, S7 f. The coding potential assessment of the CDS sequences in the collapsed genome with no BLAST hits (5,830) revealed 99.8% and 99.1% CDS with coding potential based on the models from coding and non-coding sequences of Arabidopsis thaliana and citrus respectively. The coding potential of the sequences with no BLAST hits for the two haplotypes also indicated a high number with coding potential (Figure S8 a, S8 b, S8 c, S8 d).

Structural and functional comparison between C. australasica and C. australis genomes and among C. australasica assemblies

The inference of orthologs from orthovenn3 revealed 19,980 shared orthologous clusters between C. australasica and C. australis corresponding to 48,185 shared genes. The number of unique orthologous clusters (gene families) in C. australasica (870) were higher than C. australis (666) (Fig.  1 a). The 870 unique orthologous clusters of C. australasica included 12,748 unique protein coding genes and the 666 unique orthologous clusters of C. australis contained 4,191 unique protein coding genes. In addition to the unique orthologous clusters, there were 4,487 singletons in C. australasica and 5,566 singletons in C. australis, which had no orthologous genes identified in the other species and they could not be assigned to any cluster within the species. Therefore, the genes in unique orthologous clusters and singletons are henceforth referred to as unique genes in each species. Of them, 13,661 unique genes of C. australasica and 8,121 unique genes in C. australis were within their nine chromosomes.

The functional analysis of the unique genes of C. australasica revealed that they were enriched in biological processes including stress response, protein modification, cellular component organization, response to organic substance, transport and regulation of gene expression with molecular functions such as nucleic acid binding, hydrolase activity, protein binding, catalytic activities, ATP binding, oxidoreductase activity and transition metol ion binding. KEGG pathway analysis showed that the unique gene sequences of C. australasica were primarily involved in purine metabolism (155), thiamine metabolism (145), plant-pathogen interactions (92) (Table S8 ) (out of the total 345 genes related to plant-pathogen interactions in C. australsica , 92 genes were unique), phenylpropanoid biosynthesis (55), diterpenoid biosynthesis (48), and Tryptophan metabolism (44) (Figure S9 ). The 92 unique genes associated with plant-pathogen interactions encode disease resistance proteins [NB-ARC domain containing R proteins, nucleotide binding and leucine rich repeat proteins (NLRs), leucine-rich repeat receptor-like protein kinases (LRR-RLKs)], calcium sensor proteins [calcium-dependent protein kinases (CPDKs), calmodulin (CaM) and calmodulin-like proteins (CMLs)], retrovirus-related pol polyproteins, glycerol kinases, pathogenesis-related protein 1, cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channels, and many other hypothetical proteins. The functional analysis of the C. australis unique protein clusters indicated that they were associated with many biological processes including protein modification, cellular component organization, transport, defense response, phosphate containing compound metabolic process. The KEGG analysis showed that the unique genes in C. australis were mainly involved in purine metabolism (80), plant pathogen interactions (76) and Thiamine metabolism (75) (Figure S10 ).

The orthologs comparison among the three assemblies of C. australasica revealed 3,307 genes unique to collapsed genome, 1,676 unique to hap1 genome and 1,696 genes unique to hap2 genome which are in clusters as depicted in Fig.  1 b. In addition, there were 2,155, 1,610, 1,471 singletons identified in the collapsed, hap1 and hap2 assemblies respectively. There were 21,061 shared gene families containing 76,167 shared genes among the three assemblies. There were 13,801 genes (4,078 gene families) shared between collapsed and hap2 assemblies. 8,667 genes (2,745 gene families) were shared between the collapsed and hap1 assembly and 2,830 genes (841 gene families) were shared between the two haplotypes which were not present in the collapsed assembly. Functional characterization of the collapsed and haplotype assemblies specific genes revealed that they were associated with many different cellular, metabolic, biosynthetic processes, and stress responses (Figure S11 ).

The orthologous gene clusters in C. australasica and C. australis genomes identified using Orthovenn3. (a) The orthologous gene clusters present in C. australis and C. australasica . 19,980 orthologous clusters (48,185 genes) were shared between the two species and 666 gene clusters (4,191 genes) and 870 gene clusters (12,748 genes) were unique to C. australis and C. australasica respectively. (b) Orthologous gene clusters among C. australasica collapsed genome and the two haplotype genomes. 21,061 gene clusters (76,167 genes) were shared by three genomes and 709 clusters (3,307 genes), 445 clusters (1,676 genes), and 476 clusters (1,696 genes) were specific to the collapsed, hap1 and hap2 assemblies

Structural and local sequence variations between C. australasica and C. australis genomes revealed the conserved and rearranged regions of the two genomes (Fig.  2 a). Large inversions were found in Chr4 and Chr5 and small inversions were found in all chromosomes. Translocations and duplications were found in all chromosomes and large-scale translocations and duplications were found in Chr3, Chr4, Chr5, Chr7 and Chr8. A relatively smaller number of rearranged regions were found in Chr6, which was the smallest chromosome in both the species. Local sequence variations such as SNPs (5,437,677), insertions (542,557), deletions (445,565), highly diverged regions (4,915) and tandem repeats (137) were annotated in both syntenic and rearranged regions of the two genomes with the help of whole genome alignments (Fig.  2 a). The two haplotype assemblies of C. australasica were found to have many structural variations across the nine pseudochromosomes (Fig.  2 b). A large inversion was present in chr4, and small-scale inversions were found in all chromosomes. Translocations were prominent in chr4, and duplications were prominent in Chr5, Chr7 and Chr8.

Structural genomic differences between C. australasica and C. australis genomes and C. australasica haplotypes. Syntenic regions are indicated in grey color and unaligned regions are shown in white color. Different types of rearranged regions are shown with respective color codes. The analysis was done using Synteny and Rearrangement Identifier (SyRI) (a) The structural comparison between C. australasica and C. australis collapsed assemblies (b) The structural differences between C. australasica haplotypes

Genetic diversity in different C. australasica cultivars

The genetic diversity within C. australasica was determined using five cultivars, including Rainbow for which the genome was assembled in the present study. Illumina reads for the five cultivars (between 9 and 13 Gb data with coverage ranging from 28X – 39X genome size of C. australasica ) were used in the fix ploidy variant analysis using Rainbow as the reference (Table S9 ). Different variant types (insertions, deletions, single and multi-nucleotide variants, and replacements) ranging between 1.9 M and 3.5 M were found for the five cultivars where many of them were SNVs. At the whole genome level, the total number of SNV positions which include heterozygous SNVs and homozygous SNVs (at 100% variant frequency) were in the range between 1.6 M and 2.8 M (Figure S12 ). The total number of SNV variant positions in CDS regions were in the range between 0.1 M and 0.18 M for the five cultivars. Based on the total SNVs, C. australasica cv 3 (Red champagne) and C. australasica cv 1 were the most and less divergent cultivars respectively with respect to Rainbow (Figure S12 ). The heterozygosity estimated based on the Rainbow genome size was the highest for C. australasica cv 3 (Red champagne) (0.56) and the lowest for C. australasica cv 1 (0.35) (Table  2 ).

A selected set of important genes in C. australasica

Disease resistant genes.

A wide array of antimicrobial proteins/peptides (AMPs) were identified through functional annotation in C. australasica collapsed genome. Three antimicrobial genes [g22065 (Chr6), g32276 (Chr8), g34118 (Chr9)] coding for peptides containing stress-responsive A/B barrel domain were identified in the collapsed genome (Fig.  3 ). Of these three genes, g34118 was identified as a homolog to the previously detected short version of stable AMP (SAMP) in HLB resistant citrus species (204 bp) [ 26 ]. The gene g34118 was transcribed into three transcripts of 549 bp, 462 bp, and 330 bp. The third transcript having 330 bp (encoding 110 aa) showed the highest homology with a major portion of the 204 bp SAMP sequence (encoding 67 aa) of the previously reported SAMP of C. australasica with twelve single nucleotide polymorphisms. Similarly, the SAMP homologs, identified in Chr9 of the two haplotypes (hap1; g27559 of 330 bp and, hap2; g31668 of 330 bp) showed 100% identity with the corresponding collapsed SAMP gene (Figure S13 a, S13 b). The SAMP identified in the previous study had two cysteine residues, whereas the Rainbow SAMP homologs had no cysteine residues. In addition to the SAMP sequences, two other types of antimicrobial peptides having the stress-responsive A/B barrel domain were identified in the two haplotypes similar to the collapsed genome (Table S10 ).

The re-annotation of the C. australis genome [ 27 ] using Braker3 identified one SAMP homologous gene encoding two transcripts which are longer than those of C. australasica . The alignment of these two transcripts with C. australasica SAMP sequences showed a homology with them, however it was not as high as the sequence homology of C. australasica SAMP sequences (Figure S14 ). Furthermore, the alignments of the 110 aa antimicrobial peptides found in Rainbow and other HLB resistant and susceptible citrus species with 67 aa of SAMP sequence of C. australasica showed a high aa similarity among all of them (Figure S15 ).

In addition to stress-response A/B barrel domain-containing protein, other types of AMPs such as defensins, thionins, non-specific lipid transfer proteins, snakins, hevein-like proteins, knottin-type peptides were identified in the genome. Other defense-related genes including cysteine-rich receptor-like protein kinases (CRKs), of which 14 genes encoding CRK 10, one encoding CRK 25 and others encoding other types of CRKs were identified in the genome (Table S11 ). There were eleven genes for pathogenesis related (PR) proteins of which three were PR-1 proteins (Fig.  3 , Table S12 ). In addition, the annotation identified 61 leucine rich repeat proteins (LRR) genes, 13 guanine nucleotide-binding proteins (Fig.  3 , Table S13 ), 34 glutathione-S-transferase genes, 28 oxoglutarate (2OG) and Fe(II)-dependent oxygenases, 22 cellulose synthase genes, 26 β-1,3-Glucanase genes, and many other genes related to anthocyanins, terpenoids, amino acids (phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan) and antioxidants (flavonoids, carotenoids, tocopherols) in the Rainbow genome.

The Circos plot indicating the chromosomal locations of defense related genes in the C. australasica genome. Purple indicates the genes encoding leucine rich repeat proteins (LRR), red indicates the genes encoding pathogenesis related (PR) proteins, blue indicates the genes encoding guanine-nucleotide binding proteins and green indicate the genes encoding antimicrobial proteins (stress-responsive A/B barrel domain containing proteins, defensins, thionins, non-specific lipid transfer proteins, snakins, hevein-like proteins, knottin-type proteins). The innermost links indicate the collinear genes within the genome identified by whole genome self-homology and gene location information. Different colors for the links indicate the chromosome of origin of the links. Some collinear genes were identified within the same chromosome while others were identified between chromosomes. Collinear genes represent homologous genes in conserved orders on corresponding chromosomes. Circos plot was generated using shinyCircos-V2.0 and TBtools

Volatile compounds encoding genes

KEGG pathway analysis identified 112 genes involved in terpenoid backbone biosynthesis (Table S14 ), 82 genes for monoterpenoid biosynthesis (including geranyl phosphate, geraniol, linalool, myrcene, limonene, α-terpineol, camphene, neomenthol) (Table S15 ), 89 genes for diterpenoid biosynthesis (Table S16 ) and 48 genes for sesquiterpenoid and triterpenoid biosynthesis (α-farnesene, β-farnesene, germacrene, valencene, β-carophyllene, β-amyrin, α-amyrin, α-humulene) (Table S17 ) in the Rainbow genome.

Curvature thylakoid protein genes

A total of 8,314 genes encoding curvature thylakoid proteins (CURT1) which belong to four isoforms were identified in the genome. There was one gene encoding CURT1A on Chr5 with 495 bp, one gene encoding CURT1B in Chr5 having 510 bp and one gene for CURT1C in Chr1 transcribed into two CDS sequences (465 bp and 444 bp). There were 8,311 genes encoding CURT1D proteins (Table S18 ), with majority of them being identified within the 9 chromosomes. The lowest number of genes (572) were identified in Chr9, and the largest number of genes were identified in Chr8 (1,619) with open reading frames in the CDS sequences. The CURT1D proteins were present as large tandem arrays of gene clusters within the chromosomes with the smallest gene having 252 bp (encoding 84 aa) and the largest gene having 30,726 bp (encoding 10,242 aa). No CURT1 genes were identified in Chr3 and Chr6. In contrast, only 357 CURT1 genes were found in the C. australis genome (Table S19 ).

Red/orange coloration related genes

C. australasica cv Rainbow has a red/yellow warty skin and pink colored clear vesicles inside the fruit. Anthocyanins and β-citraurin are the two major pigments involved in the orange-reddish color of citrus fruits. The structural and regulatory genes involved in anthocyanin production were identified in C. australasica genome. Structural genes involved in the production of enzymes needed for the biosynthesis of anthocyanins are depicted in Figure S16 . A group of upstream genes encoding CHS, CHI, F3H and downstream genes encoding F3’M, F3’5’H, DFR, ANS, UFGT were known to play major roles in pigmentation [ 52 ]. The annotation identified 13 CHS genes, 3 CHI genes, 5 F3H genes, 2 F3’M genes, 1 F3’5’H gene, 2 DFR genes, 1 ANS gene, 2 genes of UFGT (Figure S16 ) (Table S20 ). A total of 11 genes involved in the biosynthesis of major anthocyanins including pelargonidin, pelargonidin-3-sambubioside, cyanidin, cyanidin 3-glucoside, cyanidin 5-glucoside, cyanidin 3,5-diglucoside, cyanidin-3-sambubioside, delphinidin, delphidin-3-sambubioside, delphinidin 3-glucoside were identified in the genome (Fig.  4 ).

Four types of regulatory genes are involved in anthocyanin gene expression in plants. There were two Ruby homologs in Chr6, one bHLH (Noemi) homolog on Chr5, five WD-40 protein encoding genes on Chr1, Chr2, Chr4 and Chr5, and 43 WRKY TF genes (Table S21 ) scattered on all chromosomes in the Rainbow genome.

Anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway of C. australasica reproduced with permission of Kanehisa Laboratories [ 48 ]. The main components in anthocyanin pathway are shown with red asterisks. Phenylalanine undergoes catalysis via a series of steps producing Cinnamic acid, Coumaric acid, 4-Coumaroyl-CoA, Naringenin chalcone, Naringenin, Dihydrokaempferol, Dihydroquercetin, Dihydromyricetin, Leucoanthocyanidins, Anthocyanidins, and Anthocyanins. The major types of anthocyanins identified from the annotation of C. australasica by KEGG analysis were pelargonidin, pelargonidin-3-sambubioside, cyanidin, cyanidin 3-glucoside, cyanidin 5-glucoside, cyanidin 3,5-diglucoside, cyanidin-3-sambubioside, delphinidin, delphidin-3-sambubioside, delphinidin 3-glucoside. The pathways were retrieved from KEGG pathway analysis

β-citraurin is encoded by carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase 4 (CCD4) gene. There were two CCD4 genes identified in collapsed, hap1 and hap2 genomes on Chr7 and Chr8 and one additional gene was identified on Chr6 of the hap1 genome (Table S22 ).

Here, we present the first report of a haplotype resolved chromosome level assembly of C. australasica , which is one of the most important endemic limes in Australia. The assembly was produced de novo and further manually curated with the help of a previous C. australis genome to achieve a more complete chromosome level assembly. With that, 95% of the nuclear genome of the collapsed assembly, 95% of the hap1 genome and 96% of the hap2 genome could be anchored to chromosome level. The high N50s of the final chromosome level assemblies for collapsed (35.2 Mb), hap1 (32.7 Mb) and hap2 (34.4 Mb) indicate high contiguities of the assembled genomes. The high assembly and annotation BUSCO for the collapsed and two haplotypes indicated that the assembled genomes and annotated gene sets had captured most of the single-copy orthologs conserved in the viridiplantae lineage. We also compared different scaffolding pipelines using three recent scaffolding tools (SALSA, YaHS, Pin_hic) and different Hi-C read aligners (bowtie2, chromap, bwa) to select the best pipeline to generate chromosome scale assemblies that were complete, contiguous, and accurate. The accuracy was determined by checking the telomeres, N50s and mapping the scaffolds against the C. australis genome. Manual inspection of the assemblies helped the identification of interior telomeres in several instances with the YaHS tool. The joining of the contigs were similar and accurate for SALSA and Pin_hic when those tools were used with BWA aligner to align the Hi-C reads through the Arima mapping pipeline. We proceeded with BWA + Arima mapping + SALSA for scaffolding the collapsed, hap1 and hap2 assemblies. Although this pipeline resulted in accurate assembly for the collapsed genome, it produced some misassembles (contigs were wrongly oriented) for the haplotypes, therefore, some manual curations were done to correct them. A genome for C. australasica was recently assembled using Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) and Hi-C reads [ 53 ]. This genome was not haplotype resolved and the collapsed genome had a contig N50 of only 1.9 Mb. The assembled and phased genome reported in the present study is significantly better in terms of the assembly contiguity, gene completeness and phasing.

Of the nine chromosomes, four pseudochromosomes had telomeres at both ends. The presence of extensive rRNA gene repeats and large tandem arrays of satellite repeats at the terminal regions might be the main reason for not being able to assemble other pseudomolecules as complete chromosomes. Many plant genomes constitute repetitive regions such as transposable elements (DNA TE/ LTR RE), interspersed nuclear elements (SINE/LINE), tandem arrays of satellite repeats and rDNA, which has become a challenge in precisely assembling plant genomes to the chromosome level [ 54 ]. Some repetitive DNA sequences are highly conserved among plants whereas some repeat DNA are specific to some genera, species and even to some chromosomes in the same accession [ 55 ]. Citrus genomes are also characterized by high repetitive contents mainly at centromeric, pericentromeric, telomeric and sub telomeric regions [ 56 , 57 ]. In Chr4, the telomeric repeat at one terminal was not at the very end, instead it was found at a sub-telomeric region, and satellite repeats were found next to the telomeric repeat at that terminal. Previous studies have reported the presence of interstitial telomeric repeats (ITRs) at pericentromeric and sub-telomeric regions [ 58 , 59 ] and it could be possible that C. australasica has an ITR at a sub-telomeric region on Chr4.

Gene family clustering analysis revealed 19,980 shared orthologous clusters between C. australasica and C. australis indicating their conservation in the two species after the species divergence. The corresponding genes of the unique orthologous clusters in each species might have undergone sequence changes over the years of evolution after their divergence from the last common ancestor, and thus have attained new functions. This analysis revealed a high number of unique genes in the C. australasica genome when compared to the C. australis genome. The high number of unique genes might be due to the large number of total genes annotated in the C. australasica genome (7,431 genes more in C. australasica ). The unique genes in C. australasica are primarily involved in resistance to plant pathogens. LRR proteins recognize pathogen effectors and trigger innate immunity in plants [ 60 ]. Calcium, which acts as a secondary messenger in plants and its sensors are important in abiotic and biotic stress resistance [ 61 ]. CDPKs mediate innate immunity in plants by regulating oxidative burst and hormone signal transduction in response to plant pathogens [ 62 ]. Cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channels which regulate the calcium uptake in plants are known to play important roles in stress response, plant immunity and development [ 63 ]. Glycerol kinases are also involved in enhancing immune responses in plants [ 64 ]. Studies have shown that thiamine related genes can enhance the responses to biotic and abiotic stresses in plants [ 65 , 66 ].

The differences in the collapsed and haplotype specific genes identified in C. australasica might be due to the sequence variations present in the two haplotypes. The unique genes identified in the collapsed genome might be due to the sequence variations between the haplotypes resulting in a combined gene being annotated in the collapsed genome. All chromosomal lengths of the collapsed genome are longer than those of the haplotypes, except in Chr7 where the Chr7 in hap2 is longer than the collapsed and hap1. Some genes in the collapsed and hap2 might have been annotated in those additional regions in the chromosomes resulting of them being identified as unique by the orthovenn3 analysis. The collapsed genome may contain one of the alleles of the two haplotypes in the heterozygous regions of the genome and these genes might be represented in the shared gene families between collapsed and each haplotype. In the homozygous regions of the genome, the collapsed assembly might have picked one of the haplotypes alleles, thus these genes might have shared among the three assemblies. Significant structural variations between haplotypes such as insertions in genes, chromosomal rearrangements, allele specific expressions, and presence and absence variations have been studied extensively in previous research [ 67 ] suggesting the importance of phased assemblies in assessing genomic and phenotypic characteristics.

C. australasica has a high natural genetic diversity with a large number of VOC in different cultivars having β-citronellol, citronellal, γ-terpinene, and limonene as the predominant constituents [ 68 , 69 ]. A previous study has shown that C. australasica is rich in VOC such as citronellal, nonanal, β-phellandrene, δ-elemene, α-farnesol, β-farnesol which can act as antimicrobial agents to provide the plants with resistance against HLB. C. australasica is also known to contain high levels of some amino acids including phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan and antioxidants which modulate plant responses to pathogens [ 17 ]. Many genes related to VOCs, amino acids and antioxidants were identified in the present genome and these might play a role in modulating defense against the HLB causing pathogens.

Plants produce different families of AMPs which are rich in cystine residues and have antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral and anti-parasite activities. They target and rupture the cell membranes of pathogenic organisms resulting in loss of intracellular ions causing cell death [ 70 , 71 ]. A novel class of short SAMP, having only two cysteine residues, was recently identified from C. australasica showing an ability to suppress the growth of CLas and boost the host immunity against further HLB infections [ 26 ]. The present annotation identified genes encoding different families of AMPs which have not previously been reported in C. australasica which might play important roles in plant immunity against HLB. The gene encoding stress-response A/B barrel domain-containing protein HS1 identified from the collapsed and two haplotypes showed a high sequence homology to previously identified SAMP, however it had a longer sequence (330 bp/110 aa). The 110 bp long version of SAMP sequence is present in both HLB resistant and susceptible citrus species, and they all have a high sequence similarity with a major portion of the short version of the SAMP sequence of C. australasica . C. australis had a SAMP homologous gene encoding two relatively long peptides which also showed sequence homology with C. australasica 67 aa. All this data suggests that both HLB resistant and susceptible citrus species might encode the longer versions of SAMP peptides (large protein precursors), which may then be cleaved into mature polypeptides in resistant cultivars and subjected to further post-translational modifications resulting in short versions of SAMP in resistant cultivars. The other types of defense related genes identified in the genome might have possible roles in HLB resistance as many of those genes have previously been characterized with high expression levels in response to HLB infection in C. australasica [ 15 ] and other HLB resistant species [ 22 ].

The whole genome alignment of C. australis and C. australasica revealed that the two genomes had a high level of synteny across the 9 chromosomes with some rearrangements in all the chromosomes. These rearranged regions characterized by inversions, translocations and duplications might be the main reason for underlying phenotypic differences between the two species. C. australis naturally grows as shrubs or small trees with green, globose, or less-globose fruits and leaf oil predominantly containing α-pinene [ 72 ]. C. australasica is a thorny tree and grows as understory shrubs or small trees in sub-tropical rainforests [ 73 ]. Many CURT1D genes found in the C. australsica genome might explained its tolerance to shade within the forest canopy where it occurs. Within the chloroplasts of a plant cell, thylakoids are organized into grana and the thylakoid membranes are the sites where the light reactions of photosynthesis occur. The curving of the thylakoid membranes at the grana margins which is necessary for grana formation is mediated by CURT1 proteins. Previous studies have shown that plants that are adapted to low light have many layers of thylakoid membranes per granum relative to those found in plants adapted to bright sun light, which provides a means of enhancing the photosynthetic efficiency in shade tolerant plants [ 74 , 75 ]. There is a great variation of the genes with homology to CURT1D identified in the C. australaisca genome ranging from 252 bp to 30,726 bp with complete open reading frames, although it is not known whether they are all functional. The previously reported CURT1 genes in citrus also had a variation in size, however, they all had CDS sequences of more than 440 bp. Therefore, it is possible that the smaller CURT1 proteins might be non-functional. This is the first report of CURT1 genes in citrus and further studies are required to understand the expression of these CURT1 genes and their roles in photosynthesis of citrus plants under fluctuating light conditions.

C. australasica is unique within the Rutaceae family with finger-shaped fruits, novel caviar-like pulp, unusual organoleptic properties (citronellal/limonene/isomenthone), and wide variation in skin and pulp colours [ 2 , 73 ]. . The five cultivars used in this study varied in terms of their fruit skin and pulp colours, tree size, seediness and time of flowering. The whole genome variant analysis based on SNVs revealed structural variations among these five different cultivars which might explain some of the variation in their phenotypes. This revealed C. australasica cv 1 and cv 4 (Red finger lime) as the closest and C. australasica cv 3 (Red champagne) and cv 5 (Ricks Red) as the most divergent cultivars with respect to the Rainbow cultivar. The different skin and pulp colours of the five cultivars might be regulated at the transcription level by anthocyanin regulatory genes [ 52 , 76 ] and β-citraurin [ 77 ]. The structural variations of anthocyanin regulatory genes with their differential expression have been extensively studied among differently coloured citrus types [ 52 , 78 ]. The red pigments of C. australasica are also known to indirectly suppress the CLas infection by impeding the visual signals to D. citri and thereby preventing their feeding [ 17 ]. The high-quality genome we present here will facilitate the study of gene variations regulating a diverse array of red-orange colours in C. australasica in the future, which will provide breeders with direction for developing novel cultivars with high consumer appeal.

The lack of a high-quality genome for C. australasica has greatly hindered genomic research, particularly in relation to HLB resistance. Here we present the first report of a high quality, haplotype resolved genome for C. australasica and its structural and functional characterization. An assessment of genetic diversity present within this species and genomic variations and commonalities with C. australis at a structural and functional level are also provided. This should prove to be a valuable genomic resource to accelerate molecular breeding for the genetic improvement of citrus and will lay the foundation for comparative genomics to broaden our understanding of this unique species in the citrus genus.

Data availability

Raw PacBio HiFi data, and RNA-seq sequence data generated in this study have been deposited in NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under the BioProject [PRJNA1019815] and Biosample [SAMN37501217] with accession IDs SRR26236521, SRR26251946, and SRR26202756. The whole genome short reads are available under the Bioproject [PRJNA1010857] and the Biosample [SAMN37218318] with accession ID SRR25915022. The whole genome sequence data reported in this paper have been deposited in the Genome Warehouse in National Genomics Data Center [ 79 , 80 ] Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences / China National Center for Bioinformation, under accession numbers GWHDUCH00000000 (collapsed genome), GWHDUEL00000000 (hap1 genome), GWHDUEM00000000 (hap2 genome), BioProject [PRJCA019902], and Biosample [SAMC3069019] that is publicly accessible at https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/gwh .

Abbreviations

Huanglongbing

Candidatus liberibacter asiaticus

C. liberibacter africanus

C. liberibacter americanus

Cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide

PacBio high fidelity

Fixed ploidy variant detection

Minimum frequencies

Single nucleotide variant positions

Nucleotide binding and leucine rich repeat proteins

Leucine rich repeat receptor-like protein kinases

Calcium dependent protein kinases

Calmodulin like proteins

Synteny and Rearrangement Identifier

Antimicrobial proteins/peptides

Cysteine rich receptor-like protein kinases

Pathogenesis related

Leucine rich repeat proteins

Curvature thylakoid proteins

Carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase 4

Oxford Nanopore Technology

Interstitial telomeric repeats

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Acknowledgements

The Research Computing Centre (RCC), University of Queensland, provided high performance computing facilities. Patrick Mason assisted in the collection of leaf materials of C. australasica . RH was supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture (CE 200100015).

This project was funded by the Hort Frontiers Advanced Production Systems Fund as part of the Hort Frontiers strategic partnership initiative developed by Hort Innovation, with co-investment from The University of Queensland, and contributions from the Australian Government and Bioplatforms Australia.

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The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: RH, AF, AKM involved in study conception, design and supervision, UN performed data collection. AF, RH advised on laboratory experiments. UN performed analysis and UN, RH, AF, MS, DW involved in the interpretation of results. UN prepared the draft manuscript and generated all the figures. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Nakandala, U., Furtado, A., Masouleh, A.K. et al. The genome of Citrus australasica reveals disease resistance and other species specific genes. BMC Plant Biol 24 , 260 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-024-04988-8

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-024-04988-8

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