Great stories begin with great characters, yet creating memorable, well-defined characters can be one of the hardest things to pull off. Now there's writing software that will help you find the perfect character every time!

It's All About Character
Great stories depend on creating believable, compelling characters. But, it's one of the hardest things to pull off. The key is a deeper understanding of the psychology of your characters and what makes them tick.

Character Pro puts a proven system for understanding human behavior at your fingertips--The Enneagram--to create a "character spine" for your character. But that's only the beginning. Character Pro isolates each part of the character, provides tools, and extensive help files to guide you to a well-rounded, complex and realistic character. Then, Character Pro offers a way to keep that information at your fingertips for the entire writing process and makes available a place to keep notes on your character as you write your story.

Dedicated to Quality
Character Pro is the only dedicated character development program on the market. Other products try to tell you that story and plot are the most important elements of a great story. Real writers and audiences know it's the characters. Character Pro takes you through a process that ensures you'll create memorable characters easily, consistently, and inexpensively.

Other Features
• Writing Mode replaces the main screen and gives you a small reference screen that remains "always on top." You can keep this smaller screen at the bottom of your word processing program. And it'll work with ANY other program. This gives you access to your character information throughout your writing process, as well as your Notes Tab to keep track of character details as you write.

• Extensive help files provide instant online program help. You can search quickly for information using Find, Contents, and Index.

• Character Reference Tools include a huge name database divided by gender, tips and tricks, info about character development, and a primer on the Enneagram personality-typing system.

• Search and Replace offers a quick way to change a name, gender, or other detail. You get to choose which of the five screens you want to make the changes--or select all of them.

• Intuitive user interface. Works like elaborate word processing program. The mian page is laid out for easy, fluid work.

• Adjusts to resolution. Whether you're using 640x480 or 800x600, the program checks the resolution when it's started and will adjust to your settings. Or, with a single click you can choose the screen size you'd like to work with. Character Pro remembers whatever you choose until you change it again.

• The Multiple Document Interface (MDI) offers a way to have a nearly limitless number of character profiles open at once. You can have them stacked on top of each other and sort through them with the Previous/Next buttons on the toolbar. Or opt to use the tile feature to have them all on the screen at the same time.

What's new in Version 5
• New, fully redesigned interface

• Multiple characters in the same document

• Character arc graph

• Improved Enneagram system

• Expanded character generator

• Better integrated Help system

What Are Others Saying?
"As president of our local writing chapter, I know that I'm not the only one who struggles with keeping our characters true-to-life. I believe your software will help achieve that and is, in my opinion, one of the best writing tools on the market." Belinda Bass, 1999 Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart Winner

Product Walk Through

Click images to enlarge

Creating the Character Spine

• Open the program to a blank project. The first thing you'll notice is that the screen is split into two sections. A tree on the left and a form on the right. The tree provides a simple way to navigate your character profile. You can add as many different characters as you'd like to the tree.
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  Fill in basic information about your character on the first page. Try to complete as much as possible. (You can come back anytime to add or edit the information.)
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  Click "Continue" at the bottom of the page to move through the "Basics" section.
• When you're finished with the basics, you'll enter the "Enneagram" section where you'll answer simple questions to define your character's personality type.
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  On the last page of the Enneagram section, click the "Use All Suggestions" button. Character Pro automatically incorporates your character information and personality choices to create a unique and complete character spine. The appropriate boxes throughout the program will be filled with the suggested Enneagram text. You can, of course, skip this step and write your own profile.

Develop Your Character

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• The Personality section is the first section after the Enneagram section. You'll notice the big box is filled already with text. This is the personality description that relates to the personality type you chose. You can edit and rewrite this description to apply to your character.
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  At any time, you have access to the original Enneagram suggestion in a drop-down box labeled "Enneagram Suggestion." If you go back and change your character's Enneagram type, this drop-down box will change, but the text in your edit box will not. Clicking "Use Suggestion" will place the new Enneagram suggestion in the edit box.
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  You'll also find questions to help you develop your character in each section. Each question has been designed to help you think of your character in new ways.
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  Click "Continue" as you develop each area of your character. Here are the six remaining sections.
  • The Personality section is where you'll develop the core of your character's personality including the basics, character flaw and how he or she behaves under pressure.
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    The Background section is where we delve into the dark recesses of your character's past. This section deals with the character's childhood, education, career and more.
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    The Dialogue section is where we learn how our character talks. You'll find out about the subtext and even get dialogue examples based on your character's personality type.
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    The Relationships section is a great place to develop how your character interacts with others. This tab also includes a special Relationship Generator - type in some simple info about another character and Character Pro generates how your two characters will relate to each other.
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    The Arc section details how this character will change during the story? Stories are all about character change. It also includes a handy story beat graph so you can make sure your character arc is dramatic and makes sense.
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    The Notes section is a free zone for you to add whatever information you want. This screen works great with the Writing Mode. It's the perfect place to keep track of details, like what brand of cigarettes he smokes, as you write your story (very useful in keeping all your character unique and clearly defined).
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  The last page of each section is a special page that allows you to customize the program. The page contains a box where you can keep your own notes on character development and any questions you like to ask about a character as you develop her. For example, if you find a handy tip in a book and want to keep that information handy every time you create a character, put it in one of these boxes. As you learn and grow as a writer, Character Pro grows with you.

Put it All Together - Final Editing and Printing

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• Clicking on Tools/CharacterPad, or the little notepad icon on the toolbar, will give you CharacterPad. Character Pro automatically combines all the information on all the tabs and formats it for you. It also keeps all the text formatting (including different fonts you may use).
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  CharacterPad is a fully functioning word processor with advanced editing features, like font, font size, color, bold, italics, underline and a lot more.
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  You can print your professional character profile from CharacterPad, ready for distribution.
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  You can also save your character as a Rich Text Format file (.rtf), which can be read by any word processing program for further editing, or can be opened by CharacterPad to be edited at a later time.
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  Or simply cut and paste your profile into your favorite word processor.

Other Goodies

• Writing Mode replaces the main screen and gives you a small reference screen that remains "always on top." You can keep this smaller screen at the bottom of your writing program. And it'll work with ANY other program. This gives you access to your character information throughout your writing process, as well as your Notes page to keep track of character details as you write.
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  Extensive help files provide instant online program help. You can search quickly for information using Find, Contents and Index.
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  Sample character profile always available through the Help menu.
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  Spell checker keeps your profile free of typos and spelling errors.
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  You have full editing features (cut, copy, paste) and full text formatting features (bold, italic, font, underline, strikeout and more).
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  Character Reference Tools include a huge name database divided by gender, tips and tricks, info about character development and a primer on the Enneagram personality-typing system.
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  Search and Replace offers a quick way to change a name, gender, or other detail.
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  Intuitive user interface. Works like a simple wizard. Simply move through page-by-page and you'll end up with a great character every time.
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  Change the default font for the program.
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  Multiple character feature offers a way to have a nearly limitless number of character profiles available at once.