I’m attempting to create a series of programs designed especially for authors; the first being a program for creating characters and organizing information about them.

Right now, I need to know what YOU want. Being an amateur author myself, I’ve been basing the program on what I need for the specific novel I’ve been working on, but I plan to make it broader so that it can be used to create characters for all genres and styles.

The project is quasi-open source for now, meaning that all software is free and user-programmer interaction is not only encouraged, but much needed.

So far, the program includes a profile page which has fields for basic information such as the character’s name, age, physical appearance, and first appearance in the story, as well as a place to put a picture of your character. It also includes a page for character biographies and sources so that you can keep track of your research.

My first need at the moment is feedback. Some questions you might consider include:

What features would you like?
What kind of information about your character would you like to keep in this database?
Are their any Genre specific features that might be useful?

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated. No suggestion is too simple or too bazaar.

Later, I’m going to need people to test the program and give me feedback on that. You know what that means? Free software! You will most likely be able to download the program at sourceforge.net, a very reliable web site for open source projects. Eventually, I plan to build a web site of my own for the project.