Character Page Writing Tutorial

*Author: M.B. Kovas*

This is a tutorial for people who need to know the formalities and standards of writing a character page before doing so. It is a step-by-step guide on how to write a proper page, so make sure you follow everything in order to contribute accordingly to the development of the Wikia.

## What is a Character Page?

Character pages are pages that are about characters from any sort of fictional story. Since the Kovas & Company Wikia is mostly dominated by DYOM projects, the standards for a character page are based on those projects.

Some examples of character pages befitting most requirements can be found at Dario (DSU), Andrew Daniels (War of San Andreas), Chris (School Stories).

## What characters can I write pages about?

Kovas & Company is associated with many projects produced by the community and beyond. If you are a member of the KCO community and you have projects or stories with your own characters, you can write a page about them on this Wikia. The only requirement is that you personally must be a part of Kovas & Company or should be regarded as an associate to write pages about your characters.

You may also contribute by writing pages about characters that were not created by you. This page contains a list of required character pages by the community which you may use by clicking on an invalid link and creating pages for other people's characters to help contribute to the Wikia's growth.

## Step 1: Create a Picture

   **NOTE:** If your character's physical appearence is unknown and no picture can be used, skip all the way to Step 3.

In order to make a proper character page, a picture is necessary to help readers visually identify who or what is being described. To get the picture of a character, you can press PrtScr on your keyboard to take a screenshot of your desktop with the character being showcased.

### Cropping

When you locate your character's picture on your device, make sure to edit it's resolution to be 500 by 500 pixels.

The easiest way to do this is by right-clicking on your picture and selecting "Edit". Assuming you are on a Windows platform, you should be forwarded to Microsoft Paint.

In Paint, pick the "Select" option and try to draw a square around your character's head and shoulders (the square does not have to be perfect, it can be adjusted later).

After you have roughly drawn the square, select the "Crop" option and it will automatically remove the unnecessary background.

Then, select the "Resize" option and tick "Pixels", then untick the option "Maintain aspect ratio" and type in the numbers 500 and 500. You will now have a complete picture that fits the Kovas & Company Wikia's formal standards. Save the picture on your device and proceed to the next step.

## Step 2: Upload the Picture

   Your picture must now be uploaded onto the Wikia seperately in order for it to be used in a template later.

Navigate to the top-right of the Wikia and click on the three-dotted option. Then from the dropdown menu select "Upload New File". You will be redirected to the "Upload file" page.

Select the "Choose File" button and locate the character's picture on your device.

Back in the page, scroll down to the "File description" section and change the file's destination name to something specific (to make sure it does not conflict with any other files uploaded on the Wikia).

Then, edit the picture's description in the "Summary" section by inputting a few keywords relating to your character and it's story so that it can be found easily later on.

After this, click "Upload file" at the bottom of the page and you should be redirected to a new page displaying your character's picture. Memorize the filename at the top of the page as you will need it to assign the picture later.

## Step 3: Creating the Page

   Let's say you are writing a page about a character named John Henderson from your DYOM mission pack titled "San Fierro Stories".

### Name

The full name of the character must be used (if the character's full name is unknown, use his real first/last name. If his real birth name is unknown, use his nickname).

### Story/Universe

One categorial aspect must be considered: whether your character appears in just one project or multiple. If your character John appears in only one DYOM mission pack named "San Fierro Stories", the title of your page should appear in brackets and should look like this: **John Henderson (San Fierro Stories)**.

However, if your character appears in multiple projects which are part of the same universe, the name of the universe must be used in the title (also in brackets) and the format also depends on the lenght of the universe's name. For example, if John appears in mission packs "San Fierro Stories", "Las Venturas Chronicles" and "Fort Carson Tales" altogether, and the universe is named "San Andreas Stories Universe" (shortened version: SASU), the title of the page should be **John Henderson (SASU)**. If the universe's name only consists of two words, the full name of the universe can be used.

### Creating the Page

Navigate to the top right of the Wikia and find the three-dotted option. Click on it and select "Add new page". After inputting the name befitting all requirements, you may press "Create" which will redirect you to your page that you may start editing.

## Step 4: Infobox

An infobox is a template input on the right side of the page which showcases short, categorized and filtered information about the character. It also includes the character's picture.

### Input the Infobox

To create an infobox, click on the "Insert" option and select "Infobox" from the drop-down menu.

Then, a prompt window will appear asking you to select a template. Navigate through all the templates and find "Standard Character Template" and click on it. This will insert a template and direct you to a new window.

### Editing the Infobox

In the template window, you will see a lot of rows for specific information. This is where you must input all known information about the character in order to produce a complete character infobox.

**NOTE:** not all inputs are required to be filled out. If your character, for example, is not dead, you should leave the "Cause of death" row empty. As in another example, if your character does not use any weapons, you should leave the "Weapons" row empty.

#### Title

**title1** is the placeholder for the character's name which will appear at the top of the infobox with big latters.

#### Picture

**image1** is the placeholder for the character's picture that you have uploaded in previous steps assuming you did not skip them (if you did, see the note below). To insert your picture, type in the name of the file which was asked of you to be memorized at the end of Step 2.

**NOTE:** if you skipped the first two steps and have no picture ready for your character, input **portrait\_unknown2.png** in the placeholder which will create an icon representing an unknown appearence.

#### Status

Status refers to the current being of the character, usually only categorized into "Alive" or "Dead".

**NOTE:** if your character is dead, don't forget to input the "Cause of Death" information also (see below).

#### Cause of Death

If your character is dead, you should input a short description of how it happened. For example, if John Henderson was shot and killed with a Desert Eagle pistol by an enemy named "Jack Hollyfield" in the final mission, you must input information in the format showcased below:

```
Fatally shot by Jack Hollyfield with a pistol.

```

#### First and Last Appearences

First and last appearences indicate when the character physically appeared for the first and last time. This is usually done by inputting the project's chapter (in the case of DYOM, the name of the mission and it's pertaining chapter is preferred) in each placeholder accordingly.

For example, if John Henderson appears in the first mission titled "New Beginning" in Chapter 1 of San Fierro Stories and his last appearence is during a mission titled "The End" in Chapter 3 of Fort Carson Tales, you must input information in the format showcased below:

```
First Appearence: <i>San Fierro Stories</i><br><small>Chapter 1 - "New Beginning"</small>

```

```
Last Appearence: <i>Fort Carson Tales</i><br><small>Chapter 3 - "The End"</small>

```

#### Nationality

Nationality indicates the country in which the character has his citizenship in. For example, John Henderson is a citizen of the United States of America, therefore you must input "American" in the placeholder.

**NOTE:** for extra flavor, flag icons are available for some specific nationalities (not all). In the case of United States, input information in the format showcased below:

```
{{Template:USA_Flagicon}} American

```

#### Ethnicity

Ethnicity indicates which ethnic group the person belongs to. This is not to be confused with nationality (the citizenship of the character). Usually, ethnicity pertains to genealogy and ancestry, a standard by which the character's ethnicity is determined by the cultural and geographical background of his parents.

For example, John Henderson was born in the United States of America and granted American citizenship, but his parents were both born in Ireland, which makes John Henderson of Irish ethnicity.

#### Other rows

Most other rows are self-explanatory and do not require much information to be explained.

### Saving the changes

After filling out all possible information about your character, click "Apply" at the top-right of the window and your template will be updated.

## Step 5: Spoiler Warning

Spoiler warnings are an ethical necessity in order for the reader to not be exposed to information he does not want to see yet. Although an argument can be made against visiting wiki pages which most certainly contain spoiler information, it is a standard within the Kovas & Company Wikia to hang a spoiler warning at the top of the page.

### Debugging page layout

This is an important step to ensure you do not have conflicting layouts when proceeding through the next steps. The essence of this is that the Infobox template must be at the very top of the page, with everything else coming after it.

If you are currently in Edit mode, save the page. Then, proceed to the three-dotted option at the top right of the page and select "Edit source" from the drop-down menu. Then, add the text "test" at the very end of the code and save the page. This will stand as a marker to edit the page from.

### Creating the spoiler warning

To create the spoiler warning, go back to normal editing mode (click "Edit", NOT "Edit source") and then replace the "test" with the given text format and change the text to match your preference. Then click on the "Format paragraph" button at the very left of your interface and select "Preformatted" as the style. After this, simply save the page and you will have a properly defined spoiler warning. The message format is showcased below (change the text to match your preference):

```
WARNING: This page contains spoilers for the San Andreas Stories Universe.

```

## Step 6: Character Quote

Featured character quotes are part of the style of KCO Wikia's character pages. Pick out a quote said by either your character or some other character describing him. For example, John Henderson has a quote which goes "My name is John, but my friends call me Johnny." Below the quote, there should be a short description of the quote's brief circumstances (time, place etc).

To implement this, save the page if you are currently in Edit mode and go back to source editting (three-dotted option at the top-right and then "Edit source").

Then, press Enter to start a new line and copy the text showcased below at the end of the code and, as always, change the text to match your preference.

```
<blockquote><i>"My name is John, but my friends call me Johnny."</i><br>―John during his first meeting with Jack Hollyfield.</blockquote>

```

## Step 7: Description

A character's description is a technical summary of the character's involvement in one or more projects. This is usually done to help readers quickly identify the character in case they are confusing it with another. It appears right below the character's featured quote.

For example, John Henderson, as mentioned before, appears in "San Fierro Stories", "Las Venturas Chronicles" and "Fort Carson Tales" with different roles in each project. Let's say John is the or one of the main characters in San Fierro Stories, which would make him a "protagonist" in technical terms. In Las Venturas Chronicles he is not the main character, so he would be classified as a "side character". Lastly, Henderson appears as the main enemy in Fort Carson Tales, which would make him an "antagonist".

There are no strict rules in terms of character classification, but character pages in this Wikia usually need to have a technical classification in order to help identify the role of the character in the project without knowing the context of it.

### Debugging page layout

Once again, debugging the page layout is necessary in this part. If you are currently in Edit mode, save the page and then redirect back to the three-dotted option at the top right and click "Edit source". Then, add a new line at the end of the code and type in "test". Save the edits and return to normal Edit more.

### Writing the description

First, click on the "Format paragraph" option at the very left of your interface and select "Heading" as the format. Here, type "About". This heading is necessary as it is part of the standard structure in the KCO Wikia's character pages.

After this, press Enter to start a new line and begin writing the description of your character.

The format of a character's description is rather strict. An example of it is shown below (once again, change the text to fit your preference):

```
<b>John Henderson</b> is a character in the San Andreas Stories Universe who appears as the protagonist and the only playable character in <i>San Fierro Stories</i>, as a supporting character in <i>Las Venturas Chronicles</i> and as the main antagonist in <i>Fort Carson Tales</i>.

```

## Step 8: "About" Section

The "About" section is used for a briefly detailed and generalized summary in terms of two aspects of the character: their appearence and their personality.

**NOTE:** if the character's appearence changes throughout it's story, describe their last seen appearence.

### Appearence

The first paragraph is about the character's appearence. Identify what clothes the character usually wears, what color are their eyes, their hair. You may also mention tattoos, height, disabilities and so on.

### Personality

The second paragraph is about the character's personality. Emphasize what makes the character different from all the others: what habits do they have, what emotions do they usually elicit and how do they usually interact with other characters or objects.