Write Better Character Description, Said The 63

“WRITE BETTER CHARACTER DESCRIPTION,” SAID THE 6’3”-tall, 349-pound, BALD WRITER WITH BROWN EYES AND GLASSES, WHO WAS A MALE HUMAN It’s okay, I know I’m fat. I also know that I see characters described on this method far, far too typically. I’ll be trustworthyâ€"as soon as would possibly appear to be far, far too often. Describing what a character looks like isn't any easier than describing what anything appears like in a means that’s private, emotional, experiential, and readable. But for me at leastâ€"and I know I’m not alone in thisâ€"the primary rule should be: Less is more. I tend to be a reasonably visible author myself, kind of describing a movie I’m seeing play out in my head, and there’s nothing mistaken with that, a minimum of in terms of getting that rough draft out fast. I’m additionally removed from immune from “casting” my fictionâ€"imagining certain characters as performed by particular actors or other real folks. This isn’t a bad factor, actually. It might help you retain an image of that character in your mind, even provide you with ideas for speech patterns or different ch aracter cues. But finally it comes time to actually make that character your own, to solidify him, her, or it in your thoughts as a singular particular person. The temptation may then arise to convey that in as much element as possible within the hope that you just and your readersâ€"each final certainly one of your readersâ€"will share a mental image all the way down to the smallest detail. Readers love that, right? Wrong. Elmore Leonard wrote in his guidelines for writers: Avoid detailed descriptions of characters, which Steinbeck coated. In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” what do the “American and the lady with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the one reference to a physical description within the story. You might not essentially wish to be as stripped down in your prose as Hemingwayâ€"I know I’m notâ€"but still. Maybe we set that one sentence of Hemingway’s on one finish of the spectrum and an exhaus tive record of bodily attributes on the other. If you’re really honest with yourself (and I know that’s hard to do) you must ask yourself, within the voice not of your characters or the actors you hope may one day play them in your HBO sequence, but within the voice of your readers: “Why can we care about anyone’s eye or hair color or peak?” I hope no less than you notice that going to the numbers just plain stops your story in its tracks. She was 5’7” tall with auburn hair reduce 1.3” from her shoulders and stood on size 10 ft . . . Now I feel like I’m being requested to do a math downside, or worse: remember these things for later. In “How to Write Kick-Ass Character Descriptions” Meghan Ward wrote: No matter how creative you get, describing an individual based on his or her hair and eye shade is A) Lazy B) Boring C) Ineffective D) Not memorable. Reallyâ€"does telling you a girl has brown eyes and frizzy black hair offer you ANY sense of what she appears like ? Does it reveal anything unique about her that doesn’t apply to 500,000 other folks? Does it reveal something about her character? Nay, nay and nay. And including an age doesn’t help a lot both. Agreed! I even need to ask: “Why do we care that this guy is tall, she’s stocky, or another person is left-handed?” Rachel Scheller tackled this in “eleven Secrets to Writing Effective Character Description”: When we describe a personality, factual data alone just isn't sufficient, no matter how correct it might be. The details must attraction to our senses. Phrases that merely label (like tall, middle-aged, and average) deliver no clear picture to our minds. And here’s why: Your readers wish to cast the “movie” themselves. My Photoshop Kung Fu is the Best! When I read Robert E. Howard, Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t Conan, I am. I wish to be part of the tales I learn, and we now have to remember not just as readers ourselves but as writers that reading itself is a artist ic act. I’ve cautioned you to offer your readers the good thing about the doubt when it comes to dialog and what characters don’t have to say, what physique language and “enterprise” can convey, and the identical, a minimum of, holds true of what these individuals seem like. It’s not concerning the laundry record, concerning the procedural description, a couple of detailed dossier on every characterâ€"good, nicely-crafted fiction is about a shared emotional expertise. Here are a couple of nice examples of how muchâ€"or how littleâ€"you really want, each sourced from “Great Character Descriptions from Science Fiction and Fantasy Books” by Charlie Jane Anders and Mandy Curtis: He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he would possibly wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, within the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would really feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, at midnight. It by no means went away, that smile, it by no means ever w ent away, so long as he remembered. â€"Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 He was a funny-wanting baby who became a humorous-looking youthâ€"tall and weak, and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola. â€"Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse Five Okay now, that having been stated, just this morning I learn a story from one the scholars in my Horror Intensive course during which we’re given the exact peak and weight of the primary individual protagonist and it was not simply nice, it was outstanding. In that exact second in that precise character’s life in that exact story it was precisely applicable. So as with all rules, heed this warning against detailed bodily description solely until you resolve in opposition to itâ€"and solely with the identical precision I saw this morning. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans I at all times suppose back to the adage that every thing I write has to do at least 2 or three issues at once; whether it's set the temper/tone, or symbolize something deeper than the apparent bodily particulars of a given scene. Generally I try to focus on details that the perspective character would fixate on, which doubles as character revealing for them, or focus on particulars that are relevant to what a personality is doing within the scene. For example, if I need to set up a personality’s weight I may create a state of affairs where they’re operating or giving a POV character a hug. That’s a fantastic pointâ€"the thought of everything serving a number of functions. All right, I’m totally responsible of the hair-colour, eye-shade descriptions. Guess I need to re-visualize these characters.