Character Description Discussion

[Madbomber]

Here is the message from Com's e-mail that he wanted to post here:

 

"I was wondering if maybe you guys had some input on something. Exactly

how do you guys go about describing your characters in your stories?

Or, better yet, what kind of techniques do you use? I know that the usual

'inner conversation' is a way to get the point across, but I kinda try

to avoid that if I can. But it's hard not to just say, "I'm David, and

I'm 5' 11", I'm slim, with soft brown hair, yadda yadda yadda..." (Not

to mention that I'm pretty bad with guessing height and weight stuff

anyway. So seeing that someone is 6" and 130 lbs doesn't really do

anything to enhance my imagination one way or the other) There's

nothing wrong with it, but I try to find other ways around it if possible.

 

I was just wondering if you guys knew of some other ways to go about

introducing the physical looks of your main character. Sometmes I use a

mirror or something to get past it, but I can't use that all the time.

Let me know you're thoughts on how to get around it, or on how you like

or dislike that method."

 

Hope this helps out man. Later, Me.

[Madbomber]

I totally agree that it is difficult to do in a story told from the first person. I have gone back so many times to my first couple of paragraphs in A Circles End, constantly changing the way I describe the character, or rather, have the character describe himself. I haven't really found a great way of doing it right off the bat, but I do have two suggestions.

 

Do it over the course of a couple chapters. Maybe have the main character say something about him being short in contrast to another character. Something like: I wish I was as tall as Tyler sometimes, being only 5' 5" really has it's drawbacks. And then later he can say, my brown hair could never compete with his strawberry blond locks. Yada yada yada.

 

My other suggestion is, and I can't recall off the top of my head, have you ever tried to do a story from an omnipotent point of view? It really does open a lot of doors for being descriptive. It doesn't sound so vain either. In something written from the outside, you can describe a character and it's not just some kid rambling on about his looks.

 

Anyway, hope this helps. It's hard to drum up advice for the Master. Talk to you later, man, Me.

[Howie]

Here is the message from Com's e-mail that he wanted to post here:

 

"I was wondering if maybe you guys had some input on something. Exactly

how do you guys go about describing your characters in your stories?

Or, better yet, what kind of techniques do you use? I know that the usual

'inner conversation' is a way to get the point across, but I kinda try

to avoid that if I can. But it's hard not to just say, "I'm David, and

I'm 5' 11", I'm slim, with soft brown hair, yadda yadda yadda..." (Not

to mention that I'm pretty bad with guessing height and weight stuff

anyway. So seeing that someone is 6" and 130 lbs doesn't really do

anything to enhance my imagination one way or the other) There's

nothing wrong with it, but I try to find other ways around it if possible.

 

I was just wondering if you guys knew of some other ways to go about

introducing the physical looks of your main character. Sometmes I use a

mirror or something to get past it, but I can't use that all the time.

Let me know you're thoughts on how to get around it, or on how you like

or dislike that method."

 

Hope this helps out man. Later, Me.

 

 

i'm not sure how important appearance is in a story. does it really matter, what colour hair the character has? maybe if it's an episode of murder she wrote...

 

i think something more ad&d-like works for me. i just let the character react to each other as if i was doing a charisma check. at some stage the reader will have a good idea of what they look like. (of course, this may explain why i'm such a bad writer...)

[JamesSavik]

From Broken, Chapter 2

 

Scotty had something really special going for him. He was just so cute and so much fun that it was ridiculous. Some of the most forbidding and stern adults would melt in his presence. One Christmas he was the photographic model for a Christmas card angel of all things.

 

Sure- you could get mad at the little guy but good luck trying to stay that way. He would look up at you with those big, blue puppy dog eyes and you would melt on the spot like so much butter on a hot roll.

 

Here is how I described Scotty in my story Broken. Any way that works I suppose but if you are careful and crafty, you can paint a picture of your character and let the reader fill it in with his imagination.

 

 

Here's another method.

 

 

I'm just too damn tall. It makes me somewhat clumsy and awkward. I'm always tripping over my size 12 feet. My buddy Sam calls my shoes kayaks and threatens to take them out to some white water.

 

I don't know. I guess tall and skinny beats short and fat but did I have to have red hair? Cripes, I look like a lit match! With a name like Shawn, I'm so Irish that I might as well just go strait to Alcoholics Anonymous and save myself a lot of trouble.

[reapersharvest]

I don't like going straight into a huge descriptive paragraph, because I inevitably put too much exposition in the first chapter, thus effectively killing the story's energy. I try to begin with a typical, non-plot worthy scene in the character's life and peppering bits of description throughout as they react to simple events. Before anything ground-breaking happens in a story, there has to be some ground to break, which is why I try to start out with the mundane, while still having it be a story.

 

I also try using more descriptive terms than simply eye or hair color and numerical height. Each charatcer's look conveys a mood, or is at least reflective of them as a person, and I find it paints a more vivid picture when the "logic" behind the way a charatcer looks is presented (subtly, of course).

 

Here's an example of how I used dialogue between two characters to segue into a more physical description.

 

"This conversation was typical of Derrick. One wouldn't think that,

inside his tall, lithe form, topped off with dark hair and eyes that

pierced, lived such a calculating mind. Carrie was his counterpoint, while

Derrick seemed to absorb life, Carrie exuded it."

 

I never liked charatcer pics in stories, and I usually ignored specific numbers. The image readers have of characters is based on more than that. So I don't reference specific colors or numbers, but I still create a certain look, granitng the reader some leeway.

[DomLuka]

For first person:

 

I think my favorite is to have my protagonist compare himself to other characters.