Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Main male character description

As others here have mentioned, you want to show, not tell--have your smart, clever, insightful and thoughtful guy do smart, clever, insightful and thoughtful things, rather than just dictating a de...

posted 10y ago by Malcolm‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:35:45Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/12446
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Malcolm‭ · 2019-12-08T03:35:45Z (almost 5 years ago)
As others here have mentioned, you want to show, not tell--have your smart, clever, insightful and thoughtful guy do smart, clever, insightful and thoughtful things, rather than just dictating a description.

That said, if you can't think of smart, clever, insightful and thoughtful things for your character to do, here's a way to cheat: think of some people you _actually know_ who are smart, clever, insightful or thoughtful, and model your character after them. This is an easy and effective way to add detail and realism to your characters. The adage "good artists borrow, great artists steal" applies to real-life experiences as well as other artists!

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-07-22T02:27:19Z (over 10 years ago)
Original score: 0