How do you describe your characters?
I have this weird problem: I know my characters, I know what they're like, and I know how they would act in any given situation and in the plot I use them in, but I don't know how to describe their character traits. I have a history for each character, but I can't really put into words how they are like as people. Whenever I go to write a summary of a character describing how they behave, my mind sort of goes blank, even though I know what they do in the story and how they interact with different kinds of people.
Am I missing something? Are my characters simply not fleshed out enough or are my character description skills simply lacking? How do I describe my characters?
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Well, it is impossible to tell from what you have told us which of these problems you have, but there is a fairly easy test you can do to find out. Write character descriptions of real people you know. If you are happy with those descriptions than your ability to write descriptions is fine and the problem is that you do not know your fictional characters as well as you think you do. If you can't describe real people either, then you know that your problem is with writing character descriptions.
If the issue is writing character descriptions, here is an approach you can try. Describe your characters in terms of:
- The things they love
- The things they want
- The things they are willing to do get what they want
These are not sophisticated psychological categories, but they are the matter of fiction, which we might reasonably describe as character in action. How your character acts in a story depends fundamentally on what they love, what they want, and what they are willing to do to get it.
You may or may not be interested in why they love what the love, want what they want, or are willing to do what they are willing to do, but the why is a separate matter from the basic what of description. You must at least start with the what and go from there.
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From what you write, I feel that you have a very good idea of who your characters are but struggle to "sum them up". In addition to Mark's excellent ideas, here's a technique I've recently tested out and come to love a lot:
Drill your characters with questions. Ask them about everything that might or might not be relevant to the story you want to tell. Imagine yourself in a smalltalk situation and just ask everything that pops into your head: What's your name? How old are you? How's your marriage working out so far? How did you end up being an engineer on an oil drilling platform? What was your favourite pet? Do you have pets now?
Imagine to be a stranger that is having a beer with your character and wants to get to know them on a casual basis. Afterwards -- ask that stranger about your character: "So you've met that engineer? What's he like?" -- "I don't know, kind of weird, actually. Did you know he used to have a baby goat as a pet when he was a boy? He took that goat on walks with him like a dog! He's from a small Norwegian village, but hates fish. His wife is not all that happy about his job and secretly wants him to quit, but he loves being out there on the ocean. To be honest, I'm not sure that marriage will last much longer ..."
On another note, I'm not sure how necessary it is to "sum up" your characters. Real people are complex, so are well-developed characters. Is it necessary (or possible, or fair) to squeeze their essence into a single paragraph? Unless you introduce your characters like in the movie "Amélie" -- which does an admirable job in selecting a few outstanding, but by no means defining character traits and presenting them as an invitation to get to know these characters better --, you'll most likely end up showing your characters to your readers via their actions in any case. Nevertheless I very well understand the desire to have a neat summary of a character.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29030. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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