Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Creating a Character

You're creating a new character...

Of course you have to know if their eyes look like this...

or this...

Or if their hair looks like this...

or this...
Or if they need this...
Or like to wear this...



But think about this....



Did their school look like this....

or more like this?

Do they have this?

Are they this?

Or did it end up more like this?

Do they get around in this?

This?
Or this?

Would they be happier somewhere like this?
Or somewhere like this?
Remember...

Once you know your character's this....


You'll find all the answers you'll need.

8 comments:

  1. Elspeth - Oh, how right you are! If we don't really know our characters - what they're like, how they live, the whole thing - there's no way we can introduce them to other people. The only downside is that sometimes bad things have to happen to characters we've come to like. That's not fair.

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    Replies
    1. It isn't fair, is it? I also hate to say good bye at the end of a book to those characters who won't be continuing on.

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  2. Oh, yes. Most definitely. And another great example of showing, not telling :)

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  3. And what about when you've created a character that you really like, but then you have to kill them off! That can be quite hard to do.

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  4. Right on Elspeth! Love your photo poems...

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  5. I wonder sometimes if writers don't get a bit too caught up on things like eye colour, etc, physical bits of not much consequance. I always have all of that stuff in my character bibles but rarely does it get into the manuscript.

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  6. I loved this. Your images really spoke to me. I am a new follower

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