How is character revealed?
Through:
· Dialogue and their thoughts
· Things they do / behaviours
· Their clothes
· Physical description
· How other characters responses to them
· Your narrative statements about them
You may have heard that you need to make your characters active and you need tension to do this. Knowing that the character wants something keeps us hooked as a reader. What does your character want? A clever idea for a short piece is a party or event that has a fixed beginning, middle, end, so perhaps they are already at the party? Perhaps your character wants something they cannot have. This brings in conflict. Who is stopping them from achieving what they want?
Look at this (AI generated) picture of a woman hailing a cab.
Where is she going?
Where has she been?
Who is at home?
What is she thinking?
What can you decipher from her outward appearance?
What inside information do we have?
How might our plot for our character allow us to shape them?
You should know everything about your character. Employ this check-list:
Name, age, gender, nationality, marital status, work, religion.
Physical/biological, height, size, state of health, assets, flaws, sexuality, gait, voice. (Happy or unhappy body language? Are they proud of their physicality? Or trying to cover something up- a scar or birthmark perhaps? Think about how a physical vulnerability might affect their behaviour and their self-image?
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