English / Creating characters
You can give your readers information about a character by focusing on: physical appearance, their actions/behaviours, their internal thoughts, their personality, what they say and how, others' thoughts about them.
Can you match each of the techniques with the examples?
| He moved impulsively forward and, holding out his arms, embraced me tightly. | |
|
She heard the knocking again.
“Who could it possibly be?” she wondered, nervously. |
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| “I don’t want to say too much but that girl is trouble,” said Clive, nodding his head knowingly. | |
| Wendy was positive it would all be OK. It had to be. And if it wasn’t, she’d figure something out. She’d realised years ago that staying positive was her only hope. | |
| Chocolate brown curls cascaded around her face, hiding eyes that seemed like they had a story or two to tell. Her rouged lips parted slightly as she gazed into his eyes. | |
| “I hate you.” She spat the words violently at her mother. “No, I despise you.” And with that she stomped out of the room. |
Now think about Mrs Malby again, the lady in the extract from ‘Broken Homes’.
Can you find examples from the text to complete this table?
| Physical appearance | |
| Her actions/behaviours | |
| Her internal thoughts | |
| Her personality | |
| What she says & how | |
| Others’ thoughts about her |
Creating believable characters is crucial to a good narrative so it is always a good idea to plan out your characters and their back stories. This will help you to understand what motivates them and what causes them to behave the way they do.
Character profiles are a good way of doing this. Look at this example.
Read the character profile and then click on the narrative button.
| Name: | Rupert Bowen |
| Age: | 27 |
| Physical Appearance: | Tall. Perfectly styled hair. Spends a lot of time at the gym so is very toned and muscular. |
| Occupation: | His business card says he is a property developer – it’s his dad’s business. However, he doesn’t really like to get his hands dirty so his role is to wine and dine big clients, encouraging them to buy his company’s properties with their hard earned savings. |
| Hobbies: | Fine dining, socialising, fast cars and frequent international travel. |
| Close friends or relatives: | Only child, very close to his parents who he still calls mummy and daddy. Knows lots of people but doesn’t have many best friends he can trust. |
| Enemies: | Disliked by many hard-working, down-to-earth men. Makes enemies easily as people don’t like how he shows off his wealth all the time. |
| Goal or ambition in life: | To become as rich as possible doing as little as possible |
Geber86 / Getty Images
Rupert laughed into his phone.
“Of course I did darling, the forms are in the post as we speak. You’ll soon be the proud owner of a little buy to let in the city and before you know it, you’ll be raking it in. You’ll see. Okay, gotta go. I’ll call you, yeah? We’ll have a glass of bubbly next week – excellent. Ciao.”
He threw the phone to one side and admired himself in the full-length mirror. ‘Looking good!’ he thought.
Stepping out of his pent-house apartment, Rupert smoothed down his new Armani suit and ran a hand through his auburn hair. Today was going to be a good day, he could feel it.
Now look at the image and write your own character profile.
| Name: | |
| Age: | |
| Physical Appearance: | |
| Occupation: | |
| Hobbies: | |
| Close friends or relatives: | |
| Enemies: |
Can you complete this table for the character?
| Physical appearance | |
| Their actions/behaviours | |
| Their internal thoughts | |
| Their personality | |
| What they say & how | |
| Others’ thoughts about them |
To make your description effective you need to show your reader what your character is like rather than tell them.
Which of these examples sounds more effective and gives you a better mental image of the character?
The assassin had brown hair and a square jaw. He was smoking a cigarette as he waited for his victim. His victim was thin with long, greasy hair.
His angular jaw gave him the appearance of a cold-hearted killer . . . and he was. He stubbed his cigarette under his converse high tops and narrowed his eyes in search for his prey. Ahead of him sauntered the withering wimp, his shabby clothes and long greasy hair giving him the appearance of a tramp.
Show don’t tell. Read the sentence and then write a paragraph that shows the given aspect of the character.
She was a kind person