The Man in the Mirror: When and How to Describe Your Characters
Hello, and welcome to #2 in my Thursday Character-Building Series. #1, on naming characters, can be found here.
Coming up with the physical descriptions for my characters is one on my favorite parts of starting a new story. I love imagining how each person who will populate my story-world will look. I doodle sketches of them, make charts of everyone's hair and eye color, make sure nobody looks too much alike. This is all part of the pre-writing thinking stage of the process, which I'll talk more about tomorrow.
But how do you get to that stage? How can you create a look for your character and get a clear mental picture of them?
First, the basics: hair and eyes. These are the most common distinguishing features in most of the fiction I've read. You can stick with the basics--blue or brown for eyes, dark or blonde for hair-- but I suggest taking it a little beyond this. Look at somebody's eyes. Right now. Go. Stare at them creepily. Friends, coworkers, the smelly guy in the plaid shirt at the other computer terminal in the library. If they try to push you away and/or have your arrested, tell them it's research. Done? Ok. Now were their eyes really one, easily defined color? Were they just blue, or brown, or even grey or green? Sometimes, yes, but I'm willing to bet that 8 times out of 10, it's not that easily defined. Keep this in mind when visualizing your characters. Do they have deep aqua eyes, or black, or green ringed with blue? You may never put any of these small details into the narrative, but they will help you to think about the character.
The same goes for hair. Hair can be black, dark brown, light brown, sandy, light blonde, carrot red, auburn, grey; it can be curly, straight, wavy, thin, thick, long or short... there are far more variations, and each seems to say something about your character. In my opinion, there's a pretty strong hair-code. Straight, thin, light hair indicates an airy, shy character; straight, thin dark hair is a socially awkward character, probably with repulsive personal hygiene habits. The thicker the hair on a character, the more vital, energetic, and strong they are. Curl indicates stubbornness and "spirit". Red-heads are usually rebellious and snarky. And if your character has long, perfect blonde hair, most readers are going to read that as "we hate her," because you have (perhaps accidentally) set her up to be the stand-in for every popular girl who snubbed us in high school, every cheerleader who didn't go out with us.
One thing I like to do when imagining my characters is to make a file for them. I google things like celebrities that look similar to how I imagine the character, the type of hairstyle I want them to have, the face-shape, the eye color, and I download the pictures and put them in a file on my computer. If the character is a goth, goth clothes and snarky sayings go in the file. If he's a space pirate, steampunk and sci-fi gadgets go in. This file is a great resource--it allows you to really get a feel for your character, to sort of begin to hear their voice based on the kinds of things they wear or like. I also make playlists, either of songs my character would like, or of songs that describe them.
If you're still having trouble visualizing your characters, try a program that lets you make characters. I like to use Sims 3, to really get details on the face and customize the clothes and all that, but it's very time-consuming and is really more distracting than helpful. A quicker way to get an idea might be to use one of the online paper doll-makers, which I still find ridiculously entertaining even though yes, thank you, I am a grown woman. Be warned, these links will eat your time. Learn where the line goes between "gathering inspiration" and "putting off any actual writing."
Stardoll (free signup required)
Steampunk Costume Creator
Victorian/Anime-ish
Clockwork Couture (plays awesome jazz music)
Charicature Face Maker
The point is, we put a lot of thought into how these characters look--hairstyles, characteristic outfits, etc. But does that mean that all of this belongs in the book?
Some people insist that it is crucially important to introduce every detail of you characters' appearances right away, so your audience can visualize them. I tend to disagree with that. I think that readers are pretty good at visualizing the characters on their own, and they are going to do it no matter what. The trick, then, is to just steer them away from imagining the character drastically differently than you had imagined. Don't wait until page 203 to introduce the fact that your character has purple eyes.
Too often, I see an info-dump of character description in the first few chapters. This is most prevalent in YA fiction, where the female protagonist will stop her angsting just long enough to talk about her flowing black hair, round blue eyes, and pert, button-like nose. Have any of you ever heard an actual teenager refer to her own nose as either "pert" or "button-like"? No? Then why the crap do I read it so often? Another common way I see it done, that I find, if not less transparent, at least more believable in YA fiction, is to have the narrator be insecure about her appearance and compare herself unfavorably to another, "prettier" girl. This personally isn't my favorite way of doing it, but it is a way.
Another device I see used is to have the character look at themselves in the mirror and take inventory of every feature. This is, in my opinion, overdone and boring. Now, that isn't to say you can't have a scene where your protagonist stumbles blearily into the bathroom and looks with bloodshot eyes at his reflection. There are plenty of compelling things for your character to do with his reflection. Staring at it and describing themselves just isn't one of them.
Basically, avoid large chunks of character description, especially in the beginning. It halts the action before it even gets going! Mention details about the characters' appearances subtly, in appropriate places. Weave the descriptions into the narrative. If there is some physical attribute about your character that has relevance to the story, like a magical talking wart, introduce that early. Another way of looking at this is that your reader is going to expect everything you tell them about this character to matter, to be significant, at some point. If it's not, consider taking it out.
Coming up with the physical descriptions for my characters is one on my favorite parts of starting a new story. I love imagining how each person who will populate my story-world will look. I doodle sketches of them, make charts of everyone's hair and eye color, make sure nobody looks too much alike. This is all part of the pre-writing thinking stage of the process, which I'll talk more about tomorrow.
But how do you get to that stage? How can you create a look for your character and get a clear mental picture of them?
First, the basics: hair and eyes. These are the most common distinguishing features in most of the fiction I've read. You can stick with the basics--blue or brown for eyes, dark or blonde for hair-- but I suggest taking it a little beyond this. Look at somebody's eyes. Right now. Go. Stare at them creepily. Friends, coworkers, the smelly guy in the plaid shirt at the other computer terminal in the library. If they try to push you away and/or have your arrested, tell them it's research. Done? Ok. Now were their eyes really one, easily defined color? Were they just blue, or brown, or even grey or green? Sometimes, yes, but I'm willing to bet that 8 times out of 10, it's not that easily defined. Keep this in mind when visualizing your characters. Do they have deep aqua eyes, or black, or green ringed with blue? You may never put any of these small details into the narrative, but they will help you to think about the character.
The same goes for hair. Hair can be black, dark brown, light brown, sandy, light blonde, carrot red, auburn, grey; it can be curly, straight, wavy, thin, thick, long or short... there are far more variations, and each seems to say something about your character. In my opinion, there's a pretty strong hair-code. Straight, thin, light hair indicates an airy, shy character; straight, thin dark hair is a socially awkward character, probably with repulsive personal hygiene habits. The thicker the hair on a character, the more vital, energetic, and strong they are. Curl indicates stubbornness and "spirit". Red-heads are usually rebellious and snarky. And if your character has long, perfect blonde hair, most readers are going to read that as "we hate her," because you have (perhaps accidentally) set her up to be the stand-in for every popular girl who snubbed us in high school, every cheerleader who didn't go out with us.
One thing I like to do when imagining my characters is to make a file for them. I google things like celebrities that look similar to how I imagine the character, the type of hairstyle I want them to have, the face-shape, the eye color, and I download the pictures and put them in a file on my computer. If the character is a goth, goth clothes and snarky sayings go in the file. If he's a space pirate, steampunk and sci-fi gadgets go in. This file is a great resource--it allows you to really get a feel for your character, to sort of begin to hear their voice based on the kinds of things they wear or like. I also make playlists, either of songs my character would like, or of songs that describe them.
If you're still having trouble visualizing your characters, try a program that lets you make characters. I like to use Sims 3, to really get details on the face and customize the clothes and all that, but it's very time-consuming and is really more distracting than helpful. A quicker way to get an idea might be to use one of the online paper doll-makers, which I still find ridiculously entertaining even though yes, thank you, I am a grown woman. Be warned, these links will eat your time. Learn where the line goes between "gathering inspiration" and "putting off any actual writing."
Stardoll (free signup required)
Steampunk Costume Creator
Victorian/Anime-ish
Clockwork Couture (plays awesome jazz music)
Charicature Face Maker
The point is, we put a lot of thought into how these characters look--hairstyles, characteristic outfits, etc. But does that mean that all of this belongs in the book?
Some people insist that it is crucially important to introduce every detail of you characters' appearances right away, so your audience can visualize them. I tend to disagree with that. I think that readers are pretty good at visualizing the characters on their own, and they are going to do it no matter what. The trick, then, is to just steer them away from imagining the character drastically differently than you had imagined. Don't wait until page 203 to introduce the fact that your character has purple eyes.
Too often, I see an info-dump of character description in the first few chapters. This is most prevalent in YA fiction, where the female protagonist will stop her angsting just long enough to talk about her flowing black hair, round blue eyes, and pert, button-like nose. Have any of you ever heard an actual teenager refer to her own nose as either "pert" or "button-like"? No? Then why the crap do I read it so often? Another common way I see it done, that I find, if not less transparent, at least more believable in YA fiction, is to have the narrator be insecure about her appearance and compare herself unfavorably to another, "prettier" girl. This personally isn't my favorite way of doing it, but it is a way.
Another device I see used is to have the character look at themselves in the mirror and take inventory of every feature. This is, in my opinion, overdone and boring. Now, that isn't to say you can't have a scene where your protagonist stumbles blearily into the bathroom and looks with bloodshot eyes at his reflection. There are plenty of compelling things for your character to do with his reflection. Staring at it and describing themselves just isn't one of them.
Basically, avoid large chunks of character description, especially in the beginning. It halts the action before it even gets going! Mention details about the characters' appearances subtly, in appropriate places. Weave the descriptions into the narrative. If there is some physical attribute about your character that has relevance to the story, like a magical talking wart, introduce that early. Another way of looking at this is that your reader is going to expect everything you tell them about this character to matter, to be significant, at some point. If it's not, consider taking it out.
You are an artist, painting with words... It is wonderful to see inside your artistic process! I think I might follow your formula's and see if I can't come up with a novel of my own...
ReplyDeleteThis might sound funny...but most of my characters in my first novel I started writing for NaNoWriMo were modeled off of my World of Warcraft characters. They already had a "look" and then either their class or just the feel of their personality you get from playing them would help mold the character. I found it surprisingly helpful in having a really good idea of what each character would do in a situation.
ReplyDelete