Giving life to characters

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Giving life to characters

• Examples of character descriptions from
  literature
• Analysis of style/content
• Practice in writing character descriptions

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Giving life to characters

• The boy went toward him. He was an undersized
  boy of about twelve, with one shoulder drawn
  higher than the other because of the weight of
  the paper sack. His face was shallow, freckled,
  and his eyes were round child eyes.
• A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud. By Carson McCullers

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Describe a child just the appearance.

• Only a physical description
• Attitude, motivation and view of the world left
  to later

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• His name was Homer Smith. He was 24. He stood
  six foot two and his skin was a deep, warm,
  black. He had large, strong features and widely
  spaced eyes. A sculptor would have interpreted
  the features in terms of character, but Homer
  Smiths mother had once said of him that he was
  two parts amiable and one part plain devil.
• Lilies of the Field by W Barrett

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Write a short and to the point description of an
adult male or female. Include in your
description something his/her mother or father
would have said about him/her.

• Short to the point sentences
• A few physical traits
• Image of this man with something his mother said
  about him
• We get a glimpse of what he looks like and who he
  is

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• Besides the neutral express that she wore when
  she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others,
  forward and reverse, that she used for all of her
  human dealings. Her forward expression was
  steady and driving like the advance of a heavy
  truck. Her eyes never swerved to left or right
  but turned as the story turned as if they
  followed a yellow line down the center of it.
  She seldom used the other expression because it
  was not often necessary for her to retract a
  statement
• Flannery O Connor Good Country People

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Describe someone using an analogy (comparing some
aspect of their character/personality/style to
something else) Let us know both some physical
details and some personality/emotional details.

• Extended analogy to describe various expressions
• By the end we know a good deal about her
  obstinacy
• We also know something of her physical appearance

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• They rose when she entered a small, fat woman
  in black, with a thin gold chain descending to
  her waist and vanishing into her belt, learning
  on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her
  skeleton was small and spare perhaps that was
  why what would have been merely plumpness in
  another was obesity in her. She looked bloated,
  like a body long submerged in motionless water,
  and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the
  fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small
  pieces of cola pressed into a lump of dough as
  they moved from one face to another while the
  visitors stated their errand.
• A Rose for Emily William Faulkner

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Describe someone with a thorough, involved and
literary kind of attention to detail.

• The difference between literary fiction and
  popular fiction
• More than just the basics a fat woman with
  beady eyes

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• The colonel was tall and conspicuously erect.
  His dark blond hair was short and bristling, with
  a scatter of gray at the temples. His face was
  deeply tanned except for two ovals around the
  unblinking gray eyes where his skins had been
  shielded by sunglasses. His eyes were finely
  wrinkled at the corners and squinted a little
  from looking into the sun for enemy fighters.
  His was a tough face, grim almost, with no
  vestige of softness of any kind. It was, from a
  distance, a young face, but viewed closely was
  older than its thirty six years.
• Von Ryans Express David Westheimer

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• Detailed description about what this man looks
  like
• Something about his age and how he wears it
• His toughness -

Describe someone with details about physical
appearance a reference to age and an
inference about character.
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• Saul was homely. His face looked like its parts
  had been thrown together at random. None of his
  features was ugly, but they did not fit together.
  His ears were as jug-handled as those of a
  Celtic legionnaire and protruded at right angles
  from his head. His hair dwas a bright, brassy
  mop of tightly curled red, his complexion light
  olive instead of fair. His beard was thin and
  scraggly, more that of teenager than a man of
  thirty. If his roman nose was too long for his
  face, his mouth was too wide.
• Upon This Rock Walter Murphy

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Describe someone unattractive without saying
ugly, homely, etc but by showing how their face
just doesnt go together consider that absurd
might do it but being ludicrous isnt the goal
of good writing.

• Not a simple statement of ugly but an insight
  into why he might be seen as unattractive
• Not so blatant has beak nosed with a wart but
  clearly a human being that didnt get the best
  put together physically