Three-Dimensions Please #Writer's Tool

There's nothing worse than when you're reading a book and it's full of Mary Sue's, stock, cliché, 2D characters. 



The Naming Process

Okay so I'll already been through this on another blog post (Suits You Sir) but I'll give a little recap. Names are indefinitely influenced by place and era, for instance you wouldn't see a Dex or a Megan in the 17th Century would you, so don't do it -- unless you're writing a piece of fiction on time travelling children. Likewise, you wouldn't see Giovanna's and Augustine's in the present day, unless they were in fact old people. The name is easily fixed, so don't worry too much -- but like I say in my post, an ill suited name will itch like a nasty suit.



Personality

It is important to know what type of person your character and how to convey that through speech and other actions. I was going to list all the different personality traits that I've collected but where would the fun in that be.



Exercise: how easy is it to go searching the internet for words, pretty easy -- so what I'm going to ask you guys to do is grab a piece of paper and a pen, and write all the different personality types you can, I'll get you started: Aggressive, Keen, Friendly. Now you continue and try not using the internet!



So hopefully now you have a list as a long as your arm to go from. Hopefully some of them apply to your characters, if not, then your character is FLAT and you need to pump some life into it, give it room to breathe and speak for itself. I always find that writing a scenario involving that particular character is helpful, sometimes I write these out like interviews and document their movement and how they answer my questions.



The interview technique is helpful, you set up a generic line of questions, sometimes they divulge in what the plot is about. You can really get a feel for your characters this way-- documenting their movements: folded arms, scowls, snarls, rolled eyes, sitting at the end of the chair, hands on lap, back straight, eyes wide, huge smile etc.



Description

Generic character description needs to be avoided at ALL costs, and why I hear you ask yourself, and I'll reply -- because it's boring to read a person being introduced like so, the woman was in her late thirties, of small height and large weight, with black hair and green eyes. What was in there that was completely essential, none of it, I have a rule that unless the description is unique or strange to the character's POV then don't put it.

And a definite no-no, is describing characters who are not essential at all, someone who we'll never meet again, someone who we'll hate the writer for because of handing us some description about a girl in the grocery store when she doesn't have any significance to ANYTHING.

Some questions to ask yourself about description, other than is it necessary -- 

Is that character a key character? Because it will become severely mundane if you start listing the appearance of every stock character in your writing...hopefully, if it did get to this you would figure out how annoying it was writing it all down.

Will this description aide the plot? If it's passed the above question then this is the next question you need to ask, and not only is it to aide the plot but the setting, a character wouldn't wear three-quarter khakis and a t-shirt in the snow, unless they were a cold blooded being, in which case that point could be made, but if not and the character is completely fine in the cold then I'll be disappointed with the writer's concept of "cold" and how a character should react.

That's it for questions, but you keep asking away until your descriptions are down to a T.

Faces - Description

So I thought that this might need to come under a different section, the above was after all getting a little crowded.

Like I stressed above, don't list off features like "he had a nose, a mouth, and a pair of eyes, coincidentally, everyone else had those same features." (that might have come across a little condescending, but I'm making a point) and my point is that unless their faces are different, such as being on a different planet etc. then I assume they all have those features.

Again, only put something down in the description if it will aide the plot and not because it's something you want to write, because every word and every sentence needs to be there on purpose and for a reason (I'll get more into that on another post).

Similes and metaphors -- semantics. She had a hooked nose like a beak. His eyes gleamed like a polished gem. Her dark blue eyes reflected the ocean. Her auburn hair billowed like crazed flames. His eyes were glowing coals. These are just a few from the top of my head, and they can help with developing an image for a character, if someone had eyes like glowing coals, you wouldn't think they were the nicest of people.

Happy Writing & Happy Reading!I hope you enjoyed my blog--it was fun writing it!

~Joseph Eastwood