1. How To Create Characters For A Story
2. How To Create Character Sketches For Macro Variable In Sas
3. How To Create Character Sketches For Mac

A good character sketch should not only reveal how a character looks and sounds but what she desires. Whether it's Holden Caulfield of 'The Catcher in the Rye,' Bilbo Baggins of 'The Hobbit' or Hazel Grace Lancaster of 'The Fault in Our Stars,' memorable characters become the faces and voices of readers' favorite works of fiction. Fleshing out the details of your fiction characters can transform them from notes on paper into people who live in your readers' imaginations. Envisioning Physical Appearance Getting a firm grasp on what your character looks like can make him more real to you and to readers. Sketch out some thoughts about how the character looks, including hair color, eye color, height, weight and any unique features such as scars or tattoos.

You also might consider how the character dresses and what this reveals about his lifestyle or occupation. For example, a character who's a model might be slim and wear high-fashion clothes, while a working-class mechanic might never go anywhere without his ball cap and muddy boots. Consider experimenting with changing these aspects of your character to see how it would affect your story, such as making him younger or older. Hearing the Character's Voice Dialogue doesn't just serve to advance a story's plot; readers can also learn a great deal about the characters through how they speak.

Through dialect, vocabulary and communication style, the way a character talks can reveal the region he comes from, his level of education and his general attitude toward others. Include a section in your character sketch about the general way the character talks - whether he speaks with an accent, tends to mumble or uses incomplete sentences, or constantly uses bad language or offensive slurs. Then, consider how the way the character talks to others might affect the way additional characters in the story see him. Digging Into the Past While the main focus of your story might be the characters' present conflict, knowing your character's back story can give you insight into what makes her the person she is today. Think about what your character's childhood was like, her relationship with her parents and siblings and any significant experiences that shaped her attitudes and beliefs. You also might consider what deep secret your character harbors, including why she thinks of it as shameful, what she's done to hide it from others and what could possibly happen if the secret were discovered.

Why Character Sketches Work. There are practical reasons to do character sketches. For one, developing characters is a process. Paving the way with character sketches, along with setting sketches in the following article, are a great way to give the gel of the story time and space to set. Yes, they’re extra work, and yes they can be difficult. With the end of another year of NaNoWriMo, a lot of writers received a 50% discount on Scrivener for successfully writing 50000 words. For those that are just.

Perhaps the character is a drug addict trying to tow the line in her work and home life, or has a criminal past she's trying to cover up. Discovering Goals and Motives Ultimately, your story's conflict hinges on the primary objective your character wants to accomplish.

Another part of your character sketch should deal with what your character wants and what is at stake if she doesn't get it. For example, your character might be an aspiring actress who has left home for Hollywood to try to start a career in the movies.

How To Create Characters For A Story

Her family doesn't approve of her ambitions and has told her that if she leaves, she won't be welcomed back. Therefore, she has a lot to lose if her career fails.

In your character sketch, develop the idea of what your character's goal is, what her motivations are and what obstacles she might face throughout the story as she seeks to attain her dream.

Get inside your character's head A character sketch is a quick rendering of a character, and writing a sketch is about asking and answering questions. In order to write a character sketch, you must ask yourself questions about your character. Only you, as the author, can answer these questions. Although there is no end to the types of questions you can ask, our recommend the following prompts to get you thinking about who your character is so that you can write a clear and concise sketch. Who is your character physically?

Physical characteristics are the first things we notice when we meet someone. Therefore, this is a good starting point when writing a character sketch. Is your character a woman or a man? Is he or she tall or short? Is your character bald? How old is your character? Does he or she have a disability?

Authors, eager to explore the in-depth psychology of their written subjects, might discount these details as unimportant and base. But it is often these very details that lead to conflict or are the means through which we explore a character's psychology. As an example of this, we recommend reading Flannery O'Connor's Good Country People; in this short story, the physical details of the main character are representations of her internal state.

Without a vivid description of this character's physicality, a critical dimension of the would be lost and the central conflict would be nonexistent. Answering questions about your character's physicality is the first step in creating a fully realized character.

What is your character doing? This is the next question to ask because it brings into account other aspects of story writing such as setting and time. The answer to this question will also affect other aspects of your sketch, such as what your character is wearing or how he or she is feeling.

Is your character walking down the street? Is he or she sitting in a park? Is your character working on a boat? Asking what your character is doing will not only help you understand your character, but also his or her relationship to the setting in your story. Authors may be tempted to gloss over this part of characterization. When asked what his or her is doing, an author might give a cursory answer; he or she may answer that the subject is at the movies, for example. But consider all that there is to do at a movie theatre: Is the character waiting in line for tickets or at the concession stand?

How To Create Character Sketches For Macro Variable In Sas

Is he or she waiting to talk to the manager? Perhaps the character is sitting impatiently waiting for the movie to begin. Getting as specific as you can when answering this question will not only help you define your character, but will also help to define the other elements of fiction. What is your character feeling? This is probably one of the more complex questions you can ask about your character. Is your character angry?

Is he or she happy, sad, tired, or depressed? Does your character love something or someone? Asking questions about your character's emotional life might evolve into the production of a character history. While this may be tempting, you have to focus on what your subject is feeling within the context of the story you are writing. Although the answers to these questions are important, they are rarely explicitly stated in the story. Authors may be tempted to start with the emotional or psychological state of their characters and they may even explicitly state them. This can lead to one of the cardinal sins of fiction writing: telling instead of showing.

Implicitly showing how your character is feeling by his or her interactions with other characters or the setting is infinitely more interesting to read than explicitly stating whether your character is happy, sad, elated, joyful, or miserable. Building off your character sketch A sketch is a starting point. In the visual arts, artists carry around sketch pads to practice and develop the fundamental skills of their craft with the aim of producing paintings that seem to jump off the canvas, or sculptures that seem to move in just the right light. The same is true for authors who use character sketches. Writers use this tool to develop and rehearse one of the fundamental skills of their craft—characterization. However, the final goal is not to have a notepad full of character sketches. An author should get to know his or her character through this practice.

How To Create Character Sketches For Mac

While not everything that an author writes in a character sketch must be included in the novel, the author should develop an in-depth and all-encompassing knowledge of every facet of the character's personality in order to create a consistent and engaging persona. The ultimate goal of a writer is to take these character sketches and use them to craft a wonderfully engrossing, character-driven work of fiction.

If you want an objective set of eyes to look at your manuscript, try our. Image source: Wilfred Iven/Stocksnap.io.