Instead, Tolkien describes Gandalf like this: We would feel like this description was meant for us, so that we know what he looks like. “He had long white hair, a silver beard, and broad shoulders.” If the description of Gandalf was simply: Tolkien, when we read The Lord of the Rings, we forget this - or at least, we can suspend our disbelief - because they are so well written and described so brilliantly. Although we know that Gandalf and Bilbo are fictional characters from the imagination of J.R.R. Let’s look at The Lord of the Rings as an example. Moments like this are jarring they take us out of the story. It’s like watching a puppet show and suddenly seeing the strings. This because they want the reader to picture what this character looks like or they want the reader to know what kind of person they are.īut if your character descriptions are too perfunctory and obvious in their intention, you’ll just end up reminding the reader of your existence, as the writer. Many new writers describe their characters using a simple list of physical attributes or characteristics. Don’t write your character description as a list of attributes or characteristics.Think about the way they move, smell, stand, sit, speak, laugh, smile. Don’t focus solely on their physical attributes.Tips and Techniques for Describing Characters: Speaking of no hard and fast rules, here are our hard and fast rules tips and techniques for describing characters. It’s just that when to describe certain characters, how much description to give, what kind of description, which characters you describe and which ones you don’t. A good, well thought out and well written character description, given at just the right time, can do wonders for your story. Some characters can appear without introduction and be described later, and some characters probably don’t need to be described or introduced at all.īut don’t let us put you off. Unless you’re writing meta-fiction or a very kitschy story, it’s best to limit the number of introductory character descriptions in any one story. (After all, you want your reader to lose themselves in the narrative, and it’s hard to do that if you’re always reminding them of your presence.) If you introduce the reader to every character as they appear, you’re almost acting as an intermediary between them and your reader, instead of allowing the reader to get to know the characters more organically. We often talk about trying to impose yourself - the writer - into your stories as little as possible. This is usually a bad idea as it can feel like you’re ‘introducing’ them to your reader, one by one. One way to add too much character description is by describing every character as they enter your story. You also want your reader to feel like they know your characters, and describing them in some way can be the quickest way to achieving this.īut it is possible to over-describe characters and to add too much character description to your stories. Describing their appearance can help the reader picture them in their mind’s eye, and describing a character’s disposition, mentality, or temperament can help the reader better understand them and their relationship with other characters, as well as give the reader a clearer sense of the conflict in the story. There are good reasons to describe characters, of course. But should you describe every character in every story you write? They drive the plot, they create and resolve conflict, they are your reader’s steadfast companions during your narrative and often, even the vessel through which they enter the world of your story. It could easily be argued that characters are the most important part of any story.
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