We are often asked if characters should describe themselves at Writers Write. We are asked how they could describe themselves. When we came across this post by Stephanie Orges, we wanted to share some of her ideas with you. (If you want to read the full article, follow the link at the end)
Six Ways First Person Narrators Can Describe Themselves
By Stephanie Orges
1. Don’t describe him at all
Do your readers have to know what the protagonist looks like to understand the plot? If not, consider leaving it out altogether.
2. Give it to your reader straight
If you are actually telling the story with frequent quirky asides to your “dear reader”, your hero can simply describe himself during introductions. But be warned: don’t try to force it if this isn’t your style.
3. Embarrass them
Make them self-conscious about a physical flaw. She only smiles close-mouthed because she’s embarrassed by the gap in her teeth. He wishes he had biceps like the head jock.
4. Compare and contrast with another character
‘My daughter has my crooked smile, but her father’s blue eyes’. These can even create a poetic effect, as you can simultaneously compare and contrast personality traits as well.
5. Use dialogue
Her best friend gently explains dark roots are out of fashion. His father remarks he really ought to cut his hair (he looks like a hippie). Her enemy asks if she’s a natural redhead. Use compliments and nicknames.
6. Show, don’t tell
If they are short, have them struggle to reach something most others could get. If tall, have them duck through doorways. If they are unattractive, make them self-conscious around people of the opposite sex. Your hero’s appearance is reflected in the way other characters react to it.
Read the full article: Source
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Literary Birthday - 2 May
Happy Birthday, Jerome K Jerome, born 2 May 1859, died 14 June 1927
Quotes
- It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
- How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams — waking dreams, I mean — the dreams that we call ‘castles in the air’, built by the kindly hands of Hope!
- The weather is like the government, always in the wrong.
- It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.
- The facts of life are the impossibilities of fiction.
- It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy.
- It is no more effort for a man to be a saint than to be a sinner; it becomes a mere matter of habit.
- The advantage of literature over life is that its characters are clearly defined, and act consistently.
Jerome was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat. He founded the co-weekly Today and in 1892 he founded and co-edited The Idler. Jerome was well-connected in literary society and with witty contributors as Mark Twain, Luke Sharpe, Rudyard Kipling, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle it was a success.
by Amanda Patterson for Writers Write
