Genre piece #2: How-To-Guide
How-to Guide for Creating Characters:
Creating characters to include into your writing can be one of the hardest steps for an author. This process includes detailed imagery, expressions and traits that make your character believable. It can be quite a challenge to develop characters that are a good fit for your story and interest your readers. With this step-by-step process you will be able to create believable and loveable characters that improve the quality of your writing. This system will make your characters become the characters that you want them to be.
Follow these specific steps to create your own characters. For example purposes this process will be exemplified through an actual development of a character. If you are a teacher this would be a great activity to modify and use to teach the students in your class about character development.
Step #1: Find a bag, any size will be fine.
Step #2: Fill the bag with random objects. If you want this part to be impartial then ask a friend to do this step for you or the teacher can fill the bags with objects for the students. You can also choose specific objects that will relate your story if you are trying to fit the character to a story.
Step #3: Now take each item out of the bag and set them down in front of you.
Objects in bag: Shoe Horn, small “King Kong” toy, old small picture of wild flowers in a tarnished frame, old bolo tie with a symbol for some group on the collar button, and old measuring tape.
Step #4: After spending about five minutes making observations about your objects begin to think about what kind of character would be associated with these objects. What kind of character would come into contact with all of these objects? How do they reflect the characters life?
Observations: old, rustic, country, masculine, worker, sentimental, rough, construction, member of a group, traditional, kid at heart, movie watcher.
Step #5: Now take these ideas about a character that you have associated with these objects and begin to imagine what this character looks like and behaves like. Make a list of some character traits and shallow details. The character should begin to take shape at this point.
· An old man
· Widow
· Small town man
· Hard worker
· Aged looking
· A lot of wrinkles and Calluses
· Lonely
· Sentimental
· Misses his wife and working
Step #6: Now that a character is being developed, give it a name.
Name= Walt Mathers
Step #7: What does the character look like? Make a list details about the characters appearance. This will help the author begin to visualize the character.
· Thin, white hair that he presses down with a comb in the mornings.
· Wrinkles all cover his face and hands to reveal his age
· Callus can be found on the surface of his hands and feet revealing a lifetime of hard labor.
· Pale blue eyes, usually look sad.
· Mouth formed into the shape of a permanent frown.
· A bit over weight, but his weight in slowly falling without the buttered food from his wife.
· His nails have permanent stains from years of dirt being caked under them.
· His lips are thin, almost non-existent.
· He is Caucasian.
· He is about 5’7’’
Step #8: Take this image of the character and begin to think about how these objects apply to your character. The author does not necessarily have to include these objects within the story, but they can be a good starting point to making the character seem more real.
· A member of the local POW/MIA veterans group. This is where most of his social interaction occurs. He wears this bolo tie every day to alert others of his status and remind himself of the war.
· The small picture in the frame was from his wife’s collection of trinkets, he keeps it on his bed side table.
· The measuring tape, which he still carries in his pockets are from his days as a carpenter, he believed it was the closest to Jesus he would ever come and missed working every day. He kept the tape measurer hoping someone would need some help and ask him, and then he would be ready.
· The small King Kong toy came from his son’s happy meal box when his son was six. He talked back to him and took the toy and put it on his dash board of his old ford truck where it has stayed since.
· The shoe horn sits in his side table drawer, he only use it for his good church shoes but he has not been to church since the death of his wife; she always made him go before that and he would pretend to put up a fight but actually loved the time with her.
Step #9: After making this list, try the character out like a new car. Write a small paragraph about the character.
Walt gathered all of his weak strength to get out his 20 year old bed that creaked with every movement. He collected his glasses from his bedside table next to his the old show horn his wife had given to him for his church shoes. He places his rough, flat feet on the cool wood floor. His hands are worn and the wrinkles show his ripe age as he follows the same methodical motions that he has done for the past thirty years. He stands, slowly letting his 87 years old bones crack into place. He picks up his old jeans off of the floor and puts them on. He sits down to button his thin thread plaid shirt, with the top button missing, but it is ok because his bolo tie can cover it up. He walks to the dresser and picks up his wife’s favorite small picture of a meadow, right where she left it for her daily gazing. He never understood why she loved these little trinkets so much but now they are his to treasure. After a quick glance of the old man in the mirror he picks up his old measuring tape with the hope that today will be the day that he will be called on to work again. He knows this is just wishful thinking because he can barely get around the house or drive anymore. But, every morning he slips on his old work boots, shuffles down to kitchen to make his standard black coffee just as if he was young again about to go off to work. After his coffee, he would normally kiss his wife good bye, but this time he heads out to white wash the picket fence for the third time this month, passing the old red ford with that dusty “King Kong” toy on the dash. As he slowly kneels down to put the brush to the old wood he thinks about his son away in Arizona and his beautiful wife in heaven.
Step #10: The last step is to add the character to your story or to create a new story based on the character just created.
This ten step process can help any author to create a well-developed character. This is a great process for any writer struggling or teacher trying to teach characterization in their classroom. Follow each step and you can create believable characters that will help your story come to life.
Creating characters to include into your writing can be one of the hardest steps for an author. This process includes detailed imagery, expressions and traits that make your character believable. It can be quite a challenge to develop characters that are a good fit for your story and interest your readers. With this step-by-step process you will be able to create believable and loveable characters that improve the quality of your writing. This system will make your characters become the characters that you want them to be.
Follow these specific steps to create your own characters. For example purposes this process will be exemplified through an actual development of a character. If you are a teacher this would be a great activity to modify and use to teach the students in your class about character development.
Step #1: Find a bag, any size will be fine.
Step #2: Fill the bag with random objects. If you want this part to be impartial then ask a friend to do this step for you or the teacher can fill the bags with objects for the students. You can also choose specific objects that will relate your story if you are trying to fit the character to a story.
Step #3: Now take each item out of the bag and set them down in front of you.
Objects in bag: Shoe Horn, small “King Kong” toy, old small picture of wild flowers in a tarnished frame, old bolo tie with a symbol for some group on the collar button, and old measuring tape.
Step #4: After spending about five minutes making observations about your objects begin to think about what kind of character would be associated with these objects. What kind of character would come into contact with all of these objects? How do they reflect the characters life?
Observations: old, rustic, country, masculine, worker, sentimental, rough, construction, member of a group, traditional, kid at heart, movie watcher.
Step #5: Now take these ideas about a character that you have associated with these objects and begin to imagine what this character looks like and behaves like. Make a list of some character traits and shallow details. The character should begin to take shape at this point.
· An old man
· Widow
· Small town man
· Hard worker
· Aged looking
· A lot of wrinkles and Calluses
· Lonely
· Sentimental
· Misses his wife and working
Step #6: Now that a character is being developed, give it a name.
Name= Walt Mathers
Step #7: What does the character look like? Make a list details about the characters appearance. This will help the author begin to visualize the character.
· Thin, white hair that he presses down with a comb in the mornings.
· Wrinkles all cover his face and hands to reveal his age
· Callus can be found on the surface of his hands and feet revealing a lifetime of hard labor.
· Pale blue eyes, usually look sad.
· Mouth formed into the shape of a permanent frown.
· A bit over weight, but his weight in slowly falling without the buttered food from his wife.
· His nails have permanent stains from years of dirt being caked under them.
· His lips are thin, almost non-existent.
· He is Caucasian.
· He is about 5’7’’
Step #8: Take this image of the character and begin to think about how these objects apply to your character. The author does not necessarily have to include these objects within the story, but they can be a good starting point to making the character seem more real.
· A member of the local POW/MIA veterans group. This is where most of his social interaction occurs. He wears this bolo tie every day to alert others of his status and remind himself of the war.
· The small picture in the frame was from his wife’s collection of trinkets, he keeps it on his bed side table.
· The measuring tape, which he still carries in his pockets are from his days as a carpenter, he believed it was the closest to Jesus he would ever come and missed working every day. He kept the tape measurer hoping someone would need some help and ask him, and then he would be ready.
· The small King Kong toy came from his son’s happy meal box when his son was six. He talked back to him and took the toy and put it on his dash board of his old ford truck where it has stayed since.
· The shoe horn sits in his side table drawer, he only use it for his good church shoes but he has not been to church since the death of his wife; she always made him go before that and he would pretend to put up a fight but actually loved the time with her.
Step #9: After making this list, try the character out like a new car. Write a small paragraph about the character.
Walt gathered all of his weak strength to get out his 20 year old bed that creaked with every movement. He collected his glasses from his bedside table next to his the old show horn his wife had given to him for his church shoes. He places his rough, flat feet on the cool wood floor. His hands are worn and the wrinkles show his ripe age as he follows the same methodical motions that he has done for the past thirty years. He stands, slowly letting his 87 years old bones crack into place. He picks up his old jeans off of the floor and puts them on. He sits down to button his thin thread plaid shirt, with the top button missing, but it is ok because his bolo tie can cover it up. He walks to the dresser and picks up his wife’s favorite small picture of a meadow, right where she left it for her daily gazing. He never understood why she loved these little trinkets so much but now they are his to treasure. After a quick glance of the old man in the mirror he picks up his old measuring tape with the hope that today will be the day that he will be called on to work again. He knows this is just wishful thinking because he can barely get around the house or drive anymore. But, every morning he slips on his old work boots, shuffles down to kitchen to make his standard black coffee just as if he was young again about to go off to work. After his coffee, he would normally kiss his wife good bye, but this time he heads out to white wash the picket fence for the third time this month, passing the old red ford with that dusty “King Kong” toy on the dash. As he slowly kneels down to put the brush to the old wood he thinks about his son away in Arizona and his beautiful wife in heaven.
Step #10: The last step is to add the character to your story or to create a new story based on the character just created.
This ten step process can help any author to create a well-developed character. This is a great process for any writer struggling or teacher trying to teach characterization in their classroom. Follow each step and you can create believable characters that will help your story come to life.