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We’ve seen that a writer should ‘show, not tell’, and we’ve looked at the two most important tricks for making your characters seem real:
We’ll look at this in detail, but it the key point is to use direct speech throughout the story – if nothing else, it is the easiest way to show how a character is feeling:
“What’s the matter, dear?”
“Go away – you’re always pickin’ on me!”
It is what a character does that makes them interesting. You show feelings when you include the actions a character makes which reveal what they are thinking and feeling.
There are two other techniques that can bring your characters to life:
Include contrasting thought and speech in your stories. It really brings the characters to life. Thoughts make your characters ‘three-dimensional’
‘Thoughts’ are a writer’s special trick – unlike a film or t.v. show, a story can give take the reader inside a character’s mind! When you’re writing in the first person (‘I’), thoughts bring the character you are pretending to be to life!
One of the best ways to use thoughts in a story is to make them the opposite of what the character is saying:
“Please come to my party.” I began to pray that he’d say no.
In life, we are often thinking things that are quite different to what we’re saying:
If you are writing in the third person, you can make your reader care about your protagonist by asking questions about them:
Do you see that it is the narrator asking the question, rather than the character?
Here is an example from one of my former pupils:
Good writers ‘show’ – and by combining our four characterisation techniques – dialogue, shown feelings, thoughts, and questions about the character - we can make our stories as thrilling as a Hansom cab chase!
Study this example:
Write ten lines about a girl lying to her teacher about her homework. Try to include all of our four characterisation techniques: |
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(c) Nick Hitchen 2007 |
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Last updated on
August 13, 2007
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