Characterization

Characterization is the formation and presentation of a character.

There are two ways an author presents a character: directly or indirectly.

Four methods used for Direct Characterization:

1. Action
2. Appearance
3. Thought
4. Dialogue

Action; a method used to record the process of change. The choices characters make are bigger than the chances that happen to them. Remember the Ten Rules of Good Writing? Good writing doesn't happen to characters – it happens because of them. The actions and choices a character makes describes to us what kind of character he or she is.

Appearance is the physical looks and what they say about that character. The right detail about the individual can give us an entire life story. The way we make them look says a lot about them. Don't forget to invoke the five senses in describing the appearance.

Knowing an individual's Thoughts help us understand who and what they are. What they desire and what they value. Try not to simply summarize thoughts but use both direct and indirect thoughts. Direct thoughts would be those words that are normally italicized within a work. It's exactly what the character is thinking. One example of an indirect thought is "He smelled her hair and thought of summer." Try to use both.

Dialogue is a very helpful method to understand a person. Are the words they are saying harmonize with their actions, thoughts or appearance? If they do, it means one thing. If they don't, it means something else. There are a few other things to know about dialogue:

1. Dialogue is used to advance the story.
2. It reveals character, plot, etc. It reveals more than one thing.
3. Have your characters say NO without ever saying "no." Have the wife be talking to the husband as he's watching TV. She asks if he'd fix the faucet. He grunts and changes the channel.
4. Avoid meaningless exchanges. "Hello, Bob!" "Hi, Mary! How are you?" "I'm good thanks! You?" "I'm good." "Have you heard about John?" Instead of all that before, go straight to "Have you heard about John?"
5. Don't overuse tags. He said this. She said this. Then he said that. And she said this. We know who is speaking. Also, let the words they say be powerful enough to not have to use: she screamed. He yelled. She cried. etc. Tags should never be noticed.
6. Avoid slang "fads" and phonetic spellings.
7. Avoid informational dialogue. If both of the characters know something, they don't need to have a dialogue about it just so the reader can understand.

Then there is Indirect Characterization. First, there's authorial interpretation where the author tells us exactly who the character is. Then there's interpretation from another character which is actually useful to learn about the character whose describing someone else.