Tip
It’s one thing to get to know your character inside out – from what they eat for breakfast to their deepest, darkest secret. The other task for the writer is to make a character ping into life on the page, so that a reader might recognise them if they met them.
A caveat: many short stories can get away without showing us how a character looks, moves, talks, at all. It does depend on the style and form you’re working in, but for most novels and at least some short stories (see Flannery O’Connor), it is a good idea to think about character-depiction.
We can make characters feel like real, tangible people using some techniques we would use for setting. Think about the senses. What do they look like, sound like, smell like, feel like, taste like?
Thinking about the answers to these questions might mean filling in other details about them. If a character smells consistently of soap, or bubble gum, or chlorine, what does that tell us?
Beyond that, it is useful to think about how a person moves. This might include physical habits and ticks, how mobile and expressive their face it, whether they gesticulate much. I especially like to consider how a character walks, as this can also tell us much about them.
As well as the actual sound of their voice, we can also think about the rhythms and patterns of their speech. This will help distinguish their dialogue, and characterise through voice. Do they have a phrase that becomes a refrain in their speech, a habit of mangling idiom or echoing their interlocutor?
Consider what a character carries with them. Personal talismans can be symbolic and significant. What belongings do they not care a jot about, and which could they not bear to lose? Do they hide behind a coat/pair of glasses/carried newspaper, or do they use their parasol/pipe/silk scarf to draw attention to themselves?
Exercise
Make a list of people you know (write names down for a minute, then stop). Look through your list; think about the distinctive characteristics of each person. You can borrow from all of these for your fictional characters. That crooked front tooth, honking laugh, mobile eyebrow, whiff of mothball, unblinking gaze, jiggling leg, are all yours for the taking.
Make list of all the words you can think of for walking, or moving through space. You can cheat with a thesaurus if you like. Consider words like sashay, thunder, lope, skip, waddle.
Start with a walk, e.g. ‘He waddled through the fair’. Give your character an outfit, a demeanour, a talismanic object. Think about how they smell, what sound their progress makes. Get them into a conversation. How do they speak, and how do they move while talking? Don’t be afraid of tipping into caricature – this is all about flexing your descriptive muscles. But all the time that you are describing your character, keep them moving or speaking.
Afterwards, reread and see what kind of person you think you have created – what are they like on the inside?
This tip is from Zoe Gilbert, who teaches our online courses, Folk Tales in New Fiction and Summer Seminars: Fantastic Literature.