Recently, I realized that my novels are always short on description especially for the characters. Sometimes I even had glitches (MC brown haired at the beginning and blond at the end of the novel). With my latest novel, I decided to make visuals of my most important characters. I thought about making a collage (cutting different body-parts from different magazines), when I watched my youngest daughter play around with an online dressing doll.
Now, I use Candybar's dollmaker (http://elouai.com/doll-makers/new-dollmaker.php) to create the basic visuals of a character (no fancy background). Then, I save the doll to my PC, and whenever I need to remember what the character looks like, I just view the picture. If I have many characters, I put them into one big picture with a graphic-program (like MS-paint) for ease of use. That way, my descriptions are consistent AND I don't forget them when I write.
I do hope this helps,
Cat
Tip Tuesday #77
Tip Tuesday is a recurring feature where readers send in tips for fellow writers. I have a fun one from Katharina Gerlach to share today. Please visit her author site when you're done here. Thank you, Cat!
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11 comments:
That's such an interesting tip. I will have to use it. Thank you so much for sharing, Cat!
Casey, I just wanted to let you know about this fantastic campaign started by a couple of bloggers. Here's the link: http://kateevangelistarandr.blogspot.com/2011/02/books-for-kids-lets-give-back.html
It's something that touched me, and I wanted to share it with you.
What a great idea. I've always struggled with descriptions. I'm thinking having a visual of who the person is might help. Thanks for the tip.
Great idea. I usually search through magazines or online photos to visualize my characters. I'll check out the site. Thanks!
My daughter thought I was crazy, but when we got Guitar Hero 5, I made my MC into an avatar. He's pretty good on stage! lol
What a wonderful idea! I am definitely going to do that. I appreciate the tip!
That's a great idea. Sounds like fun! I spent hours making all of my characters into Mii's on the Wii. Now I can play baseball and tennis with them :)
I discovered it through my kids. They love dress-up dolls.
This is interesting to me, because I really like the trend in writing to be less descriptive. I feel like writing is getting so much cleaner and more trusting of readers' ability to visualize characters and settings.
What a creative approach! Thanks, Cat.
Cool tip! I usually scour the net for pictures of some actors that sort of embody my character, and then use them as a basis for description. :D
Awesome tip! I have the same problem. Lately I've been scouring modeling sites for pictures that I can use to help with my description.
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