How can you describe a character without being too cliche?
As a reader, I don't want to see the characters like the author. That tends to mean the author didn't trust I was smart enough to read the book, so told me everything I could possibly need to know and way too much of what didn't matter. As for brown hair, matching eyes and tall? You're right - too cliched, unless there's a reason that's important. Then again, you pretty much described my main character. (Okay, so his eyes are so brown they almost look black and they're made from a special manufactured button, and he has fur, not hair, and the fur is honey brown. And he is very tall for his species. He's a good 18 inches tall, whereas most are only a foot tall. Did I mention my main character is a teddy bear? lol) See what happened there? Only once did I mention in the whole novel that he was 18 inches tall. He's known as "string bean" and "The lanky one." Those aren't his names, but that's how others relate to him. They look up to him - literally. (That shows how they see him, instead of tells.) Don't just out and out describe your character, make the description part of the story and relate it to those around what's being described. Brown hair and matching eyes? Lots of variations on that theme. Because my story is about stuffed animals, most of them are brown furred, but none of them have the same color brown fur (except for twins, triplets, and the like.) I go to sites that tell about hair colors, and pick the color that matches the fur.
Is my writing good enough to be published?
You need to shorten the first few paragraphs where the character talks about how much she hates her job. The first page is very important, you need to hook in readers. If it were me I would have two paragraphs talking about the job on the first page and then get on to the rest of the story line. You're in for a good start but try to get to the story much faster. It seems like you're writing a vampire thriller, for these books especially, your audience would appreciate you getting to the story faster. Go to the library and check out thrillers, vampire novels, supernatural novels, action books, and see how successful authors pace the story and the characters. Usually when they talk about their jobs its not for very long or the jobs somehow relate to the rest of the action. In the Sookie Stackhouse novels, the author sets her character as a waitress in a bar but quickly moves the plot ahead so we can get to the action. The first chapter needs editing and re-writing but overall I think you're to a decent start. Keep writing, keep improving, and you will get published.
How does a writer know when their characters are complex enough?
Your characters are complex enough when people can relate to them in some way and their motivations make sense.In my book, Fallen From the Stars, many of the characters suffer from trauma from the abuse they’ve received from the humans in the valley below, so I’ve done research as to what are the typical symptoms of such trauma. My research (along with discussion my character personalities with a licensed therapist) had several characters suffer from the following conditions:The beginning stages of schizophrenia (one character)A strong streak of rebelliousnessWithdrawn/insularBipolar psychosisCatatonic manic depressionSo, in my writing I establish this character suffered this kind of assault and I describe the symptoms of their experience with the onset of schizophrenia. Another character is another victim and I discuss how she rebels constantly, and so on.You don’t have to have your characters be victims either, just so long as their motivations and what they are doing in the story is realistic. For example, if you write a comical villain who robs banks—just ask yourself, why would he do it? Think of a realistic motivation of this villain who enjoys robbing banks and then make that a part of his / her personality.
Need help describing a fight scene for my book.?
I am writing a fantasy book and in it i want to put a few fight scenes, but i need help finding away to describe the fights. Some of the fights will be between vampires. Some between werewolves and some between werewolves and vampires, but i dont know how to describe them fighting. The main charecter is a female witch and theres a couple scenes where she fights vampires and some where she fights werewolves. The second main charecter is a male vampire and there are some sceens where he does the same thing, i just need a little help figuring out how to describe a good fight sceen between them. Any one have any ideas?
How do I make a character in the book seem real?
Study books that teach how to develop characters and then practice what they preach. Added: So characters become real once we give then skin and hair? In that case, why would the asker ask the question. Anyone can give a physical body to a character. Many characters are still flat. Physical description has nothing to do with making a real character.
When reading a novel, how do you visualize settings that you've never traveled to before (e.g. Paris)?
In talks with other writers I have come to the conclusion that people do this differently. Here is how my brain works. Imagine I’m reading the following sentence….I slid open the rice paper screen…Images from visual media of all kind are dragged up into my brain, Karate Kid II, an Earthquake documentary, National Geographic photographs, Totoro. With it come other images that were associated with rice paper screens in those images, bonzi trees, Japanese style roofs, kimonos.….I stepped over the Hello Kitty bag left carelessly on the floor…Now I am thinking modern Japan, Tokyo, Harajuku girls, Manga.…. and crossed to the veranda which looked over the paddy fields and the mountains beyond.Now I see a Japanese Man in western clothing, he is standing in a traditional style Japanese house looking out over flat jade green fields of sprouting rice with precipitous, pine covered mountains in the distance. For some reason I have decided it’s cloudy. I don’t know why, there is nothing about it in the sentence, there clearly must be a sky and my brain has decided that it’s a cloudy one.So in every sentence I am searching for visual clues which I can call up images from my memory bank and collage together. But what happens when you have never seen a single image about a place. This happened when I read Death in Kashmir by MM Kaye. One thing she did which was very clever, was she early on had her character visit a bazaar and buy a bowl or something, she described the intricate pattern of the bowl in great detail. So now I have an idea of what the artistic style of the area is. Her character then went to stay on a houseboat on a lake in the mountains. I have no idea what this houseboat looks like, I have no idea what Kashmir looks like. But I know what a mountain looks like, I know what a lake looks like and I know what a barge looks like. So my brain takes a image of Switzerland probably from Hedi, slaps a European barge into it, but highly decorated in the local style she has previously described and painted gold for some reason with red heavily embroidered fabrics. All that gets collaged together. Is it anything like what a real Kashmir boat house looks like, no, I just googled it, I was totally wrong. But it doesn't matter a bit because I had some image in my head for the character’s story to unfold in.
How do you know when an illustration is good enough to publish in a novel?
As someone who is married to an artist who illustrated their novels, I’ll offer the following advice.Your composition is excellent. So are your proportions. Your technique is excellent.You are ready to move this illustration and those like it to the final draft.It’s time to bite the bullet, get some drawing and painting software, and learn how to use it. If you already have a software package, and know how to use it, scan your pencils in, clean them up, polish them up and add the detail.If you don’t, get some and learn it. You need to convert the rough to pure black and white (pen and ink) in order to get rid of the background gray, clean up those paper lines, and get rid of the sketch lines. Then you can add detail and shading, save as a jpeg and you’ll be good to go.Another piece of advice. As someone whose husband had a studio fire, I advise you to move into digital art as soon as possible, get a gmail account, and start emailing jpegs of WIP to yourself as you go. That way you will never lose art. There are also cloud services that allow you a certain amount of free space, like Dropbox, where you can archive digital art.
Writers, are your characters very physically active?
I honestly prefer to set the scene and let things flow easily. I don't like action much, and I'm terrible with dialogue (me beating myself up, as per usual), but when it comes to the atmosphere and characterization, such as establishing personas and so on, I tend to shine. I've been told by reviewers that they love how they are able to perfectly visualize everything that's going on, and how the characters seem so real and arresting. I like to think my action sequences leave a little to be desired, as do some of my inner ruminations and emotional turmoils when I'm feeling particularly emotionless, so I tend to avoid those when they're unnecessary. I'd prefer to have my characters sitting in some park to argue, the smell of freshly mowed grass and early morning dew heavy in the air. The sky would be painted a sensuous crimson that bleeds out to a hazy blue expanse of cotton-streaked sky. The bench they sat on would be old, the wood faded in the sunlight and weathered by years of torrential downpour. It would most certainly creak with every movement one of them made. Their words would flow in a spirited argument that was just loud enough to attract the attention of the jogging passersby, reaching an easy crescendo about whatever chosen conversation was occurring between them. Children's laughter would burble at irregular intervals despite the early morning. Perhaps they were playing before classes started? Oh look, an example. Enjoy.
How to describe things without overdoing it?
Well, it's kinda hard to describe. I'm just going to give you examples. Character: Gasping at the sudden harsh wind, Rose pushed her red hair into a messy ponytail. Blue eyes watering slightly, she rushed on petit legs into the one bedroom house. Setting: Rose glanced around the brightly lit room. The dark blue carpet had seen better days, judging by the burn marks and footprints made of mud. Just describe things as the story moves along. Like how the characters look, you can describe what color their eyes are by an action. I hope this helped! Good luck writing!~