Comments on: The sketch artist

By: Dave Wilson

Dave Wilson — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:59:45 +0000

But John…without Dickensian wordiness,would Detective Bucket have come to life?

By: Jana

Jana — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:04:06 +0000

I use the google image trick as well and it’s helped me come up with an image of my mc. However, I don’t like to describe a character in detail. Mentioning that she’s tall with light brown hair, green eyes, and sensual features is enough. I hate reading character descriptions that read like lists.

By: John B Rosenman

John B Rosenman — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:46:50 +0000

This is a really good essay. What I like best is that you show how to partially overcome a personal weakness as a writer. And guys, we almost all have them. The fact that googling your way to seeing and describing a character more fully WORKED, justifies your approach, which most definitely is not cheating.

I read an article on writing years ago whose title was something like, “The Reader is Your Unseen Collaborator.” And that’s true. If you say that a guy is six feet four, lean, dark and handsome, a lot of readers will fill in the rest. Their images of the character may not gel closely, but they will all feel they “know” that character and can pick him out of a lineup.

As I was reading your essay, I thought of nineteenth-century Dickensian novels where the author would stop the action and describe at great length what a character looked like. Thank heaven, we no longer do that, but it can be a mistake to scrimp on detail

By: Brian Hodge

Brian Hodge — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:42:23 +0000

That’s one of Elmore Leonard’s rules that I disagree with. I think, in most cases, you shortchange a character when you skimp on appearance. Especially since so much of a person’s interior life and emotional affect have been influenced by what they look like, and how others treated them because of it. Likewise, the exterior can be a screen onto which they project what they are inside, or would like to be, or even something about themselves that they try to hide but it finds ways to express itself anyway.
Not that you have to laboriously describe every mole, but at the very least give the reader something to go on. I often find it effective to reveal appearances through the eyes of other characters, which performs a kind of double duty: What Person A notices about Person B says something about them both.

By: Gerard Houarner

Gerard Houarner — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:03:03 +0000

Yeah, I’m also a minimalist and have had to adjust, as well. The google idea is a great tip — if I can get into the right frame of mind, a long ride on the subway can inspire a bunch of descriptive sketches. But I always struggle with the pov character — the “mirror” trick irritates me, but you do what you have to do, like having other characters notice something, or have something become a self-conscious issue (as an old baldie, I’m occasionally amazed at being the only one in groups/crowds, or I become aware of my “style” if I’m over/under dressed for an occasion or inappropriately dressed, like, um, wearing a Yankee cap at necon).

By: Dave Wilson

Dave Wilson — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:35:35 +0000

I tend to be too minimalist with characters as well, Bev, and I’ve been working to get past it. I’ve heard the comment often enough that I know it’s a habit…

What I do now is, the first time I mention a recurring character, I make an entry into a character file - a running tab of description, notes, etc…it’s been very helpful to me in matters of continuity, and recently helped with a description for an artist working on a book cover.