Creating characters—telling what human beings are like—is the whole point of writing stories.

Creating Characters

Why is this important?• Having the skills to identify how an author

develops a character are crucial to understanding that character’s personality, motivations, and role to the larger themes found in the text.

• Characters reflect our own human traits and are therefore essential players to understanding ourselves and the human condition.

Direct Characterization—Writers tell us directly what characters are like or what their motives are.

Indirect Characterization—Writers show us characters (through speech, appearance, private thoughts, other characters’ reactions, and actions) but allow us to decide what characters are like.

Direct and Indirect Characterization

STEAL

speech

looks

thoughts effects on others

actions

Character Development

• what characters say and don’t say

Dialogue can reveal a lot about characters and their relationships with each other. Pay attention to

• how characters respond to each other

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Speech

Writers can take us into the characters’ minds to reveal their thoughts and feelings.

As you read, note whether the characters’ thoughts and feelings match their speech and actions.

Thoughts

Watch how other characters in the story react to the character. Note

• how the others feel about the character

• what the others say about the character

Effects on Others

What characters do and how they treat each other often reveal the most about them.

Observe characters’ actions to determine

• what their personality is like

• what motivates them

• how they deal with conflict

Actions

Pay attention to language the writer uses to describe the characters’ looks, clothes, and demeanor.

• Does the description give you a positive or negative impression of the character?

Looks

• Which words contribute to this impression?

The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. . . .

from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Which methods of character development are being used?

What do you think of the man based on this excerpt?

Character Development“Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut

your throat!”A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with

a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints . . . ; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Who is the most unforgettable character you’ve ever met in a story? Write a few sentences about why you find the character so memorable. Before you begin, jot down your ideas on a chart like this one.

Practice

Most memorable character

Most outstanding character

Character’s appearance

Important statements

Important thoughts

Important actions

Reactions of other characters