Characters Walking Out of the Pages

           

             Ever since I was eight years old, I’ve wanted to be an author. Two years ago, I started to write a book and finally finished it six months later. To this day, I am still in the process of editing it and I wouldn’t have been able to get through those stressful and long hours of editing without Hallie Ephron's The Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel. This guide is a wonderful book that helps writers of all ages edit their first draft and eventually publish their novels. Ephron covers each step to writing a novel and suggests what you should or shouldn’t include in it. Her tips and suggestions have really helped me with my editing progress; I’ve learned a lot. However, there is one part of writing a novel that I have trouble with: character development. Whenever I introduce the characters in my story, I get caught into the plot and completely forget to describe them in brief detail. After reading Ephron's book, I started to develop my characters easier than before, and I know that I'm not the only writer in the world who has this problem. Therefore, this post will teach other writers who struggle the simple steps for developing character.     

            In Ephron’s The Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel, one of the steps is to describe your characters in one or two details that show their personality. For example, if your character has wristwatches on both arms, the reader gets an idea that your character manages time well and is never late for anything. Or if your character is described as having a lot of wrinkles, the reader gets the idea that the character is old or has been through a lot of stressful situations. Remember to “think about which of the details are most striking” (119) in order to help the reader visualize your character.

            Another thing a writer should do when introducing a character is show them with words (don’t just talk about them). Likewise, Ephron says “one of the best ways to show a character to the reader is by putting [them] on the page and letting [them] perform” (120). In other words, writing about your character’s gestures, nervous ticks or habits is what conveys their inner self. For example, just by saying that “Suzy rubbed her sweaty palms together” indicates that she is nervous or anxious. You don’t have to tell the reader that “Suzy rubbed her sweaty palms together because she was nervous”, the reader already knows that she’s nervous because her palms are sweaty, and she's rubbing them together. In addition, your character can still show their inner feelings even if they are standing still (indicating that they are shocked, calm or indecisive about where to go).

            The final and the most important way to describe a character (in my opinion) is through dialogue. Your character’s personality should be illustrated through voice. For instance, the greeting between two characters reveals a lot. For example, if one character says “Howdy” and the other character says “Yo”, the reader gets the idea that one character is a cowboy and the other is, stereotypically speaking, a gangster or “cool dude”.

            Overall, I hope that I helped make character development easier for those who struggle with it. Personally, Ephron’s tips on writing characters have really helped me overcome writer’s block. Therefore, I recommend her book to every writer who is writing their first novel, or who have already finished their first draft. It is an incredibly, useful guide that will increase your writing skills and hopefully one day land you in a publishing house.

By Victoria Kennedy

Source:

Ephron, Hallie. The Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel. Massachusetts: Adams             Media, 2011. Print.