I set up a one-page bio for my major characters. Very simple: name, photo, occupation, some descriptive adjectives, brief personal history, any life altering events in the past, and some notes on their personal arc/journey through the story. The photo was the thing that did it for me. There's now a face to the name, and a connection. I cranked out 10 keeper pages in six hours today.
That's great. Sounds like a good way to get to know a character. How did you get a photo? I guess you just searched for a picture of someone who resembles that character and used it?
For some characters, I've known all along who they physically look like (someone in real life or in a movie). For others, it's been a gradual awareness.
I recently did that with some characters, and I found the photo idea to be helpful too! For one of my characters I couldn't find a photo that was good enough so she didn't get one. However those characters are the most real to me, especially because of the images. Sadly I couldn't make their story work so they're chilling in my WIP folder until I make use of them. What type of searches did you do to find your images? I had some difficulty figuring out what to search to come up with good ones.
I just imagine the image. Works for me. But I do take notes on my characters. And compare their traits to each other. I find comparison often highlights areas where you might want to add additional details on their personality.
Yeah, I really like the idea of comparing characters to each other. Often writers like to put highly contrasting characters in their stories to do that, but sometimes having very similar characters can be more effective because it highlights subtleties.
I'm not sure how similar is best, I'm more talking that it shows you how similar they are. And it can show you if, as I mentioned, if a character has too little traits.
Oh I see, I was thinking the opposite, of how different then are, lol. Either way it comes out the same; comparing characters and noticing similarities and differences definitely helps with character development.
I will do concept sketches of MCs if I need faces to go with names, and story lines. That and I like to draw so, no being a lazy bones trying to hunt down something close on google/image search.
