Writer's Work Shop - Bringing Characters to Life -Descriptions

This page was imported from a forum post dated October 01, 2014 in the category Chatterbox by Dylan Locke. Its content is likely to be out of date!

This post had 2 replies.

Wed, 10/01/2014 - 09:51

A quick user made guide to making descriptions that stand out.

Writer's Work Shop - Bringing Characters to Life

Howdy all! This thread is dedicated to helping players, new and old, to bring their characters to life through Detail, Personality, and Environment. We will talk about Personality and Environment in another thread. This thread is open to all to contribute their own ideas and opinions on how they have found ways to make an alt come to life.

We all of course want to make a character that will be memorable, one that people like to play with, or even refer to in rp even when they are not icly there. Trouble is, making an alt who stands out around others is not always easy. There are many factors why your hero, villain, or normal character might get forgotten in history, it happens to us all and isn't always the players fault. Some characters just resonate more with different audiences and sometimes a story just doesn't come along to really bring out the characters good qualities. So don't feel bad if your alt doesn't always have the impact you would like them to have.

Character Detail

The first thing players see is going to be what your character looks like. Be they villains, heroes, or the local inn keeper. A description goes beyond just what your character looks like. Just like people in real life, you can catch a glimpse at their personality by how their dress and grooming.

And you don't need a lot of detail to do so.

Detail here on this website can be a challenge at times because the browser client has a character limit to normal descriptions, and sometimes messes with lsedit. So for an example we will make a shorter description for a few characters.

First a villainous thief.

The first step is the outline. These are the details that you want to convey to every player all the time. The important ones. To begin, let's summarize what the character is going to be.

Rio is a young, slender fox with red fur, wearing a vest and caring a dagger.

I highlighted each detail that the player needs to see. This is Rio at her core. Now to expand on this let's take each of those highlighted details and expand on it.

Rio is a fox in her early adult seasons, filled with vibrant energy in the bloom of youth. Her body has a lithe appearance with little fat or muscle tone under her glossy red fur. She covers her self in simple but flashy garments. A dull grey vest made from from the fur of a rat hangs over her chest. At her waist is a belt with a curved dagger at her side.

This description has more substance to it, now let's toss in some smaller details that give us a glimpse into her personality.

Rio is a fox in her early adult seasons, filled with vibrant energy in the bloom of youth having not quite grown into her full adult height.. Her body has a lithe appearance with little fat or muscle tone under her glossy red fur. Despite her ribs showing under her fur Rio cuts an exotic appearance.She covers her self in simple but flashy garments. She wears a blue cloth head band across her head, and her ears are adorned with several large hoop earrings. Her tail is banded with a gold bracelet.A dull grey vest made from from the fur of a rat hangs over her chest, which leaves a sliver of fur exposed around her middle. At her waist is otter hide belt with a curved dagger at her side. The blade has three scratches etched into one side, they look to be purposely etched into the iron of the blade.

And here we have the final description. I highlighted everything I added. She now wears not only a rat skin vest but also an otter hide belt and keeps notches on her knife to show how many enemies she has defeated with it. Or perhaps the notches mean how many purse strings she has cut with the blade. Either way it makes the player reading it pause and consider what the notches might mean.

I added how her ribs show through her fur to convey that she doesn't eat too well as well as left her stomach exposed under her vest. While that might be a popular look for today back in the middle ages that was NOT how a dignified lady would travel about.

Pitfalls

A quick word on usual pitfalls in descriptions. Generally actions should not be placed into your description, unless of course your alt is always smiling even when he trips, get's crushed by a rock, or stabbed with a spear. Action's should be left for rp when your alt is in motion. Descriptions should apply no matter what action the character takes, be it walking, running, jumping, or sleeping.

Thoughts and inner feelings also fit into the category of actions.

Not to say that limps, body movements and other actions can not be woven into a description, generally they are best left to RP.

Another pitfall is TOO much detail. Details are great but if you are throwing in detail's just for the sake of detail then it will show. It also takes away from what you want the reader to see about your character. And to be honest, when a player is hit by a wall of text when they look at your alt, the chances of them reading through the entire thing, or at least reading through the entire description 'accurately', diminish.

There is no exact word count for the perfect description, because writing is an art and art is in the eye of the beholder. The right length of your description is how ever long it takes to convey the basic idea you want to get across.

For longer descriptions, or even shorter ones, reducing sentence length can help dramatically. When you read you have to every once in a while pause to take a breath. You do this mentally too when you read something, even to yourself.

So try aiming for each sentence to be read in one 'breath.' That will help reduce the chances of readers glossing over your descriptions important details.

Overused appearance traits.

There is certainly nothing wrong with cliche's, if used properly. It does get rather stale though when you fill an adventuring party up with only muscle bound warriors or knights however. It's like stocking your team on FF1 with only fighters, mages, or healers.

Here is a list of character traits that tend to be heavily used no matter what muck you visit:

____

Peak health or body builder bodies

striking 'insert color' eyes.

scar across their eyes, or snout, or between their eyes

Myriads of weapons ranging from a small arsenal to carrying more than one two handed weapon.

duel wielded weapons.

throwing knives.

Armor and clothing that any sane person can tell belongs to an evil person. IE the Dark Knight, and not of the batman variety.

Anime styled hair.

Symmetrical features or flawless good looks.

____

Again, nothing is wrong with these traits, we all have characters that use them to one degree or another. They just tend to be used a lot.

Exercise

Now, just for fun, let's leave the forum up to make our next alt.

Jacob the ferret. Because it is easier to convey personality on combative alts and warriors, like Rio above, let's make Jacob a simple beast. He works in the back room of a general goods store. he stocks supplies and runs the front desk for his employer.

The only rules are that Jacob has to be a ferret and a worker. Everything else is up to the player to decide. From his fur color, to clothing, to weight, feel free to make him however YOU would to bring out his personality. He can be young or old, fat or muscular, clean or dirty, armed or unarmed, rich or poor. Feel free to go wild and post what you came up with here in the forum. There are no wrong descriptions :)

Also feel free to write down some ideas that you find helpful in writing descriptions, making them easier to read, or adding the right level of detail to your alt.

Top