Character Creative Writing Unit Target: I can integrate research to create authentic and realistic details to short fiction writing that emphasizes character and situation. Write down whatever is in RED!

Character Definition The combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one person, group, or thing from another.

Types of Characters O Major: Any character who is essential to the story. O Minor: Any character who plays a small role in the story’s plot O Dynamic : A character who changes in some important way through the story. O Static: A character who does not change throughout the story. O Protagonist: The main character (usually the “good guy”) O Antagonist: The main character’s opposite (usually the “bad guy”)

Round Vs. Flat Characters O Round Character: Complex characters, possessing conflicting traits. O Flat characters: Characters with few traits, all of them predictable, none creating genuine conflicts. These characters often boil down to stereotypes.

What is characterization? Characterization is the art of creating characters. There are 2 overarching types of characterizations: 1. Direct: When a writer tells us what a character is like by directly describing the character 2. Indirect: When a writer reveals a character to us through actions, dialogue, appearance, inner thoughts/feelings, or other characters’ opinions of that character.

Ways to create a character O Ideal Method: An idea about a character who is not you and who you have not observed. O Autobiographical Method: Using your own experience to grasp what it is to be a person.

O Biographical method: Composing characters from the traits of several people. Use people you have observed or researched as the starting points for your fictional characters. O Mixed Method: Combining different methods to create a character.

O Summary: List the character traits that strike you as the most important ones. O Advantages: Simplicity and readability O Disadvantages: you are bound to tell, rather than show what your character is like. If this approach strikes you as too much telling, try to show all the information in a dramatic scene. Ways to Portray a character

O Repeated Action or Habit: The expectation of how a person will behave in a given situation, based on the observation that he/she has behaved like that many times. O Self-portrait: The character introduces him or herself to us. O Appearance: Through how a person looks, you may try to infer what the person is like. You select and interpret details to guide the reader’s expectations.

O Scene: Set your character in motion. We meet the character through voice, appearance and action. O Combining Techniques: Most developed character descriptions combine two or more approaches.

What kind of portrayal is used here? Miss Caroline was no more than twenty-one. She had bright auburn hair, pink cheeks, and wore crimson fingernail polish. She also wore high- heeled pumps and a red-and-white-striped dress. She looked and smelled like a peppermint drop. She boarded across the street one door down from us in Miss Maudie Atkinson’s upstairs front room, and when Miss Maudie introduced us to her, Jem was in a haze for days. - Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books

What kind of portrayal is used here? I’m the wolf. Alexander T. Wolf. You can call me Al. I don’t know how this whole Bib Bad Wolf thing got started, but it’s all wrong. Maybe it’s because of our diet. Hey, it’s not my fault wolves eat cute little animals like bunnies and sheep and pigs. That’s just the way we are. If cheeseburgers were cute, folks would probably think you were Big and Bad, too. - The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs as Told to Jon Scieszka