Creating a Character

Some questions to consider What does the character say and do? What does the character think and feel? What does the character look like? What do the other characters think about the character? How do you want the character to make the READER feel?

Character Traits Descriptive adjectives Tell the reader specific qualities of the character You can tell the character traits directly. i.e. Marcia was a fun, outgoing person. Or you can SHOW the character traits indirectly by telling what the character does. i.e. Marcia loved summer vacation because her family always went on road trips to amusement parks where they rode roller coasters all day. Also, Marcia attended summer camps where she was able to make new friends every summer.

Character Traits Help the reader understand why characters speak and act the way they do Help the reader understand what the characters think or why they have certain beliefs Help the reader understand a character’s relationships with other characters Help the reader predict what characters might do next Help the reader make inferences and to draw conclusions about events in our story

Some questions to help you develop a character What is the character’s favorite thing to do? What makes him/her sad? What one thing does he/she want more than anything else? What is he/she afraid of? What does he/she think they’re good at?

Practice The next few slides, show a picture of a random person. Create a name for this person and list possible character traits, whatever you can figure out from the picture

Person 1

Person 2

Person 3

Person 4

Person 5