character description essay

How To Write A Character Description (101 Examples)

February 15, 2024

Learn what character description is and how to describe a character. Jump into OC description writing with one of the iconic character description examples from our list.

Developing a description of a character can be a challenge for OC creators. How much do you give away as someone who knows the character innately versus trying to generate interest and get an audience to invest in the character’s journey? We’re going to dive into writing character descriptions that stand out.

Why Character Descriptions Matter

Character descriptions, at heart, serve as a marker for the reader to determine if they wish to know more about the character. They are creators' attempts to signal that an individual they are writing about is worth becoming invested in. This is why a boring character description can be fatal to first impressions - why bother exploring a project if the character's description generates no spark?

Character descriptions are also influenced by purpose. A character description in a screenplay occupies a different purpose than a character description on a profile page. A description in a screenplay is lean, whereas a profile has more room to explore. These descriptions we’re talking about are too large for a character reference sheet .

While focusing on writing character descriptions for profiles, we will look at examples from literature, screenplays, and existing character profiles on CharacterHub. 

The Five Key Questions

When it comes to description in a general sense, there are five questions to consider: Who, What, Where, Why, and When? These questions are also beneficial in writing original character descriptions because you can use as many as you wish or even omit some to generate interest.

It is rather complicated to omit the who in a description, as a description is usually tied to an identifiable figure. Even if you may not want to give away a character’s identity, there is usually some marker that identifies them. For example, in the script for the horror classic Halloween (1978) by John Carpenter and Deborah Hill, the lurking presence of Michael Myers is simply referred to as “The Shape.” It is a name as evocative as it is practical. In most cases, a creator will probably just include the OC’s name.

The what in a character description can be interpreted as a marker for their identity. This could be their ethnicity, role, or species, for example. It is, again, reasonably complex to avoid this when developing a description, as a character without a perceived role may not feel like a character. A great example of “the what” in a character description comes from the character Tiberius Skärvas IV from the webcomic The Fourth . 

From the character's description on the cast page: “Ever since the First and his rather unethical business practices, the Tiberius Skärvas have been accursed by the gods. While technically still human, they possess the appearance and certain traits of sharks.” A cursed human with shark-like traits is undoubtedly a bold answer for “the what.”

When it comes to where , you are likely answering who the character is to their setting. It is less about a physical location and how that character connects to or runs counter to a location or society. Essentially, you are positioning them against civilization in whatever form that takes. A great example of this can be found in the codex entry of Agrippa Varus from the webcomic Terra Incognita . 

Case in point: “Agrippa Varus was raised in a well respected family in the Asurian capital of Sokai. His father Argo Varus, served as a consul and the main liaison between Asura and other sentient worlds. Due to his exposure to other species from a young age, Agrippa has an open mind and is much less prejudiced than the average Asurian citizen.” 

As we can see in this description, Agrippa is given a physical “where” regarding a space civilization while also being described of their societal “where” - as a figure that runs outside their culture.

The when of a character in their description is all about position. Whether the setting is based on natural history or set in an entirely fictional timeline, a character occupies temporal space, which can factor into how they are seen. Are they of their time, or do they feel apart from it? Descriptions that hint at such things are great at generating interest.

A great example of this can be found in the script of Warm Bodies (2013), in a description of the character R. “Blank face, sunken eyes. Blueish lips. If we didn’t know any better we’d think he was a junkie, a runaway from the set of My Own Private Idaho . Then we might notice a few thin gashes cutting across his cheeks. And then we might hear a soft groan humming from his frozen lips. And then we might start to wonder…

In this example, we see the deliberate usage of a contemporary reference to another film, positioning R and their relationship to a contemporary setting. The reference also does double duty, saying a lot about how R can be perceived by those familiar with the reference.

The why of a character description is most easily omitted to generate interest and intrigue. However, it can also be incredibly influential in generating interest in an original character. Knowing what drives a character can be a descriptive hook.

A great example of the “why” in a character description comes from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote in this rather brilliant moment: “In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant[...]”

Don Quixote’s mad notion of being a knight proves a compelling hook to the character, especially in how that motivation is presented. A reader can’t help but be intrigued by the description of the thin, elderly man who wants to be a knight.

Other Descriptive Traits and Tips

Much descriptive writing can come from things you probably already learned in school but are worth repeating. For example, utilizing sensory details in a character description can be particularly useful. Writing about how a character may smell like motor oil or freshly baked bread can suggest different things.

Contrast is another powerful tool in the character description, as when we are introduced to someone, we cannot help but size them up compared to people we know. This is especially true of original characters. How does one protagonist compare to another? How might you set a character apart from others? Using contrast is especially helpful here. For example, describing how a lead character differs from others in a similar position of their setting.

Of course, there are also things to avoid when developing character descriptions. Writing a description that is a laundry list of traits is something you may want to avoid. It can lack personality and feel a little boring. A solid character organizer can help you visually track if you rely on listing too often.

In any case, referring to some classic descriptive writing techniques can be helpful, especially when punching up a first draft of a character description.

Ways of Establishing Character Through Description

Well-written, informative descriptions greatly help establish interest in an original character. Consider them a teaser to what you hope to be a more significant journey you want to take readers on. Your goal is to connect an audience and a character through intrigue an interest - your aim can be to use description as a hook. Here are some different ways to use description to create that hook.

Using Description to Create a Presence

One of the most essential uses of description is to establish the presence of a character in their respective story. How about who is heroic or villainous? Who merits us following their story and becoming invested in them? This is particularly useful in writing an OC profile because you want to establish how we should feel about them without the burden of a ton of backstory to provide context.

Consider this like trying to convey everything about a person possible at a glance. How can you give us what we need about an OC in a descriptive passage? Well, let’s look at some examples.

In this sample from Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin , we see presence established by tying description to color and costuming details. Note that the presence established here is not a flattering one.

I could picture the smooth oval of Laura’s face, her neatly pinned chignon, the dress she would have been wearing: a shirtwaist with a small rounded collar, in a sober colour – navy blue or steel grey or hospital-corridor green. Penitential colours – less like something she’d chosen to put on than like something she’d been locked up in.

• Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000)

Another great way to establish a character’s presence through description is to tie it to a metaphor. Let’s look at an example of Arudhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, where we have a character consumed by quietude.

Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms…sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory, dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue.

• Arudhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997)

In these examples, we see how descriptive language can imply something about the character's presence, such as their authority or lack of authority. In the Atwood example, the character is effectively rendered blank or meek. Meanwhile, in the Roy example, the description paints a picture of a character consumed by their awkwardness and silence. Noting and working with such traits is key to building a good character profile.

Let’s look at how the presence of Gandalf is established through description in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring .

“Gandalf was shorter in stature than the other two; but his long white hair, his sweeping beard, and his broad shoulders, made him look like some wise king of ancient legend. In his aged face under great snowy brows his eyes were set like coals that could suddenly burst into fire.”

• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

Gandalf’s physical presence is a fun juxtaposition with him appearing larger than life. He may be shorter, but he has an aura about him - something noticeably distinguished. I recommend reading Tolkien for character description, not just because I am a fan. 

Using a History to Create Significance

Character description that depicts an established history can go a long way to informing a reader about what makes the character tick. A character can sometimes be seen as a record of their experiences, and knowing those experiences can tell us a lot about a character, how they view the world, and how the author wishes for us to view them. There is no shortage of character ideas , but a character is more than an idea: they are a story.

In Charles Dickens’ Hard Times , the character of Bounderby is pernicious and self-centered, motivated by the pursuit of their wants and desires having come up from poverty. We can see Dickens establish much of that in his description of Bounderby by including history in the character’s description.

“A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him […] always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty.”

• Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

Let’s look at a character with an established history and how that history plays into their description in the present. If you are a fan of Star Trek , then the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan should be pretty familiar. The film was a culmination of a storyline that began in the 1960s featuring characters who have aged decades for the 1980s film. In particular, let’s look at a description of Captain Kirk from the script.

“Kirk reads the novel, trying to focus. His flat befits an Admiral and a loner with few possessions, except a collection of antiques.”

• Harve Bennett, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

In this example, we have a little bit of environmental storytelling that plays against what audiences would know of Captain James T. Kirk. Kirk, from the original series, was quite the heroic figure, not mainly seen as an elder statesman. However, the depiction of his apartment, filled with antiques belonging to a man who is alone, shows that much time has passed for the figure. He is different in many ways - almost startlingly so.

So, what can we draw from these examples when developing descriptions of our original characters? A character with a lot of history is undoubtedly colored by it, so if your description can evoke a journey, you’ve gone a long way to informing us about what makes them tick. This is seen in the example from Hard Times, where the character’s journey through the classes of 19th-century London colors how we see their outward-facing personality.

Further, if you are playing with time, descriptions of a character at different stages in their life or respective journey can highlight their growth, such as in the example from Star Trek . Contrast through history is a particularly effective strategy when writing a character description.

Using Perspective to Create Interpretation

In some cases, describing a character from another person's perspective can yield beautiful results. First impressions can say a lot, and stepping away from an omniscient narrator’s view of a character, filled with insight about them and their past, can be a valuable technique. It also can create a narrative journey for an OC later on, as our initial impressions, through a more limited outsider perspective, do not usually represent the whole character.

Here is an example of Virginia Woolf establishing a character’s description from another character's perspective.

“He was such a miserable specimen, the children said, all humps and hollows. He couldn’t play cricket; he poked; he shuffled. He was a sarcastic brute, Andrew said. They knew what he liked best – to be for ever walking up and down, up and down, with Mr. Ramsay, saying who had won this, who had won that …”

• Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse (1927)

Here is an example of a character description written from another character's perspective. In this case, we have Ripley from Aliens , who first encounters Burke as she recovers in a hospital room. Notice the usage of traits in the following passage. This is taken from the film's shooting script.

“The visitor sits beside the bed and Ripley finally notices him.  He is thirtyish and handsome, in a suit that looks executive or legal, the tie loosened with studied casualness.  A smile referred to as ‘winning.’”

• James Cameron, Aliens (1985)

Specifically, this is a friendly, somewhat charming face for a recovering from intensive trauma. However, we also get a sense of Burke's nature through the description, such as emphasizing the fakery of a “winning” smile.

If we want another great example of perspective coloring the description of a character, we can look toward another sci-fi franchise with Star Wars . In particular, the 4th draft script from A New Hope introduces Darth Vader in a fantastic way that tells us everything we need to know about the character from the perspective of the terrified Rebels.

“The awesome, seven-foot-tall Dark Lord of the Sith makes his way into the blinding light of the main passageway. This is Darth Vader, right hand of the Emperor. His face is obscured by his flowing black robes and grotesque breath mask, which stands out next to the fascist white armored suits of the Imperial stormtroopers. Everyone instinctively backs away from the imposing warrior and a deathly quiet sweeps through the Rebel troops. Several of the Rebel troops break and run in a frenzied panic.”

• George Lucas, Star Wars: A New Hope (1976)

That Darth Vader cuts an imposing presence in this description is an understatement. The key here is that we are seeing him through the eyes of those terrified Rebel troops.

Character Descriptions from Some Friends of Mine

There are many great examples of strong character descriptions out there. I turned to a few writer friends who are particularly good at creating characters, and I want to look at examples from two of them.

Robert Livingston: Tom n’ Artie and Kaiju Dayz

First up, we have my friend Robert Livingston, who was gracious enough to provide some examples from his in-depth pitch documents for two of his projects. First, look at some examples featuring the two leads of his comic Tom n’ Artie .

Tommy ‘Tom’ Sunshine Bliss

“Our stoic, disciplined Unicorn with the sparkly hair! Tom is the straight man of the duo usually doing the talking when they're with clients or when a deal needs to be made. Straight-laced with a dry sense of humor, he approaches situations with a strategic mindset preferring to have all the information before diving in. Due to his friendship with Artie, he commonly has to just 'wing it' with his little wildcard friend as he changes strategies on the fly.”

As we can see, Tom is the comedic straight man of the pair, but given the nature of the project, he still has his quirks. In particular, I want to note the contrast between his character and the description of his appearance. It does a lot to sell the inherent comedy of the character.

Artie Artillery

“The cartoon wildcard! Artie is zany and a rabbit/cat of action preferring to let his fists, teeth, legs, bats, guns, bombs and whatever he's got do the talking for him. He's spontaneous with a short fuse willing to crack jokes then skulls seconds apart from each other. Tom usually is the one who has to hold him back but during the events of the arc, he's more willing to let his little toon buddy cut loose more.”

Because the project revolves around a comedic pairing, we can see how essential contrasting the two leads can be in establishing their characters. There is some great description here, especially the emphasis on Artie’s improvised armory. Artie has enough of a hook from his description, but the depth is substantial when paired with his co-lead, Tom.

Next, we have an example from Robert’s other series, Kaiju Dayz . This project is like a sitcom set on an island of giant monsters. Let’s look at the series lead, Big Mama.

“A well-known Kaiju on Monster Island for her several successful attacks on human cities and other locations for many years. She’s gained a large reputation that gives her a lot of respect from others. It’s also forced her to put up a constant face of intimidation to keep that respect, she feels force is the only way to keep others in line. The only ones she’s softer on are her own children, Junior and Pestania, but now seeing that she’s growing estranged from them she’s trying to change that. She isn’t of this world (or possibly reality) and has no love for it but wants to keep anything she does love (her children and late husband) as close to her as possible.”

This character description does a great job of pitching the whole character. While I only used some segments for Tom and Artie earlier, I wanted to share the entire character description for Big Mama because it is so thorough without being overly long. This is an excellent example of a character description meant to sell the original character to an audience. This is what you’d want to see on a character profile .

Ben Paddon: Jump Leads

Ben Paddon sent me pitch documents for their audio drama, Jump Leads . You should give it a listen. Let’s look at the character descriptions for Meaney and Llewellyn, the dual protagonists of the story.

Thomas Meaney

The following is transcribed from the Jump Leads character breakdown about the character of Thomas Meaney.

• Meaney is excitable, enthusiastic, and young. She has wanted to be a Lead her entire life, and now she’s finally in training. This is her dream come true. Such a pity it’s about to be absolutely derailed by Misadventure.
• Meaney is a hopeful idealist. She always wants to see the best in people, and always tries to do good, even when the odds - and, indeed, her own skill set - are not in her favor. She’s also driven by a desire to get back home to complete her Lead training, though her adventurous, helpful nature, coupled with a desire to explore, often get the better of her.
• Meaney is excitable, in every sense of the word - her enthusiasm runs just as deeply as her fear, though she tries not to let being scared of a situation prevent the right decision from being made.
• Meaney is a brilliant problem-solver. She doesn't quite know this yet. She’ll discover that soon enough.

This is a wonderfully written character description that gives us everything we wish to know about a character while giving us the suggestion of a larger arc. When you think about this profile in terms of the questions who, what, where, why, and when, you’ll see they are all there.

Richard Llewellyn

• Llewellyn is in his mid-to-late 20s - still young enough to be bitter and cynical without having any of the real-world experience to justify it. He’s indifferent, snide, at times cruel, and he keeps people at an arm's length. Unfortunately, he’s been utterly unsuccessful in doing this with Meaney, in part because the alphabetical arrangement of the training classes has stuck them together.
• Llewellyn is smart, but lazy; brilliant, but apathetic. He joined the Lead Service because the alternative involved being in the real world, and that isn't something he's willing to do just yet. Of course, he'd never admit this.
• Underneath it all, there's something else. Maybe he's ready to let someone in. Or maybe he's hiding something else entirely…

Again, we have a dual protagonist situation; contrast is essential to define each. Each character can stand independently, but their descriptions are tailored to work best when read together. Yes, we get a fully rounded character in Llewellyn thanks to the description, but we also get a further hook because of the emphasis on personality clash. How might their journey go down, given their radically different perspectives?

Character Description from CharacterHub

While writing this article, I wanted to look at examples of character descriptions written by CharacterHub users. I’ve found some great examples to share, so why don’t we dive in and see what OC creators have been sharing with the community?

I’ve taken snippets from each profile of something I found to be particularly evocative or inspirational. Be sure to visit the complete profiles for even more great examples.

• Euronym by genderkiller - “driven to be the least evil thing around her, euronym chooses to use her manipulation and intelligence for what she believes is the betterment of others. but does it really know what's best for others, so blinded by its own trauma?”
• Valentine Adelaide by DEADRKGK - “Personality wise, Valentine is a man with many facets to him, and all are generally expressed and felt in extremes. To call him unpredictable would be both correct and incorrect. For those around him often, he can be much more easily predictable of a person. He’s open with his thoughts and feelings and expresses them freely with a poor social filter– good or bad, he’ll speak his mind regardless of if people want to hear it or not.”
• Tessa Verisey by LuminaLyric - “Standing at 5'8" with chestnut brown hair cascading in loose waves to her shoulders, her hazel eyes conceal a depth of intelligence and charisma.”
• Seth Salem by Paracosmic - “If looks could kill, Seth's would be the firing squad.”
• Aries by AFishWithAGun - “Aries is not a good person. At least, not anymore. Greif is a funny thing, pushed by a whirlwind of emotions. Anger, regret, betrayal. It spins its way into a palpable rage. His jagged psyche knows how best it can ruin a man.”
• Sidney Ignacio by soupysoupster - “Throughout his days, Sidney can’t seem to get past his own thoughts and anxieties. As a result, he comes off as withdrawn and uninterested to most. Despite what people may think though, Sidney is nothing short of a caring and compassionate person and will do anything he can do to help others. He’s a great listener, and will often catch onto things others don’t. ‘The devil is in the details’ as their father would say.”
• Adem Petrovic by lysesander - “Athletic enough to make a quick escape over a side wall if the situation calls for it. Face is unmemorable, and hard to spot in the crowd.”
• The Depths by celestrian - “A mysterious and enigmatic traveling merchant of the depths, a man whose past is shrouded in secrecy and his appearance completely hidden beneath a strange fox mask as well as a hooded cloak, wrapped in layers of cloth that cover his entire body. He claims to have knowledge of the entire kingdom and forbidden secrets, despite seeming quite young.”
• Clawfoot by Sunckeys - “Naivete is not a word known to poor Clawfoot, yet it may just be the best word to describe him. Unknown to him are the ways of man, of conversing with another and sharing pleasantries. No, for Clawfoot's expertise lies in savagry, ravaging, of ripping and tearing. Yet he hungers not for prey- though he much enjoys a meal or four- but for connection.”
• Soffice Pluvia by bunnymacaron - “Recently, he's found himself in an...unusual situation. Almost as soon as he entered the country he went through the Magical Girl transformation process. Immediately after, he got roped into the schemes of a sadistic Magical Girl and is stuck unraveling the tangled web of Kannazen City's Magical Girls to hopefully finally have some peace and quiet...or die trying.”
• Joshua Vox by ThaLizardWizard - “In terms of appearance, he is very skinny, pale, and sickly looking, with wild black hair that stands on end, and freckles all over his body and face. He has intense eye bags under enormous pale gray eyes, and to be completely honest, has frequently been mistaken for a ghost.”

Further fantastic examples of evocative character descriptions can be found all over CharacterHub . Browsing the thousands of existing character descriptions will inspire anyone to create character descriptions for their OCs. In particular, searching tags to find the kind of characters that inspire you most is super easy.

Further Examples of Character Descriptions

We’ll leave you here now with the following massive list. This list features different examples of character descriptions from various stories. Try to match the selections to some of our established principles. The descriptions here are very inspiring for any OC creator.

• Denis Lehane’s A Drink Before the War : “He had a shock of stiff white hair you could land a DC-10 on and a handshake that stopped just short of inducing paralysis.”
• Amber Dawn’s Sub Rosa : “When he did appear his eyes were as brown as I remembered, pupils flecked with gold like beach pebbles.”
• Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven : “I thought she was so beautiful. I figured she was the kind of woman who could make buffalo walk on up to her and give up their lives.”
• Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women : “Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person,—in her own opinion at least. A regular snow-maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair, curling on her shoulders, pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful of her manners.”
• Frank Herbert’s Dune : "Through the door came two Sardukar herding a girl-child who appeared to be about four years old. She wore a black aba, the hood thrown back to reveal the attachments of a stillsuit hanging free at her throat. Her eyes were Fremen blue, staring out of a soft, round face. She appeared completely unafraid and there was a look to her stare that made the Baron feel uneasy for no reason he could explain."
• Kury Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five : "He was a funny-looking child who became a funny-looking youth — tall and weak, and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola."
• Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? : "Black-haired and slender, wearing the huge new dust-filtering glasses, she approached his car, her hands deep in the pockets of her brightly striped long coat. She had, on her sharply defined small face, an expression of sullen distaste."
• John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces : “Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.”
• Ralph Ellson’s Invisible Man : “I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me.”
• George Eliot’s Middlemarch : “The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers, was generally in favour of Celia, as being so amiable and innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke’s large eyes seemed, like her religion, too unusual and striking. Poor Dorothea! Compared with her, the innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise.”
• Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness : “He was commonplace in complexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe…”
• Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Books : “But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.”
• Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice : “…your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”
• Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : “He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines.”
• Lindsay Faye’s Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson : “The door flew open, revealing a wrinkled, forward-thrusting face wreathed with a nimbus of wispy white hair, a face resembling nothing so much as a mole emerging from its burrow. Her spectacles were so dirty that I could hardly see the use of them.”
• Adlous Huxley’s Brave New World : "Tall and rather thin but upright, the Director advanced into the room. He had a long chin and big rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly curved lips. Old, young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say."
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby : “He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life.”
• J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring : "The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars."
• Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight : “I vividly remembered the flat black color of his eyes the last time he glared at me – the color was striking against the background of his pale skin and his auburn hair. Today, his eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone.”
• Joan Johnston’s No Longer A Stranger : “Her straight, boyishly cut hair fell onto her brow haphazardly and hid beautiful arched brows that framed her large, expressive eyes.”
• Anne Rice’s The Vampire Armand : “I saw my Master had adorned himself in a thick tunic and beautiful dark blue doublet which I’d hardly noticed before. He wore soft sleek dark blue gloves over his hands, gloves which perfectly cleaved to his fingers, and legs were covered by thick soft cashmere stockings all the way to his beautiful pointed shoes.”
• Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations : “Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been and was changed, was still upon her.”
• Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : “He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.”
• N. K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms : “His long, long hair wafted around him like black smoke, its tendrils curling and moving of their own volition. His cloak — or perhaps that was his hair too — shifted as if in an unfelt wind.”
• Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings : “Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged, but then no one would have thought of getting close enough to Mrs. Flowers to ruffle her dress, let alone snag her skin. She didn’t encourage familiarity.”
• China Miéville’s The Census-Taker : “His hand was over his eyes. He looked like a failed soldier. Dirt seemed so worked into him that the lines of his face were like writing.”
• Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women : “Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt; for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful.”
• Henry James’ The Aspern Papers : “Her face was not young, but it was simple; it was not fresh, but it was mild. She had large eyes which were not bright, and a great deal of hair which was not ‘dressed,’ and long fine hands which were–possibly–not clean.”
• Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”: “The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not.”
• Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush : “He was abominable…and the most alluring, tortured soul I’d ever met.”
• William Golding’s Lord of the Flies : “Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness.”
• Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys : “As always, there was an all-American war hero look to him, coded in his tousled brown hair, his summer-narrowed hazel eyes, the straight nose that ancient Anglo-Saxons had graciously passed on to him. Everything about him suggested valor and power and a firm handshake.”
• John Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated : “He did not look like anything special at all.”
•  J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring : “He wore a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, and a silver scarf.  He had a long white beard and bushy  eyebrows that stuck out beyond the brim of his hat.”
• Andrew Lang’s The Crimson Fairy Book : “When the old king saw this he foamed with rage, stared wildly about, flung himself on the ground and died.”
• Rudyard Kipling’s Many Inventions : “He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula : “The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely.”
• Hugh Lofting’s The Story of Doctor Dolittle : “For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.”
• M.L Legette’s The Orphan and the Thief : “Its gray, slippery skin was stretched taut upon its face. Its mouth was wide and full of needle teeth.”
• Julia Stuart’s The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise : “Blooms of acne highlighted his vampire-white skin.
• James Lee Burke’s The Neon Rain : “His khaki sleeves were rolled over his sunburned arms, and he had the flat green eyes and heavy facial features of north Louisiana hill people. He smelled faintly of dried sweat, Red Man, and talcum powder.”
• Becca Fitzpatrick’s Black Ice : “His brown hair was cropped, and it showed off the striking symmetry of his face. With the sun at his back, shadows marked the depressions beneath his cheekbones.”
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein : “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”
• Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”: “He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.”
• E.C. Sheedy’s Killing Bliss : “He stood, which put him eye to eye with the dark-haired woman whose brilliant, burning gaze poured into his worthless soul like boiling tar, whose mouth frothed with fury–and whose hand now curled, knuckles white, around a steak knife.”
• Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games : “She has bright, dark eyes and satiny brown skin and stands tilted up on her toes with arms slightly extended to her sides, as if ready to take wing at the slightest sound.”
• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone : “A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.”
• Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women : “Elizabeth—or Beth, as every one called her—was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression, which was seldom disturbed.”
• Anne Rice’s Violin : “What a well-formed mouth he had, and how the narrow eyes, the detailed deepened lids gave him such a range of expression, to open his gaze wide, or sink in cunning street.”
• Kevin Brooks’ Lucas : “An easygoing lope. Nice and steady. Not too fast and not too slow, Fast enough to get somewhere, but not too fast to miss anything.”
• Iris Johansen’s The Face of Deception : “Kinky tousled curls, only a minimum of makeup, large brown eyes behind round wire-rimmed glasses. There was a world of character in that face, more than enough to make her fascinating-looking instead of just attractive.”
• Herman Meilville’s Moby Dick : “There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus.”
• Gena Showalter’s The Darkest Night : “Pale hair fell in waves to his shoulders, framing a face mortal females considered a sensual feast. They didn’t know the man was actually a devil in angel’s skin.”
• Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game : “Ender did not see Peter as the beautiful ten-year-old boy that grown-ups saw, with dark, tousled hair and a face that could have belonged to Alexander the Great. Ender looked at Peter only to detect anger or boredom, the dangerous moods that almost always led to pain.”
• Caitlin Moran’s How To Build A Girl : “He had his head in his hands, and his tie looked like it had been put on by an enemy, and was strangling him.”
• Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass : “Lord Asriel was a tall man with powerful shoulders, a fierce dark face, and eyes that seemed to flash and glitter with savage laughter. It was a face to be dominated by, or to fight: never a face to patronize or pity.”
• J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey : “She found herself looking at Lane as if he were a stranger, or a poster advertising a brand of linoleum, across the aisle of a subway car.”
• L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz : “They wore round hats that rose to a small point a foot above their heads, with little bells around the brims that tinkled sweetly as they moved. The hats of the men were blue; the little woman’s hat was white, and she wore a white gown that hung in pleats from her shoulders. Over it were sprinkled little stars that glistened in the sun like diamonds.”
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula : “Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere.”
• Algernon Blackwood’s Ten Minute Stories : “Then, by a green field that shone like a thought of daylight amid the darkness of the moor, he saw a figure lying in the grass. It was a blot upon the landscape, a mere huddled patch of dirty rags, yet with a certain horrid picturesqueness too; and his mind—though his German was of the schoolroom order—at once picked out the German equivalents as against the English. Lump and Lumpen flashed across his brain most oddly.”
• John Rhode’s The Murders in Praed Street : “He was tall and thin, with a pronounced stoop and a deep but not unpleasant voice. But it was his head that you looked at instinctively. Above the massive forehead and powerfully-chiselled features was a wealth of long, snow-white hair, balanced by a flowing beard of the same colour.”
• Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Telltale Heart”: “He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.”
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein : “His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a man in so wretched a condition.”
• Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow : “He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together.”
• Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women : “Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft, brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain.”
• Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland : “It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came…”
• J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan : “He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.”
• Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis : “He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.”
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper : “John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.”
• L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz : “When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now.”
• Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment : “This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so.”
• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter : “The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes.”
• Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde : “This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided manner.”
• Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde : “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him.”
• Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol : “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”
• Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace : “Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years, overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to correct.”
• Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia”: “His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again.”
• J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan : “In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly.”

Looking for more tips and tricks regarding character creation? Check out the CharacterHub blog !

David Davis

David Davis is a cartoonist with around twenty years of experience in comics, including independent work and established IPs such as SpongeBob Squarepants. He also works as a college composition instructor and records weekly podcasts. Find out more about him at his website!

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How to Write a Character Analysis Essay

A character analysis essay is a challenging type of essay students usually write for literature or English courses. In this article, we will explain the definition of character analysis and how to approach it. We will also touch on how to analyze characters and guide you through writing character analysis essays.

Typically, this kind of writing requires students to describe the character in the story's context. This can be fulfilled by analyzing the relationship between the character in question and other personas. Although, sometimes, giving your personal opinion and analysis of a specific character is also appropriate.

Let's explain the specifics of how to do a character analysis by getting straight to defining what is a character analysis. Our term paper writers will have you covered with a thorough guide!

What Is a Character Analysis Essay?

The character analysis definition explains the in-depth personality traits and analyzes characteristics of a certain hero. Mostly, the characters are from literature, but sometimes other art forms, such as cinematography. In a character analysis essay, your main job is to tell the reader who the character is and what role they play in the story. Therefore, despite your personal opinion and preferences, it is really important to use your critical thinking skills and be objective toward the character you are analyzing. A character analysis essay usually involves the character's relationship with others, their behavior, manner of speaking, how they look, and many other characteristics.

Although it's not a section about your job experience or education on a resume, sometimes it is appropriate to give your personal opinion and analysis of a particular character.

What Is the Purpose of a Character Analysis Essay

More than fulfilling a requirement, this type of essay mainly helps the reader understand the character and their world. One of the essential purposes of a character analysis essay is to look at the anatomy of a character in the story and dissect who they are. We must be able to study how the character was shaped and then learn from their life. 

A good example of a character for a character analysis essay is Daisy Buchanan from 'The Great Gatsby.' The essay starts off by explaining who Daisy is and how she relates to the main character, Jay Gatsby. Depending on your audience, you need to decide how much of the plot should be included. If the entire class writes an essay on Daisy Buchanan, it is logical to assume everyone has read the book. Although, if you know for certain that your audience has little to no knowledge of who she is, it is crucial to include as much background information as possible. 

After that, you must explain the character through certain situations involving her and what she said or did. Make sure to explain to the reader why you included certain episodes and how they have showcased the character. Finally, summarize everything by clearly stating the character's purpose and role in the story. 

We also highly recommend reading how to write a hook for an essay .

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Different types of characters.

To make it clear how a reader learns about a character in the story, you should note that several characters are based on their behaviors, traits, and roles within a story. We have gathered some of them, along with vivid examples from famous literature and cinema pieces:

Types of Characters

• Major : These are the main characters; they run the story. Regularly, there are only one or two major characters. Major characters are usually of two types: the protagonist – the good guy, and the antagonist: the bad guy or the villain. 
• Protagonist (s) (heroes): The main character around whom most of the plot revolves. 

For example, Othello from Shakespeare's play, Frodo from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Harry Potter from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, and Elizabeth Bennet from 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen.

• Antagonist (s): This is the person that is in opposition to the protagonist. This is usually the villain, but it could also be a natural power, set of circumstances, majestic being, etc. 

For example, Darth Vader from the Star Wars series by George Lucas, King Joffrey from Game of Thrones, or the Wicked Queen from 'Snow White and Seven Dwarfs.'

• Minor : These characters help tell the major character's tale by letting them interact and reveal their personalities, situations, and/or stories. They are commonly static (unchanging). The minor characters in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien would be the whole Fellowship of the ring. In their own way, each member of the Fellowship helps Frodo get the ring to Mordor; without them, the protagonist would not be a protagonist and would not be able to succeed. In the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, minor characters are Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. They consistently help Harry Potter on his quests against Voldemort, and, like Frodo, he wouldn't have succeeded without them.

On top of being categorized as a protagonist, antagonist, or minor character, a character can also be dynamic, static, or foil.

• Dynamic (changing): Very often, the main character is dynamic.

An example would also be Harry Potter from the book series by J.K. Rowling. Throughout the series, we see Harry Potter noticing his likeness to Voldemort. Nevertheless, Harry resists these traits because, unlike Voldemort, he is a good person and resists any desire to become a dark wizard.

• Static (unchanging): Someone who does not change throughout the story is static.

A good example of a static character is Atticus Finch from “How to Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. His character and views do not change throughout the book. He is firm and steady in his beliefs despite controversial circumstances. 

• Foils : These characters' job is to draw attention to the main character(s) to enhance the protagonist's role.

‍ A great example of a foil charact e r is Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle.

How to Analyze a Character 

While preparing to analyze your character, make sure to read the story carefully.

• Pay attention to the situations where the character is involved, their dialogues, and their role in the plot.
• Make sure you include information about what your character achieves on a big scale and how they influence other characters.
• Despite the categories above, try thinking outside the box and explore your character from around.
• Avoid general statements and being too basic. Instead, focus on exploring the complexities and details of your character(s).

How to Write a Character Analysis Essay?

To learn how to write a character analysis essay and gather a more profound sense of truly understanding these characters, one must completely immerse themself in the story or literary piece.

• Take note of the setting, climax, and other important academic parts.
• You must be able to feel and see through the characters. Observe how analysis essay writer shaped these characters into life.
• Notice how little or how vast the character identities were described.
• Look at the characters' morals and behaviors and how they have affected situations and other characters throughout the story.
• Finally, observe the characters whom you find interesting. 

Meanwhile, if you need help writing a paper, leave us a message ' write my paper .'

How Do You Start a Character Analysis Essay

When writing a character analysis essay, first, you have to choose a character you'd like to write about. Sometimes a character will be readily assigned to you. It's wise to consider characters who play a dynamic role in the story. This will captivate the reader as there will be much information about these personas.

Read the Story

You might think that if you already have read the book, there is no need to do so again; however, now that you know the character you would like to focus on, reading it again will have plenty of benefits. It will give you an opportunity to be more precise while reading the scenes that relate directly to your character and are important for his/her analysis. While reading the book, pay attention to every tiny detail to make sure you grasp the whole array of your character's traits. 

Consider the following things:

• What specific descriptions does the author provide for each character?

For example, when J.K. Rowling describes Harry Potter for the first time, she describes his clothes as old and oversized, his hair untidy, and his glasses as broken. It might seem just like a simple description, but she expresses compassion and pity for an orphan neglected by his only relatives. 

• What kinds of relationships does your character have with others?

Think about how Harry builds up his friendships with others. First, he and Ron do not like Hermione because she acts like a know-it-all, but when she gets stuck in the dungeons with a horrendous troll, he rushes to save her regardless. 

• How do the actions of the character move the plot forward?

In 'The Philosopher's Stone,' Harry is very observant of any events taking place at school. He analyzes people's actions, which builds up the plot around the stone and its importance for the magical world.

Get help with your character analysis from our experts.

Choose a Dynamic Character

Choosing a dynamic character is a great idea. This does not necessarily have to be the protagonist, but a character that undergoes many changes has grown throughout the story and is not boring and/or static. This gives you a perfect advantage to fully show the character and make your paper entertaining and engaging for the reader. If you choose a character that is not very dynamic, your essay might seem monotonous because your character will not end up doing much and will not be very involved in the story.

While you are reading, it is useful to take notes or highlight/underline any of the critical elements of the story. This will add depth to your character description(s). By providing vivid and specific examples, you connect your reader to the character, and the character comes alive in their eyes. Review your notes and formulate the main idea about your character when you're finished reading with your character in mind.

Make an initial draft while taking note of the character analysis essay outline provided by your instructor. You may follow the recommended character analysis essay format if you have not been provided with a sample.

Choose a Main Idea

While reading the story, make sure you keep track of your notes. It is a good idea to look at them, choose the ones that are the most representative of your character and find patterns. This will be your thesis. Then, you must support this idea with examples and situations involving your character. 

If your character were Jem Finch from 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee, the main idea would be how his personal character is shaped through racial conflicts, social inequalities, and internal struggles between public opinion, his own views, and what is actually right. Essaypro offers you history essay help. Leave us a notice if you need to proofread, edit, or write your essay.

Character Analysis Questions

Now that you have jotted down some main concepts about your character, here is a list of questions that can help you fill in the blanks you might still have:

• Where do the events involving your character take place?
• What are the relationships between your character and other significant characters?
• What is the primary change your character has gone through throughout the story?
• What is your character's background?
• What is your character's occupation?
• What kind of emotions does your character go through?
• What are your character's values?
• What is your character's value?
• Does your character have friends?
• Is there a lesson your character has learned by the end of the story?
• Does the character achieve the goals he/she has set for himself/herself?

Make a Character Analysis Essay Outline

When you're unsure how to write a character synopsis, remember that creating a literary analysis outline is one of the most critical steps. A well-constructed character analysis outline will keep your thoughts and ideas organized.

Character Analysis Essay Introduction:

Make the introduction to your paper brief and meaningful. It should hold together your entire essay and spark your audience's interest. Write a short description of the character in question. Don't forget to include a character analysis thesis statement which should make a case for the character's relevance within the narrative context.

Character Analysis Essay Body:

Subdivide your body paragraphs into different ideas or areas regarding the character. Look at your professor's rubric and ensure you'll be able to tackle all the requirements. You should also be provided with questions to be answered to formulate your analysis better. The body should answer the following questions:

• What is the character's physical appearance, personality, and background?
• What are the conflicts the character experiences, and how did he/she overcome them?
• What can we learn from this character?
• What is the meaning behind the character's actions? What motivates him/her?
• What does the character do? How does he/she treat others? Is he/she fair or unjust?
• What does the character say? What is his/her choice of words? Does he/she have a rich vocabulary?
• How does the character describe themself? How do others describe him/her?
• What words do you associate with the character? Perhaps a word like 'hope,' 'bravery,' or maybe even 'freedom'?

Character Analysis Essay Conclusion:

It's time to master the secrets of how to write character analysis essay conclusions. Your ending should also hold your ideas together and shape a final analysis statement. Mention things about the character's conflicts that we could experience in real life. Additionally, you can write about how a character should've reacted to a certain situation.

Character Analysis Essay Example

Read our blogs ‘Character Analysis of Jem Finch', 'The Great Gatsby Book Through Daisy Buchanan Character,' 'Analysis of Characters in Beowulf,' or simply use these character analysis essay examples to reference your paper. You might also be interested in a synthesis essay example .

Now that you know what is character analysis, it might be time to choose a character to write about. If you find yourself in a situation where you need to type ' do my homework for me ,' you should contact our writers. You also get a free plagiarism report, formatting, and citing when  buying an essay from us!

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How To Write A Character Analysis Essay?

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is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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Writing a Character Analysis Essay | Step-by-Step Guide

I’m also going to give you a ton of examples.

This post is split into four parts for easy navigation:

• What is a Character Analysis Essay?
• What is the best Format to Use?
• 11 Character Analysis Example Ideas
• Template, Checklist and Outline for Your own Piece

In this post, I’m going to explain to you clearly and in a step-by-step way how to conduct a character analysis.

1. What is a Character Analysis Essay?

Let’s get you started with some really simple details about what a character analysis is:

• A Quick Definition: A character analysis essay zooms-in on a character in a book, movie or even real life. It provides what we sometimes call a ‘sketch’ of a character.
• The Purpose of a Character Analysis: The purpose of a character analysis is to reveal interesting details about the character that might contain a broader moral message about the human condition. For example, Atticus Finch is not just a lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird. Rather, he provides us with a moral message about the importance of doing what you believe is right even though you know you will likely fail.

2. What is the best Character Analysis Essay Format?

Character analysis essays do not have just one format.

However, let me offer some advice that might act as a character analysis essay outline or ‘checklist’ of possible things you could discuss:

1. Start with the Simple Details.

You can start a character analysis by providing a simple, clear description of who your character is. Look at some basic identity traits such as:

• Race (if relevant)
• Social class (if relevant)
• Protagonist or Antagonist? A protagonist is the character who is our central character in the plot; the antagonist is often the protagonist’s opponent or challenger.
• Major or minor character?

2. What are the character’s distinctive personality features?

Your character might have some really clearly identifiable character traits. It’s best to highlight in your character analysis the exact traits that this character possesses. Some common character traits include:

I recommend you take a moment to write down what you think the top 3 to 5 words are that you’d use to explain your character’s personality traits. These will be important to discuss throughout your character analysis.

Sometimes a character may start out with some personality traits, but change over the course of the text. This is quite common; and one clear example of this is Lady Macbeth she deteriorates from a cutthroat power player to a guilt ridden shell of a person roaming the halls of the castle. This dramatic character change is something that makes her very interesting, and is worthy of discussion!

3. What are the character’s key relationships?

Does your character have a close relationship with a certain person in the storyline?

You might want to discuss the character’s relationships as a part of your character analysis. These relationships may reveal some key personality traits of your character.

For example, in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Horatio is the loyal offsider to Hamlet. Through his actions in staying by Hamlet through thick and thin, we learn that he is a deeply loyal character.

Examining the character’s relationships with their friends and foes therefore is very useful for digging deeper into who this character actually is, and what personality traits they have when they are put to the test within the narrative.

4. What are the character’s motivations?

Another thing you might want to examine are the character’s motivations . What do they desire most in the world? Some common motivations for characters in stories are:

• A simple life
• To serve others

This list really could be endless, but I hope the above examples give you a bit of an idea of the sorts of traits to look out for. By mentioning and examining the motivations of the character, we will come closer and closer to learning exactly what moral message this character might be able to tell us.

5. What are the character’s key conflicts?

Stories tend to have a beginning, a complication, and a resolution.

The complication involves conflicts and challenges that need to be overcome. For Edmund in Narnia, it’s cowardice. For Romeo and Juliet, it’s the conflict between love and family loyalty. Here’s some other common conflicts for characters:

• Whether to stay loyal to a friend;
• To overcome obstacles to love;
• To seek a way out of a challenging situation;
• To escape war or poverty;
• To persevere through imprisonment;
• To overcome personal fear

Again, this list is endless.

Knowing the character’s core conflict gets us even closer to knowing the moral that the character is trying to teach us.

For example, in Romeo and Juliet, the challenge of Romeo and Juliet being together despite their families’ objections teaches us something. Personally, I believe it teaches us the importance of letting go of old grudges in order to let love bloom.

This moral lesson was taught to us through conflict: namely, the conflict that Romeo and Juliet were right in the center of.

6. What are the character’s epiphanies?

Sometimes a character has an epiphany. This often happens towards the end of the story and helps the character overcome the challenge or conflict that we discussed in the point above.

Here’s an example of an epiphany:

• In the Lion King, Simba runs away from his tribe to live in exile. After a chance encounter with his childhood friend Nala, he has an epiphany that he has a duty to his tribe. This leads him back home to fight Scar and return freedom to Pride Rock.

Not all characters have an epiphany. But, if they do, I strongly encourage you to write about it in your character analysis.

7. Examine the moral message the character teaches us.

Finally, conclude by examining the moral message behind the character. Nearly every character has something to teach the reader. Authors put a lot of thought into creating complex characters with whom we can relate. We relate to the character and say “wow, they taught me a lesson about something!”

The lesson might be something like:

• Money doesn’t buy happiness;
• Loyalty to family comes above all else;
• Love gives life meaning;
• Honesty is always the best policy

This is the core of your character analysis essay. If you can pick out exactly what moral message the character teaches you, you’ll be well on your way to writing a strong character analysis.

Below I’m going to give you some examples to help you out. I know it can be hard to really get your head around a character, so sometimes the best thing is to look at some samples!

3. Here’s 13 Example Character Analysis Essay Ideas.

Most times when we create a character analysis, we’re exploring the deeper moral stories / aspects of humanity. Here’s some example ideas. I’ve tried to outline in less than a paragraph exactly what your key point will be about each character:

• Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird: A character who teaches us a lesson about standing up for what’s right, even if you know you’re likely to lose.
• Huckleberry Finn from Huckleberry Finn: A character who reveals our inner desire for freedom from the elements of society that constrain us.
• Dudley from Harry Potter: A character whose personality tells us a cautionary tale of the perils of middle-class narcissism, parents’ desire to wrap their children in cotton wool, and the lack of discipline we perceive in contemporary childhoods.
• Jack from Lord of the Flies: A character who represents the innate desire for power that seems to lurk not too far from the surface of the human condition. When social structures are stripped away, he quickly reverts to violence and superstition to assert control over his peers.
• Lady Macbeth from Macbeth: Lady Macbeth teaches us a valuable lesson about the perils of contravening our own morality. She starts out a cutthroat killer but is increasingly consumed by the guilt of her own actions. While we may be able to escape full punishment from outside forces, it is the inner guilt that might eat us away to our last.
• The Boy who Cried Wolf: The boy who cried wolf is a character whose fatal flaw is his desire for attention and adulation. His repeated attempts at gaining the attention of others leads the townspeople to no longer take him seriously, which causes him harm when he actually needs the villagers to take him seriously to save his life. He teaches us the virtue of honest and humility.
• Nick Carraway from the Great Gatsby: Nick shows us all the inner conflict between the trappings of wealth, glamor and spectacle; and the desire for simplicity, honesty and community. He is drawn by the dazzling world of East Egg, New York, but by the end of the novel sees live in East Egg as shallow and lacking the moral depth of his former life in small town Minnesota.
• Alice from Alice in Wonderland: In many ways, Alice represents the child within all of us. She is a character of goodwill to all and who looks upon the world (or, rather, Wonderland) with awe. Travelling with a cadre of flawed characters, she learns with them the importance of seeking strength from within.
• The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet: Like many Shakespearian characters, the nurse’s role is both as loyal confidante to a central character and comic relief. Shakespeare uses minor characters to regale his crowd and sustain viewer interest between scenes.
• Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Lucy represents a surprising character whose youthfulness and small stature make her an underrated character by all around her. Nonetheless, she possesses within the bravery and loyalty necessary to carry out the quest for Aslan. Lucy represents the goodness in children and, by extension, all of mankind.
• Anne in Anne of Green Gables: Anne occupies the typical literary role of young girls in many classical novels: she represents innocence and wonder, and her contraventions of rules are seen through a prism of childhood innocence. This frames Anne not as a deviant but as a precious soul.
• Simba from The Lion King: Simba’s story follows his struggle with growing up, embracing his destiny and duty to his family, or fleeing towards freedom and a ‘no worries’ lifestyle. Simba flees Pride Rock and goes through an existential crisis with his existentialist friends Timon and Pumba. When he runs into an old childhood friend, he realizes how shallow his new carefree life has become and reflects upon his obligation to his community back home.
• Woody from Toy Story: Woody starts out Andy’s favorite toy, but when Andy gets a new flashier toy, Woody’s status amongst the toys falls apart. Woody’s key character challenge is to learn to be humble and inclusive living within the group. By the end of the movie, Woody realizes his duty to love and serve Andy is more important than his own status within the group.

4. Here’s an Example Template for your own Character Analysis Essay

Feel free to use this brainstorming template to get you started with your character analysis essay. I recommend filling out as many of these key points as you can, but remember sometimes you might have to skip some of these points if they’re not relevant to your character.

Once you’ve brainstormed the ideas in Table 1, follow the character analysis essay outline in Table 2 to stay on track for your character analysis essay. Do remember though that each assignment will be different and you should adjust it based on your teacher’s requirements.

Here’s Table 1, which is a brainstorming template for your character analysis essay:

And here’s Table 2, which is an example character analysis essay outline. This is for a 1500 word character analysis essay. Change the word count according to how long your essay should be:

Read Also: 39 Better Ways to Write ‘In Conclusion’ in an Essay

Character analyses can be really tough. You need to know your character really well. You might even need to re-read (or watch) your book or movie a few times over to get to know the character really well.

I recommend when you re-read or re-watch the text before you write your character analysis, have the checklist I provided above handy and take notes. Then, use the essay outline I provided above to put all of those notes together into a clear and thorough final character analysis essay.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 15 Animism Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 10 Magical Thinking Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Social-Emotional Learning (Definition, Examples, Pros & Cons)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is Educational Psychology?

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How to Write a Character Analysis Essay?

14 August, 2020

14 minutes read

Author:  Kate Smith

A character analysis essay is one of the most complicated academic assignments that students usually write for Literature or English classes. Generally, this kind of essay writing requires you to describe the character in the context of the story. This can be done through the analysis of the relationship between the major and secondary characters or through your personal opinion of a particular character.

So, there is something you should learn before getting down to work. What is a character analysis and how to approach it? Let’s try to find the answers in the information below.

What is a Character Analysis?

A character analysis is a kind of essay where you examine behaviors, motivations, and actions of characters. Also, a character analysis is an in-depth assignment that makes you think critically about one or more characters and make judgements after analyzing the text. In most cases, it is used for the analysis of literary works. This form of academic writing involves personalities’ descriptions and conflicts with others they experience throughout a story. This analysis aims to provide a critical assessment of characters and build up conclusions based on the storyline. You may analyze a personality through his or her behavioral patterns or internal and external conflicts.

When you’re asked to write a character analysis, you must look at that story from a different angle. How? This is not your average reading for fun. Your task is to focus on the character synopsis and everything that’s associated with the people involved in the story.

Aim of a Character Analysis

A character analysis aims to evaluate a character’s traits, their functions, and the conflicts they have to deal with throughout the story. During the analysis, you will need to think critically, ask questions, and make conclusions about the character. To make your analysis informative, you will have to go beyond available descriptions that are written by the author. To understand the meaning of every event, phrase, and action, you will have to read between the lines. Don’t be afraid of using some additional resources if you feel like knowing more about the epoch a character lives in. If you want to gain an alternative opinion about a character, do not hesitate to find out your friends’ or internet users’ thoughts. Thus, thorough research may help you develop some creative ideas that will add great value to your future paper.

General Types of Characters

You should have a deep understanding of a character before starting an in-depth analysis. While a good character has many sides, there are some standard features to be considered:

• Protagonist: Being the main figure in a story, this character has the whole plot based on their life, actions, events, and feelings.
• Antagonist: Being a villain in a story, this character is positioned as the opposite figure to the major hero. Their basic nature remains negative, which makes them even more interesting than the main character. An antagonist plays a significant role even in short stories.
• Major: This character dominates the story. While they are not the main one in the story, they are involved in all the events.
• Minor: This character appears in a story from time to time. Their role may be significant for the plot development, but then they may disappear for some time and pop up again.
• Dynamic and static characters: The existence of these two opposite characters is determined by their reflection of each other’s specifications. While one character of a story goes through an internal or external transformation, another one may have their basic characteristics unchanged. There is a common idea that an evolving character tends to be more interesting than a static one. However, you can also analyze a static character from the perspective that they are not sympathetic, smart, or deep enough to learn their lessons. Or on the contrary, they remain strong enough and can resist the system without going under it.
• Stereotypical: If you are familiar with stereotypes, you will know what type of character is meant here. Generally, this particular character serves as the representation of the social, national, as well as demographic background of the story.
• Foils: The main goal of this hero in the story is to stay in contrast with main characters and a protagonist in order to highlight the features of the main character.
• Multi-dimensional characters: This group of characters involves an unlimited number of personalities. They are one-dimensional characters in the story who usually are not particularly interesting for the reader or viewer and do not play a crucial role in the storyline.

How Do You Start a Character Analysis Essay?

Before you start writing, you may wonder how to do a character analysis. Of course, you need to select a character to describe. In some cases, your professor will give you a character to talk about. By reading a story several times, you may notice the tiniest details. Ideally, you can use a highlighter or marker to mark each spot where your character is mentioned. Here are some more details of how to start with a character analysis:

• Take notes while reading. Take notes by highlighting every significant element of the story.
• Introduce your character. Introduce your character by providing their detailed description.
• Describe your character. Provide a smooth transition from the general description of your character to the point of convergence of the story.
• Build up a thesis statement. Finish the presentation with your paper’s proposal.

Main Points of a Character Analysis

When you need to analyze one character, you can make it from the perspective of several types at once. The character’s ability to change can create an additional source of analysis. At the same time, the complex and changing personality will be more interesting for the detailed analysis. To make it easier to work with such characters, you should focus on their characteristics, namely their importance for a story, actions, events, and so on. In most cases, you have to cover three major points:

Personality

Reveal the main features of a character to provide the reader with a portrait. By adding some facts and descriptions of actions, you will enable a deeper understanding of the analyzed hero. There is no need to use some words with broad meanings like “bad,” “nice,” “honest,” etc.

Role in a story

Describe the importance of the particular character in the context of the general story. Also, you should pay attention to their actions and their ability to move the events forward.

Character development

Analyze the changes the character has gone through and what features they have now. You should focus on the progress of a person, even if it is regressive.

Character Analysis Outline

In the character analysis essay outline, you should describe two or maybe even three specific character categories. Your mission is to describe the personality of the character, their function in the story, and the value they have.

• Describe the personality of the character. The reader gets familiar with the characters of the story through the words the characters use, the emotions they express, and the actions they take. It is quite easy to build up an opinion about the personality of a character through the prism of their outward behaviors. Eventually, you will understand that the character fits into one of the character categories mentioned above.
• Explore the character’s role . While writing a character analysis, it is important to describe the role of that character in detail. Apart from expressing unique character traits, the character will also perform a specific function in the story. Whether it will be the major or minor role, the analysis should address all the aspects of the performed role.
• Outline the growth and development of the character . In order to write a professional analysis, you will explain how the character matures and transforms as the plot progresses.

The majority of characters will have to go through particular transformations until the end of the story. You should pay special attention to whether the character becomes better or worse, stronger or weaker, rich or poor. Mention any areas or scenes where these transformations occur. In the story, you will recognize them from the cues like “it was then that she understood…” or “for the first time in months, he…”

Do you need a more detailed analysis of your character?

To make your analysis essay correct, you need to explore your character deeply. If you set some points you will follow in your work, you will manage to be consequential in your analysis. So here are some crucial nuances you should remember to describe the character:

You should focus on the reasons that make the character in a story to make a particular decision or take a specific action. You have an opportunity to explore the rightfulness of those actions as well as their reasonability. While you are asked to express your thoughts about certain events and feelings, you should be objective by looking beyond the cover.

Every action taken by a character can say a lot about his/her personality. You should not skip any events because it can be important for the general story and reveal some info about the character, his/her attitude to things, etc.

You should pay attention to the words the person uses because they can say a lot about their personality. Their accents and phrases may provide you with valuable information about nationality, social status, education, or even age of a character.

Descriptions

There are two major sources of the description: from other people in a story and the author. The author can provide the reader with one attitude and description of the major character, while secondary heroes in a story may describe them from their own perspective. At that point, their conclusions may be totally different, yet they’ll provide you with an understanding of the person’s nature.

The way people refer to a person also determines the features of a character. They may have nicknames or other names that will demonstrate their background and the attitude of other characters toward them. You can also define the origin as well as other important nuances.

Character Analysis Examples

By using a readymade character analysis example, you can concentrate on the creative process itself. Here are some nice examples of written character analysis based on a couple of popular stories:

https://literatureessaysamples.com/joe-gargerys-character-analysis/

http://jmendelis.blogspot.com/p/sample-character-analysis-essay.html

Popular Topics for Character Analysis

• Hamlet Character Analysis
• The Crucible Character Analysis
• Macbeth Character Analysis
• Ophelia Character Analysis
• Iago Character Analysis
• 12 Angry Men Character Analysis
• The Great Gatsby Character Analysis
• Beowulf Character Analysis
• Lady Macbeth Character Analysis
• Atticus Finch Character Analysis
• Romeo Character Analysis
• Antigone Character Analysis
• Victor Frankenstein Character Analysis
• Pride And Prejudice Character Analysis
• Machinal By Sophie Treadwell Character Analysis
• Of Mice And Men Character Analysis
• Othello Character Analysis
• Macduff Character Analysis
• Lord Of The Flies Character Analysis
• To Kill A Mockingbird Character Analysis
• The Breakfast Club Character Analysis
• Charlie Brown Character Analysis
• Death Of A Salesman Character Analysis
• Hester Prynne Character Analysis
• Mr Darcy Character Analysis
• Desdemona Character Analysis
• Fahrenheit 451 Character Analysis
• Willy Loman Character Analysis
• A Raisin In The Sun Character Analysis
• The Things They Carried Character Analysis
• A Rose For Emily Character Analysis
• Nick Carraway Character Analysis
• Daisy Buchanan Character Analysis
• Boo Radley Character Analysis
• 13 Reasons Why Character Analysis
• King Lear Character Analysis
• Jay Gatsby Character Analysis
• Blanche Dubois Character Analysis
• Oedipus Character Analysis
• Claudius Character Analysis

Tips on Writing a Character Analysis from Handmadewriting Experts

Whether you follow a character analysis template yourself or ask a professional essay writer to complete this paper for you, you should not forget the common principles of work. Luckily, Handmadewriting’s specialists always follow the standard rules for character analysis writing:

• Support all your statements with evidence. Y ou should incorporate evidence for every single point you make, although it must be relevant to the story. By means of quotes taken from the story, you can easily support your ideas and increase your credibility.
• Point, illustrate, and explain. The so-called PIE method is a must for character analysis writing. Make sure to make a point, integrate quotations to support it, and explain how every quote creates the point.
• Use your own words to anchor the quote. A quotation should not be left alone in the sentence. You need to explain the eligibility of this quote and its meaning.
• Do not overuse quotes. You are allowed to use up to 10% of quotations in an academic paper, so remember this number. If you overuse quotes, you can hardly hope for a good grade.

Are you ready to proceed with your character analysis paper? Once you learn all writing rules and tips, you will be able to finish an excellent paper before the set deadline.

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How to Write a Character Analysis Essay: Examples & Outline

A character analysis is an examination of the personalities and actions of protagonists and antagonists that make up a story. It discusses their role in the story, evaluates their traits, and looks at their conflicts and experiences. You might need to write this assignment in school or college. Like any other essay, your character analysis should contain an introduction, a conclusion, and a thesis.

Want to know how to write a character analysis essay? Not sure how to start? We understand. Whichever piece you choose – Lady Macbeth, A Rose for Emily, or something else, – analyzing a character for the first time might be challenging. No worries, we are here to help! In this guide by our custom writing experts, you will find a step-by-step guide, outlining and writing tips, as well as a number of character analysis examples.

• 📔 Character Analysis Definition
• 🧙 Types of Characters
• 📝 Writing Guide
• 🖥️ Formatting Tips

📑 Character Analysis Essay Examples

📔 what is a character analysis essay.

A character analysis essay is an assignment where you evaluate a character’s traits, behaviors, and motivations. It requires critical thinking and attention to detail. Unlike descriptions, analyses focus on a character’s personality and internal drives. It explains how those factors shape the narrated events.

So, what you need to do is to see the characters as if they were real people who feel and act just as we do. Ensure there are no baseless assumptions and interpretations: the ideas you present should be supported by quotes from the text.

Character: Definition (Literature)

How do you define a character? It is a person, a creature, or an animal that makes up the story’s world. A character can be based on a real-life person, or it can be entirely fictional. It is someone who thinks, feels, and acts.

We use the word “character” in many different contexts. For instance, it can denote someone eccentric or worthy of our admiration. In both contexts, the term “character” means a distinctive personality. Similarly, in an analysis, your task is to show what makes a character stand out.

Characterization: Literary Definition & Examples

Characterization is the process by which a character’s personality is revealed. It presents characters’ traits, feelings, and motives to the reader. For this reason, characterization is closely connected to character analysis. It helps us to understand the characters better throughout the reading process.

Characterization can be direct and indirect .

• Direct characterization is when the narrator directly tells the audience what the personality of a character is.
• In contrast, indirect characterization shows things that hint at a character’s nature.

Here are some examples of direct characterization taken from Patti Smith’s Just Kids :

“But he always suppressed his real feelings, mimicking the stoic nature of his father.”

Here we see a direct description of a character. The author straightforwardly talks about Robert’s feelings. In comparison, look at the description of a woman taken from John Steinbeck’s The Snake :

“He looked around at her again. Her dark eyes seemed veiled with dust. She looked without expression at the cat’s open throat.”

These lines don’t directly reveal anything about the woman, but the reader can understand that she is cold and dangerous. It’s an indirect characterization that focuses on looks and actions to convey the message to the reader.

🧙 Types of Characters for Your Essay

When it comes to characters, they can be divided into several groups. For example, characters can be:

• Protagonists or antagonists,
• Static or dynamic,
• Flat or round.

These types define how much the characters change through the course of the story and their role in it.

Character Type: Definition

In psychology, a character type is defined by a combination of personality traits that coexist in an individual. Authors incorporate different types of characters into their works to convey the message and make the story more exciting or relatable to the reader.

There are three ways to categorize a character type:

• by archetypes,
• by their role in the narrative,
• by their ability to change throughout the story.

If you are about to write a character analysis essay, being familiar with character archetypes is essential. They have been categorized by a generation of writers, including the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and the American literary theorist Joseph Campbell. A lot of characters we see in today’s literary works are rooted in them.

Archetypes include the Trickster, the Ruler, the Lover, the Sage, and others. The Hero is one of the most notable archetypes. Hercules or Achilles can be good examples of heroic protagonists. They are strong and courageous; they meet challenges and save the day by helping others.

Main Character: Definition & Examples

The main character and the protagonist often get mixed up. Most narratives also have the figure of the antagonist , whose actions affect the plot and stimulate change. Let’s have a look at the similarities and differences between these types.

The main character is central in the narrative. We experience the story through their eyes. They don’t necessarily have to be protagonists, though it happens in many cases.

The crucial difference between the main character and the protagonist is that the protagonist goes through changes throughout the story. The main character, however, is there to guide the reader through the experience. Often they help to show a different, darker side of the protagonist.

To understand the difference better, let’s turn to some examples.

What’s a Static Character?

Now that we’ve learned about the main character and the protagonist, we will closely look at other types of character classifications. One of the ways to categorize a character is by their ability to change throughout the story.

A static or simple character is someone who undergoes little or no significant changes. They often exist for comedic purposes. Here are some examples:

Complex Character: Definition & Examples

Complex or dynamic characters are the opposite of static characters. Characters of this type change as the book progresses. They display different qualities, emotions, and motives. They become more complicated and interesting to the reader as the story unfolds.

Check out these examples of dynamic characters:

Other Kinds of Characters

You already know about several ways to define a type of character. Now, let’s go over some other types, starting with flat and round characters.

Similar to dynamic and static ones, round and flat characters represent two different ends of a spectrum. Round characters usually come with an in-depth background. They are traditionally protagonists, antagonists, or those close to them. In contrast, flat characters are two-dimensional, and there is not much depth to them.

For the examples, we will turn to the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Finally, here are some bonus character types for you:

• Stock characters have a fixed set of traits and are flat. Most of the time, they exist for comical relief.
• Symbolic characters represent a concept or a theme that goes beyond them. They can be round and flat as long as they symbolize a particular notion or phenomena.
• Sidekick is a secondary character who supports the protagonist.
• The love interest is someone with whom the main character is infatuated.
• Foil is someone who’s set in contrast with the protagonist, thus putting more emphasis on the latter’s qualities.

Characterization Essay: Which Character Type to Choose

Before you start writing a paper, it essential to decide on the character you’re going to analyze. There are different types of characters in every story, so you need to choose which one suits your essay topic the best.

Usually, it’s best to choose a dynamic and round character . With static and flat ones, there may not be enough substance for you to analyze. However, some such personalities can be interesting to work with. For instance, a flat character such as Mr. Collins can be symbolic of something. Then, you can talk about how it embodies a specific idea or notion. You can also look at how they affect other characters in the story.

📝 How to Write a Character Analysis Step by Step

Now, we’re going to discuss how to write your paper step-by-step. But first, here are some pre-writing steps for you to consider:

• Choose a character for analysis.
• Take notes while reading;
• Define the type of the character and their role in the story;
• Pay attention to their descriptions and actions.

How to Analyze a Character: Description Examples

Knowing how to organize your work is an essential skill. Certain things need special attention if you are describing a character:

• physical appearance,
• emotional state,
• how the character speaks,
• behavior and personality traits,
• relationships with other characters.

When you analyze a character, try to look at them as if they were a real-life person. You want to know their motive, learn about how they feel, and understand why they think in a certain way. Ask yourself:

• How did the character change throughout the story (if at all)?
• What do other characters say about them? Can their words be trusted?
• Where is the character physically and emotionally? What brought them here?
• What is the character ready to do to achieve their goal?

Now, let’s look at the character of Franklin from the short story Just Before the War with the Eskimos by J.D. Salinger:

Character Profile Template for Writing

When writing your essay, use this character analysis template:

In the following sections, we’ll discuss each step in detail.

Character Analysis Outline: How to Start a Character Analysis

The beginning of your essay is its crucial part. It sets the mood and grabs the reader’s attention. There are many different ways to write a character analysis introduction, but here are the most effective ones:

• Use a quotation. It’s a great way to make a catchy hook. If it relates to the character and reflects their nature, it can also help to set the tone for analysis. In case you are using a quotation from somewhere else, mention the source in parentheses.
• Talk about the book or story. Mention the author, the name of the story, and the genre. Briefly describe the main events that are taking place in the story.
• Introduce the character. State their role in the story (define whether they are a protagonist, an antagonist, etc.) Then, explain whether the character is static or dynamic. Finally, describe them in 2-3 sentences.

The final part of an introduction is a thesis statement.Read on to learn how to write one!

Character Analysis Thesis Statement & Examples

A thesis is the key component of every essay, and character analysis is not an exception. It’s crucial to develop a good and clear thesis statement that includes all the aspects of your paper. For instance, if you plan to write a 4-paragraph body, including 4 points in your thesis.

What should a character analysis thesis include? Well, try to think of any trait that the character possesses that has to do with their downfall or somehow influences the story. Think about how this trait affects the character’s relationship with others or how it contributes to their motive or aspiration.

Take a look at the following examples:

How to Write Character Analysis Paragraphs for the Main Body

The main body of your essay can include as many paragraphs as you need. In this part, you introduce the character and analyze them. We have already talked in this article about what kind of questions should be answered in these paragraphs. The most important points are:

• Describe the character and their role within the story.
• Give the audience an explanation of the character’s motives.
• Show what message the author wanted to convey through this character.

Keep in mind that every paragraph should have a topic sentence that captures its main idea.

Tsukuru Tazaki’s spiritual rebirth also affects his physical appearance.

Character Analysis Conclusion: How to Write

The conclusion part of your essay summarizes all the information you have mentioned and restates the thesis. Here is some advice for your conclusion paragraph:

🖥️ Character Analysis Essay Format

Most college assignments and essays are written according to the APA or MLA format. Both styles have the same formatting, which requires:

• a double-spaced paper with 1-inch margins,
• a page header with page numbers flush right,
• an 11-12-point font.

While writing an essay on characters, pay special attention to quotations. Here are some tips for APA in-text citations:

• When you summarize or paraphrase the information, mention the author’s name and publication date in brackets. Example: According to Collins (1997.)
• When you quote directly from the source, add the number of the page, as well. Example: “There is a view that…” (Collins, 1997, pp. 134-135.)
• If the source includes three or more authors, use the abbreviation “et al.” after the first author’s name. Example: (Collins et al., 1997)

As for MLA format:

• You can write the author’s name in the sentence. Example: As Collins mentions in his essay<…>.
• You can mention the author’s name in the parentheses at the end of the sentence. Example: (Collins, J.K.)
• The last option is to use either footnotes or endnotes.

Below you’ll find a collection of character analysis essay examples and a downloadable sample to inspire you even more.

• The Grandmother in A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Character Analysis
• Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman: Character Analysis
• Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway: Character Analysis
• Prospero in The Tempest: Character Analysis
• Agamemnon in the Iliad: Character Analysis
• Lord Pococurante in Candide: Character Analysis
• Andromache in the Iliad: Character Analysis
• Character Analysis of the Knight from The Canterbury Tales
• Essay on Soldier’s Home: Analysis of the Characters

Character Analysis Example (Downloadable)

Roald Dahl’s  Matilda  is one of the most famous children’s novels of the 20th century. The protagonist of this tale is Matilda Wormwood, a five and a half-year-old girl with a brilliant and lively mind that distances her from the rest of the family. Matilda’s character is particularly interesting as she has a powerful personality with extraordinary mental abilities, and she manages to overcome all the obstacles that surround her.

Character Analysis Essay Topics

• Character analysis of Abbas from A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge .
• Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 
• Beowulf and Hamlet: similarity and diversity of the characters. 
• Personal and social failures of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.
• Character analysis of Othello. 
• Analyze the characters of Stanley and Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire . 
• The tragedy of Mathilde Loisel from The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant.
• Character analysis of Huck Finn from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .
• Moral force of Kate Lipton from Double Helix by Nancy Parker.
• Character analysis of Thorvald and Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House .
• Discuss the character of king Creon in Antigone .
• Analyze the personality of Lydia from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice .
• Compare Nick Carraway and Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
• Describe the peculiarities of Lord Pococurante in Candide .
• Sarty Snopes in William Faulkner’s Barn Burning : character analysis.
• Analyze the character of Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman.
• Personality of Nora in A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen.
• Examine the main characters of The Yellow Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
• Personality change of the main character in Edgar Alan Poe’s The Black Cat . 
• Analyze the characters of E. Hemingway’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place .
• Describe the main characters of the novel The Overstory by Richard Powers.
• Controversial personality of Vladek in Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman.
• Character analysis of Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
• Discuss the character of Creon in Oedipus the King .
• The manipulative character of Iago in Willian Shakespeare’s Othello .
• Analyze the characters of Nil and Kristine in A Doll’s House .
• Eccentricity of Grendel’s character in Beowulf .
• Describe the main characters of Four Summers by Joyce Carol Oates.
• Examine the characters of Harold Krebs and his mother in Ernest Hemingway’s Soldier’s Home .
• Analyze common and different traits of the characters in The Monkey’s Paw .
• Character peculiarities of Rostam and Sohrab in Shahnameh by Ferdowsi Tousi.  
• How does the character of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen differ from the rest of her family?  
• The behavior and meaning of the characters in Nicholas Rowe’s The Tragedy of Jane Shore.
• Compare the characters of Victor Frankenstein and the monster in Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.
• Discuss the differences of main characters in Everyday Use by Alice Walker.
• Examine the character of Connie in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates.
• The influence of social pressure on the characters of Chopin’s Desirée’s Baby and Sedaris’ A Modest Proposal .
• Dynamic feminist characters of Delia and Jig in Sweat by Z. Hurston and Hills Like White Elephants by E. Hemingway.
• Analyze the personality traits of Emily in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily . 
• Examine the characters of The Quiet American by Graham Greene.
• Henry ΙV by William Shakespeare : analysis of main characters.

Now you know everything necessary for writing an excellent character analysis. What character would you like to analyze? Let us know in the comments!

Further reading:

• How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay Step by Step
• Literature Review Outline: Examples, Approaches, & Templates
• Library Research Paper: Example & Writing Guide [2024]
• How to Write a Critique Paper: Tips + Critique Essay Examples
• 435 Literary Analysis Essay Topics and Prompts [2024 Upd]
• How to Write a Literature Review: Actionable Tips & Links

❓ Character Analysis FAQ

A character analysis involves:

1. description of a character; 2. explanation of how they change throughout the story; 3. their role in the narrative; 4. relationships with other characters; 5. what idea the author wanted to convey through the character.

A character analysis creates a description that contains their most important qualities. It provides a new perspective of a character that reveals more about what it’s like to be human. It can also point to a moral or a lesson.

Literary analysis uses the technique of tracing the character development. This technique is usually used to understand the theme of the work better. Through tracing a character’s development, we can learn more about the story’s message and how it’s conveyed.

A summary paragraph in a character study should include answers to the questions “what,” “who,” “where,” and “why.” You should mention who narrates the story, where the story is set, its theme, and the message it conveys.

• Critical Concepts: Character and Characterization: Kansas State University
• Analyzing Novels & Short Stories: Texas A&M University
• Guidelines for Writing a Character Analysis Essay: Tidewater Communite College
• Literary Criticism: Thesis Examples: The University of Texas at Arlington
• Writing a Literary Analysis Paper: Germanna Community College
• Flat and Round Characters: Encyclopedia Britannica
• Literature: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• How to Write a Book Analysis: Kean University
• Elements of Literary Analysis: Alamo Colleges District
• Defining Characterization: Read Write Think
• APA Style: General Format: Purdue University
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Posted on Dec 21, 2018

Character Descriptions: How To Write Them (in 3 Steps)

Character descriptions — those key passages that describe what a character actually looks like — are almost as crucial to a written story as the characters themselves. If you’re writing a novel, you’ve probably created an awesome, vivid protagonist in your head: motivated , quirky , maybe even memorably named . But how do you convey all that to a reader without depleting the magic?

Writing strong character descriptions actually requires quite a bit of finesse. If you skimp on descriptive passages, you run the risk of leaving your readers with forgettable characters. But if you get too descriptive, you wind up leaving no room for the reader’s own imagination.

So what does it take to strike the right balance? We’ll tell you! Here are three cardinal rules on how to write character descriptions without falling off that tightrope.

1. Choose your words carefully

When writing character descriptions, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself. After all, this is the first time you’re introducing a character you’ve created from the ground up .

But just because you know everything about them, doesn’t mean the reader needs to. Character descriptions aren’t about doling out every detail in lavish language — they’re about succinct characterization. Here are a few tips on how to achieve just that.

Be descriptive in your language

We’re talking about character descriptions, after all — it’s quite literally in the name. When describing a character that you see clearly in your mind, it’s easy to simply give a laundry list of attributes: she had black hair, brown eyes, and freckles. But that tells us nothing about the character and is frankly a waste of words.

Sure, your protagonist might have brown eyes. But so does half the world’s population! And characterization is all about showing what makes a character unique.

Sometimes, this can be done through word choice alone. Take this example from Huckleberry Finn :

“There warn’t no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl – a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white.”

From this passage, we clearly understand how Huck’s father looks, as surely as if Twain had simply written, “He was white.” But through the use of figurative language and excellent word choice, another image sticks in our head: that of a sickly, grotesque drunk. Bonus points for the use of “tree-toad” and “fish-belly” — descriptors that match the tone of the adventure novel.

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Use adjectives sparingly

Another problem with a sentence like “She had brown eyes” is that brown simply isn’t a very interesting word. When it comes to describing something, the same is true for many adjectives; which are to descriptions as adverbs are to verbs . In other words, they may appear to be more descriptive, but they often just bog down your sentences.

Same goes for verbs. Much has been made about the banality of the verb “to be” in literature. Which would you prefer: “She had brown eyes,” or, “Her brown eyes pierced through my own”? Use forceful verbs to illuminate more about your character. When it comes to character descriptions, every word counts.

However, keep in mind that overly descriptive words like these can easily turn cliché. Ultimately, a phrase like, “He had a prosaic, pedestrian face” may pale in comparison to a more simply but potent description, like this one from Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated :

“He did not look like anything special at all.”

Use descriptions themselves sparingly

When introducing a character, it’s best not to dedicate three whole chapters to an exhaustive physical explanation and backstory. After all, this isn’t Moby-Dick .

So as you’re painting a picture of your character, do two important things: 1) focus on a few key characteristics at a time , and 2) make sure to spread your descriptions out across the book . If we’re told every detail of every character’s face all at once, they’ll all end up blending together. But if we’re distinctly told about the woman with ears like a rabbit or the man with a slightly larger left nostril? We’ll remember them for the whole novel.

Also keep in mind that word choice is important, but so are the things you’re describing with those words. Hair, skin, and eye color — these are all characteristics that, ironically, don’t really say anything about what characters are like. That’s why, next up, we’ll discuss what characteristics you should be covering in your character descriptions.

2. Be specific

Remember, we don’t need to know every single physical detail of every person in a book. In fact, since reading is a non-visual medium, many readers prefer to fill in the blanks themselves.

Good descriptions tend to be brief but evocative. So choose two or three distinct, specific attributes to describe and leave the rest to the reader’s imagination. Here are some ideas on what those attributes might be.

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Facial expressions

Facial attributes are one thing: anyone can have a big nose, so that tells us nothing substantial about a character. On the other hand, facial expressions speak volumes. Like this example from Lord of the Flies :

“His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness.”

The way they carry themselves

Body language is key to understanding other people, so it stands to reason that it’s key to understanding characters, too. Take this description from Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible , which describes a character through posture and mannerisms alone:

“Mama BekwaTataba stood watching us — a little jet-black woman. Her elbows stuck out like wings, and a huge white enameled tub occupied the space above her head, somewhat miraculously holding steady while her head moved in quick jerks to the right and left.”

Their stuff

In his popular novel American Psycho , Bret Eaton Ellis showcases Patrick Bateman's vapidity and narcissism through descriptions of the titular character's designer clothing. You can tell a lot about a person from their possessions — whether it’s clothing, cars, houses, or merely the contents of their purse. “He was a superficial sociopath” succinctly describes the extent of Patrick Bateman’s character development in the novel, but a passage like this shows it so much better:

“But there are also things that the average person would think are nice that I've done to celebrate the holiday, items I've bought Jean and had delivered to her apartment this morning: Castellini cotton napkins from Bendel's, a wicker chair from Jenny B. Goode, a taffeta table throw from Barney's, a vintage chain-mail-vent purse and a vintage sterling silver dresser set from Macy's, a white pine whatnot from Conran's, an Edwardian nine-carat-gold "gate" bracelet from Bergdorfs and hundreds upon hundreds of pink and white roses.”

Just be sure extensive descriptions of clothing don’t fall into the bad fanfiction category . (Although, there is good fanfiction too.)

Their actions

You know how actions speak louder than words? That’s truer than ever when it comes to describing your novel’s cast.

In one sense, actions can illustrate physical characteristics in a pretty basic way: “She ran her hand through her hair, accidentally revealing the mole on her forehead she’d always kept hidden behind her bangs.”

But you can also learn as much about fictional characters from their actions as you can about real people. Toni Morrison displays clear knowledge of this in her novel Jazz , introducing the character Violet by recounting a story about her, rather than simply telling what she looks like.

“I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, ‘I love you.’”

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3. Don’t always be specific

Yeah, okay — the irony here isn’t lost on us . But while giving distinct details is important to character descriptions, so is knowing when concrete descriptions aren’t needed. Words, after all, are not limited to describing physical things. So don’t limit your prose, either.

Be abstract

Feel free to stretch the boundaries of what you’re describing and how you’re describing it. Rather than simply pointing out concrete characteristics or actions, feel free to describe abstractions, like this passage from Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere :

“Mr. Croup likes words, while Mr. Vandemar is always hungry. Also, they look nothing alike.”

Or, describe physical characteristics in an abstract way — that is, use similes and metaphors. In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , Dickens does not describe Scrooge as a Christmas-hating miser. Instead, Scrooge in this Christmas book is:

“Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”

Whether you’re describing yourself to a friend or a friend is describing you to someone else, it’s very unlikely either of you would give a painstaking, perfectly objective account. Biases exist in every aspect of life, so it’s okay to be biased in character descriptions, too.

If a first person narrator is describing themselves, they might comment on their own attractiveness, like Humbert Humbert in Lolita :

“I was, and still am, despite mes malheurs, an exceptionally handsome male; slow-moving, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seductive cast of demeanor.”

Or you could have one character describe another, which illuminates the attributes of the latter and the perception of the former. Take, for example, this particularly scathing description of one person by another from Jodi Taylor’s The Nothing Girl :

“The only talents he possessed were delusions of adequacy.”

This sentence succinctly describes a not-quite-self-aware underachiever. But it also illustrates a narrator with a not-so-objective opinion of him.

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Show, don’t tell

Yup. The golden rule of writing applies here as well. At the end of the day, no matter what you decide to reveal to your audience, the most important aspect of character descriptions is how you reveal it. Regardless of how special, unique, or honest-to-god awesome your protagonist is, a reader forced to trudge through page after page of intensive description will find any character boring.

Instead, think of how we learn things about other people in real life. Very rarely does the color of our eyes or the shape of our nose describe who we are. We don’t tell everything there is to know about each other — we show it, through our expressions, perceptions, actions, preferences, and even our stuff. Apply that same rule to your character descriptions, and your characters (and readers) will thank you for it.

Are there any character descriptions that stand out to you? Leave any thoughts or questions in the comments below!

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Home / Book Writing / How to Write Amazing Character Descriptions (with Examples)

How to Write Amazing Character Descriptions (with Examples)

A good character description is walking a fine line between too much and too little information. Not only that, it's how you deliver the information to the reader that can make or break a good description. So whether you already have a vivid picture of your characters in mind or you don't know where to start, you've come to the right place. Read on to explore character description.

• What is a Good Character Description?
• Descriptions for Character Profiles
• Descriptions in Prose
• Character Description Examples
• Tips for Writing Character Descriptions for Profiles

Table of contents

• Description in Prose
• 1. Start With a List
• 2. Edit it Down
• 3. Get Creative With Surroundings and Movement
• 4. What Is and What Isn't
• 5. Adjectives Can Help or Hinder
• 6. Practice Makes Perfect
• 7. Description Can Help Reveal the Narrator

A good character description isn't just about describing how a given character looks. It's also about describing the character through the world around them and through their actions. When these factors come together, you can create a vivid description that not only tells the reader a lot about your character's personality but also sparks the reader's imagination. That, after all, is what reading is all about.

And while we'll mostly be discussing character description in prose, we'll also be discussing how character description is important when writing your character profiles. Since character profiles are best utilized before you write your novel, we'll start there.

Creating a character profile can help you when it comes time to write. It can ensure that you know your major characters intimately before you start writing. These profiles are about more than just character description, but for the purposes of this article, we'll focus on the physical attributes, as they're the building blocks for writing descriptive prose.

Think of a profile as a character sketch. You're not trying to get every single detail down, as it's always good to leave room for spontaneity when you're writing your novel . But when it comes to the basics of how the character looks, it can help to nail down the details.

This includes things like eye color, facial expression, height, weight, build, hair color, skin color, any disfigurements or scars, and things like tattoos or birthmarks. This should also include clothing and any other accessories, such as hats, watches, necklaces, and piercings.

You don't have to get fancy with the profile. Just get the information down so you can refer to it later. If you want to go the extra mile, you can write down some varying descriptions of your character as if you're writing the novel. It's often easiest to focus on one physical attribute at a time until you're comfortable. These practice descriptions can lend inspiration when you start writing in earnest.

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Description in your book is a bit different than in your profile. A good description can give the reader a glimpse at the character's personality traits as well as their appearance. There are many different ways to write a great character description, but they all have one thing in common: they're creative and anything but boilerplate.

Many new writers opt for the list-style of description, thinking that less is more. They often look like this:

“He had piercing green eyes, sandy blond hair, and stood a stocky and solid six-foot-two. He had a slight limp and the musculature of a man who works hard for his living.”

While this may be fine for a minor character, it falls a little flat for a major character that you want the audience to know intimately. So for ideas on how to write character descriptions, let's look at some examples from some masters of the craft.

“His present dog was a huge white brute, a mountain dog from the South. He had named it Halina, after his second wife, with whom it shared some personality traits. . . It weighed almost as much as he did and its coat was matted and filthy; it lifted its massive head and watched him with lunatic eyes.”

This description, from Dave Hutchinson's Europe in Autumn , is a great example of how to describe physical appearance. Neither the man nor his dog is a major character in the story, but the description tells you a little about the K9 and its owner in a few concise sentences.

“He did not look like anything special at all.”

This one-sentence description in Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated is an excellent example of “less is more.”

“When he did appear his eyes were as brown as I remembered, pupils flecked with gold like beach pebbles.”

This description is from Sub Rosa by Amber Dawn. It's a compelling use of simile to create a picture of a character's appearance in the reader's mind. Note that she doesn't use tired and worn-out similes such as “eyes as blue as the summer sky” or “hair as red as autumn leaves. Getting creative with figurative language can work out very well.

“He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.”

This description, from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, focuses on the character's actions to tell the reader about him. Or, rather, on a single action: a smile. At the same time, the writer is telling the reader something about the POV character, giving insights into how the narrator sees the character while describing him.

Tips for Writing Character Descriptions in Prose

Most writing teachers and authors will tell you that if you want to write, you need to read. And the descriptions above should be shining examples of why that is sage advice. Reading how the authors you love write character description is key. But I've included some tips you can use when it comes time to write your own masterpiece!

This is where the character profile comes in handy. Not only does it keep you on track (there's nothing worse than realizing you switched a character's eye color halfway through a book) but it also allows you to keep a picture of your character fresh in your mind's eye.

So keep a list handy. Even if it's just the basics, like “black hair” or “brown eyes” and the like, it helps.

One of the most oft-quoted pieces of advice from Strunk & White's The Elements of Style is “Omit needless words.” For writers old and new, this advice is sound indeed for writing character descriptions. We've all read a book where the description of a character goes on for pages and pages and we find ourselves asking, “When will we get back to the story?”

This is something to avoid at all costs. So edit your descriptions down as much as possible. Don't use flowery language for its own sake. Instead, try to get your point across to the reader in as concise a manner as possible. You don't have to get into a character's backstory with the description if it will interrupt the flow of the story.

Remember that you want to create a vivid character in the reader's mind, but that doesn't mean that you want to take all of their imagination out of it. Leave something for the reader to interpret, if at all possible.

Description isn't all about a character's physicality. It's also about how the character interacts with the world around them. The way a man sits on a couch or a woman drives a car or a child eats an ice cream cone can all add to the character's description. A sentence about what a couple does while waiting in line at the movies can tell the reader more than a paragraph of straight description.

The way a character walks, the way they gesture when they talk, the way they squint when they're thinking. These are all great ways to add to a character's vividness and depth through description.

Describing a person, fictional or otherwise, can be done by looking at what is there and what isn't there. In fact, sharing what isn't there — what's missing — can be a great way of describing a person. As a writer, this can also help you develop your craft and keep your prose fresh. Whether this is a missing limb, a shirt pocket that has been torn off, or the lack of seeming intelligence on a vacant face, the absence of things can say a lot about a character.

As a rule in fiction, it's best to limit your use of adverbs. And the use of adjectives in character descriptions is no exception. Like adverbs, adjectives can become a crutch that holds back more concise and creative writing. This is not to say that you shouldn't use them on occasion. Sometimes an adjective is just the right kind of word for character description. Just keep in mind that overusing them can lead to reader fatigue and overly flowery language.

This should go without saying, but practicing your description will go a long way to becoming a better writer. When you consciously sit down to write a compelling character description, you can really think about what you want to say and how best to say it.

To do this, choose a character archetype and flesh that archetype out into a full-fledged person through descriptive language. Try writing several descriptions of the same character type, focusing on a few different tributes each time. You can try writing one where you focus on appearance. One on movement. One on how she/he interacts with the world around them. One on clothing. And one on what's missing (if anything). These practices can help you get your head around how best to describe a character in any given situation.

Description can also tell the reader about the POV character or narrator. And if your narrator is also your protagonist, this can be very important. This is because, short of having your character stand in front of a mirror and describe herself, there aren't many easy ways to describe your POV character without taking the reader out of the story. So, a great way to enlighten the reader is to use the way your narrator sees other characters. This can often be in the form of physical comparisons that the narrator makes or insights that they glean from watching/interacting with another character.

Not only does this add to the main character's believability, but it also provides an opportunity for character development as the story progresses. Perhaps your POV character has a bad habit of comparing himself to others he learns to break. Or perhaps he focuses too much on physical attributes to the detriment of seeing who other characters really are.

Whether you're writing a short story , novella, or a 1,000-page tome, you'll want to get familiar with character descriptions. The best way to start this is with a character profile. This will help you with your character analysis, which is great for fleshing out your main character, villain, and even secondary characters that need brief but compelling descriptions.

Once you have the basics of your character down, you can start experimenting with description. By focusing on one major character trait at first, you can develop your own style of description. Then you can incorporate more attributes, sharing only a couple at a time as your novel progresses.

Be concise, creative, and don't forget to look for what is and what isn't there. Use movement, interactions, and gestures to make vivid and crisp character descriptions. 

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

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How to Write a Character Analysis Essay Like a PRO

Mark Bradford

Have you ever wondered how to tackle a character analysis essay without breaking a sweat? Well, you're in the right place! In the realm of literature and English courses, these essays can be a bit tricky. But fear not, because, in this article, we're going to break down what character analysis is all about and show you the ropes on how to handle it.

We'll explore the nuances of character analysis, from understanding the character's context in the story to dissecting their relationships with other folks in the narrative. There's room for your personal take, too! Consider this your go-to resource, providing a thorough guide. And hey, if you ever find yourself in need of a professionally crafted essay, we've got you covered – just check out our platform, where you can pay for essays online !

What Is A Character Analysis Essay?

A character analysis essay goes deep into exploring the distinctive traits of a character found in literature or sometimes in other art forms like movies. Its main purpose is to help readers understand who the character is and their role in the story. Even though you might have personal opinions, it's crucial to approach the analysis objectively, using critical thinking skills. You'll be looking at various aspects, such as how the character interacts with others, their behavior, how they speak, and even their physical appearance.

For instance, think about how Harry Potter's courage and loyalty define his character throughout the series. In a character analysis essay, you'd explore these traits and their impact on the overall narrative. It's not like writing a resume, but there are moments where you can share your personal insights into the character, like why you think a certain trait makes them memorable or how it contributes to the story.

Why Write a Character Analysis Essay?

The purpose of a character analysis essay is to provide a detailed exploration of a character's attributes and their role within a narrative. By scrutinizing their actions, thoughts, and interactions with others, readers gain insight into the character's growth or transformation over the course of the story.

Another purpose is to uncover the underlying motivations and personality traits of a character. By examining their behaviors, decisions, and relationships, the essay aims to reveal the psychological and emotional makeup of the character, providing readers with a deeper understanding of the character's role in the story.

A character analysis essay contributes to a more comprehensive interpretation of the literary work as a whole. By dissecting the characters and their significance, readers can better appreciate the author's intentions, thematic elements, and the overall impact of the characters on the narrative structure. This analysis enriches the reader's experience and allows for a more profound engagement with the text.

Types of Characters

Characters in literature come in various types, each serving a unique role in shaping the narrative. Let's explore a few common character archetypes:

• Protagonist: The protagonist is the central character driving the story forward. Often, they face challenges or conflicts that form the core of the narrative. Examples include Harry Potter in J.K. Rowling's series or Katniss Everdeen in Suzanne Collins' 'The Hunger Games.'
• Antagonist: The antagonist opposes the protagonist, creating conflict and tension in the story. Iconic antagonists include Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series or the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's 'The Wizard of Oz.'
• Round characters: These characters undergo significant development and change throughout the story. An excellent example is Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' who transforms from a miserly figure to a generous and compassionate person.
• Flat characters: Unlike round characters, flat characters do not undergo substantial development. They serve a specific role or function in the plot without significant change. A classic example is Shakespeare's Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet.'
• Dynamic characters: Dynamic characters experience internal transformation or growth during the story. Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' is a prime example, evolving from a mysterious and enigmatic figure to a tragic character driven by love.
• Static characters: In contrast, static characters remain unchanged throughout the narrative. Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations' is a static character, trapped in her jilted state and unable to move on.
• Foils: Foil characters contrast with the protagonist, highlighting specific traits or characteristics. Dr. John Watson serves as a foil to Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, accentuating Holmes' exceptional deductive abilities.
• Stock characters: These are stereotypical characters embodying conventional traits. The sidekick or the wise old mentor often falls into this category. Think of Samwise Gamgee as Frodo's loyal sidekick in J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings.'

How to Analyze a Character?

When analyzing a character, keep these tips in mind:

• Identify the character's key traits—both physical and psychological—to understand their personality, motivations, and conflicts.
• Analyze the character's relationships with others, considering how these interactions shape their development and reveal aspects of their personality.
• Consider the character's role in advancing the plot and conveying the author's themes or messages.
• If the character evolves throughout the story, track key moments that contribute to their development.
• Identify foil characters that contrast with the one you're analyzing, providing additional insights into their traits.
• Reflect on the author's intent in creating the character and how they contribute to the overall narrative.
• Share your personal insights on what makes the character stand out or resonate with you.

Character Analysis Essay Outline

Here's a comprehensive outline for a character analysis essay:

I. Introduction

A. Hook: - Engage readers with a captivating quote, question, or anecdote related to the character.

B. Introduction of the character: - Provide basic information about the character, including their name, the work they appear in, and the author.

C. Thesis statement: - Present a concise thesis statement that outlines the key traits and significance of the character in the story.

II. Background and setting

A. Context: - Briefly describe the setting and context in which the character exists.

B. Introduction of other key characters: - Introduce characters who play significant roles in the character's life or influence their development.

III. Physical and psychological traits

A. Physical traits: - Detail the character's physical appearance, highlighting any distinctive features.

B. Psychological traits: - Explore the character's personality, motivations, fears, desires, and any internal conflicts.

IV. Relationships and interactions

A. Family and friends: - Analyze the character's relationships with family and friends, exploring how these dynamics shape their identity.

B. Romantic relationships (if applicable): - Examine any romantic relationships and their impact on the character's development.

C. Interaction with other characters: - Discuss key interactions with other characters, identifying conflicts or alliances.

V. Character development

A. Evolution throughout the story: - Track the character's development, identifying key moments that contribute to their growth or transformation.

B. Turning points: - Highlight significant turning points in the character's journey.

VI. Role in the plot

A. Protagonist or antagonist: - Clarify whether the character is the protagonist, antagonist, or a supporting figure.

B. Contribution to themes: - Explore how the character contributes to the overarching themes of the narrative.

VII. Symbolism

A. Symbolic representations: - Investigate whether the character embodies symbolic meanings or represents broader ideas.

VIII. Foils and contrasts

A. Identify foil characters: - Discuss any foil characters that contrast with the character under analysis.

IX. Conclusion

A. Restate thesis: - Recap the key traits and significance of the character.

B. Summary of analysis: - Provide a brief summary of the main points discussed in the essay.

C. Closing thoughts: - Conclude with final thoughts on the character's impact and significance within the narrative.

X. Personal reflection (optional)

A. Share your perspective: - Optionally, include a brief personal reflection on what makes the character memorable or significant to you.

How to Start a Character Analysis Essay?

Starting a character analysis essay is like taking a closer look at your favorite characters from books or movies. It's about understanding what makes them interesting. But how do you begin? Let's get into the details and talk about the basic steps. Whether you choose to buy an essay or tackle it yourself, knowing these will help you uncover the important aspects of those fictional characters and make your essay stand out with insights.

Explore the Story

Before diving into character analysis or poetry analysis essay , fully immerse yourself in the story. Whether it's a novel, a movie, or a TV series, pay close attention to the characters' actions, words, and how they relate to others. In George Orwell's '1984,' exploring Winston Smith's journey in a dystopian society adds depth to understanding the character. Take note of pivotal moments and the overall plot to grasp the character's role within the narrative.

Pick a Dynamic Character

Select a character who undergoes significant changes or growth. Dynamic characters provide rich material for analysis as they navigate challenges and evolve. Take Scout Finch from Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' as an example. Scout starts as an innocent child and matures through exposure to prejudice and injustice. Dynamic characters like Scout offer a wealth of material to explore, shedding light on the story's themes and the character's personal development. Focus on those who go through transformative journeys, as they often offer the most profound insights.

As you delve deeper into the story, make detailed notes about the character. Document their traits, behaviors, and key moments that shape their identity. Consider both the obvious and subtle aspects, such as speech patterns, relationships, and how they respond to challenges. For instance, in William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies,' notes on Jack's descent into savagery and power struggles with Ralph provide essential insights. Organize your observations to build a comprehensive profile, serving as the foundation for your analysis.

Select a Central Theme

Identify a central theme that resonates with the character's journey. Themes can range from love and sacrifice to power and redemption. For example, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby,' the theme of the American Dream is central to Jay Gatsby's character. Understanding how the character embodies or challenges the chosen theme adds a layer of complexity to your analysis. By focusing on a central theme, you can unravel deeper meanings behind the character's actions and contribute to a more nuanced exploration in your essay.

Make Questions for Analyzing Characters

Pose thoughtful questions to guide your analysis and delve into the nuances of the character. Consider questions that touch on different aspects of their personality, motivations, and relationships. Here are some examples:

What motivates the character?

• Explore the driving forces behind their actions and decisions.

How does the character interact with others?

• Examine their relationships and how they contribute to the character's development.

What challenges does the character face?

• Identify obstacles that shape the character's journey and resilience.

How does the character evolve throughout the story?

• Track the changes in their beliefs, values, and behaviors.

What symbolic elements represent the character?

• Look for symbols or motifs associated with the character that carry deeper meaning.

How does the character contribute to the overall themes of the story?

• Connect the character's experiences to broader themes explored in the narrative.

What role does the character play in the resolution of conflicts?

• Analyze their impact on the storyline's resolution and outcomes.

How to Write a Character Analysis Essay?

Step 1: open with a character quote.

Begin your character analysis essay by setting the stage with a relevant and impactful quote that encapsulates the essence of the character you're exploring. Choose a quote that highlights key aspects of their personality, motivations, or role in the story. For instance, if you're analyzing Sherlock Holmes, you might open with a quote like, 'Elementary, my dear Watson,' to capture Holmes' deductive prowess and confident demeanor.

Questions to consider:

• Why did you choose this specific quote?
• What does the quote reveal about the character's personality or mindset?
• How does the quote connect to the broader themes of the story?
• Does the quote foreshadow events in the character's journey?

Step 2: Give Background Info

Following the impactful quote about Sherlock Holmes ('Elementary, my dear Watson'), it's essential to give readers the background information they need. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, known for his brilliant deductive reasoning and keen observation skills. Placing Holmes in late 19th-century London, the stories typically involve him solving intricate mysteries with his trusted companion, Dr. John Watson.

Questions to Consider:

• How does the character's background contribute to their skills or traits?
• What is the character's role in the story's setting?
• Are there any notable relationships or connections that shape the character's experiences?
• How does the character's environment influence their actions and decisions?

Step 3: Present the Character

Now that we've set the stage with the quote and background information let's take a closer look at the character. In the case of Katniss Everdeen, beyond her skills as an archer and her protective instincts, explore her internal struggles and emotional complexities. Describe how her initial reluctance to embrace a leadership role transforms as the story unfolds, making her a multidimensional character.

• What challenges or conflicts does the character face internally and externally?
• How do the character's relationships with others contribute to their development?
• Are there moments that reveal vulnerability or hidden strengths in the character?
• In what ways does the character's journey resonate with universal themes or experiences?

By presenting a comprehensive view of the character, you invite readers to connect with their humanity and understand the intricacies that make them compelling. This step forms the basis for a thorough analysis, as it captures the character's essence and sets the stage for exploring their role in the broader narrative landscape.

Character Analysis Essay Example

Here, we'll walk through a practical example to show you how to analyze a character in a story. By breaking down their traits, motivations, and journeys, we'll demonstrate the steps we discussed earlier.

If you want a tailor-made essay crafted with expertise, simply let us know by asking, ' Write an essay for me .' We'll handle the task professionally, ensuring a unique and thoughtful exploration of your chosen character. Now, get ready to explore the ins and outs of character analysis through a simple and concrete example.

Title: 'Jane Eyre: A Woman's Quest for Independence'

Introduction:

In the haunting halls of Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë introduces us to Jane Eyre, a character whose indomitable spirit and unwavering independence defy the societal norms of Victorian England. 'I am no bird, and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will,' echoes Jane, setting the stage for a character analysis that delves into the complexities of her journey towards self-discovery and autonomy.

Body Paragraphs:

Jane Eyre's journey towards independence begins in the stifling confines of Lowood School. Enduring hardship and injustice, young Jane displays resilience and a thirst for knowledge. Her defiance against the oppressive system foreshadows her future pursuit of independence.

At Thornfield, Jane encounters the enigmatic Mr. Rochester. Despite their complex relationship, Jane's decision to leave Thornfield when faced with moral dilemmas showcases her commitment to maintaining personal integrity and independence.

The revelation of Jane's true identity and her unexpected inheritance doesn't sway her from her path. Instead, it provides her with the means to secure financial independence, reinforcing her determination to shape her destiny on her terms.

Brontë challenges traditional gender roles through Jane's relationship with Rochester. Despite the power imbalance, Jane asserts her equality in love, refusing to compromise her principles. This dynamic reflects Jane's unwavering commitment to maintaining her independence, even in matters of the heart.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, Jane Eyre's quest for independence is a testament to her strength of character and refusal to conform to societal expectations. From her challenging early years to her pursuit of love and self-discovery, Jane's journey resonates as a timeless exploration of a woman's autonomy in the face of societal constraints. Through her trials and triumphs, Jane Eyre emerges as a literary icon, inspiring readers to embrace their independence and carve their own paths in the world.

Mark Bradford , a passionate and talented artist, utilizes his innovative spirit to support academic pursuits. In partnering with EssayHub, he leverages his artistic insights to assist students as a professional essay writer, helping them navigate and complete their academic assignments at every level of difficulty.

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Character Analysis Guide: Master Literature

What is character analysis, how to identify characteristics of a character, how to analyze character development, how to analyze character interactions, how to analyze character motivations, how to analyze character influence on plot, how to analyze character influence on theme, how to analyze character arc and transformation.

• How to write character analysis essay

Picture your favorite book. Now, think about the characters that brought that story to life. Their actions, thoughts, and words paint a vivid picture in our minds, don't they? Well, the secret to understanding those characters, as well as the heart of the story, lies in mastering the art of analyzing characterization in literature. It's like a fun detective game where you gather clues about characters to uncover the deeper layers of the story. Let's jump right in!

Character analysis is a fascinating journey into the heart of a story. It's about looking closely at each character and understanding their traits, roles, and experiences. Imagine you are a detective and the character is a puzzle waiting to be solved. You're not just reading about who they are on the surface, but you're digging into their actions, words, and thoughts to see what makes them tick. Here's how you do it:

• Identify the character's traits: These are the qualities that make a character who they are. It could be anything from being brave, clever, kind, or stubborn.
• Understand their role in the story: Every character plays a part in moving the story forward. They could be the hero, the sidekick, the villain, or even the comic relief.
• Examine the conflicts they experience: Characters often face challenges or conflicts. How they deal with these situations can reveal a lot about their personality and growth.

Remember, analyzing characterization in literature isn't just about listing facts about the character. It's about understanding them in a way that brings the story to life. It's about seeing how they change, how they interact with others, and how they influence the plot and themes of the story. There's a whole world to explore within each character, so let's get started!

So, you're ready to start analyzing characterization in literature, and the first step is to identify the characteristics of a character. But how do you do it? Here is a straightforward plan:

• Observe their actions: What a character does can tell you a lot about who they are. For example, if a character always stands up for others, they're likely brave and compassionate.
• Pay attention to their words: Dialogue can reveal a lot about a character's personality, beliefs, and relationships with others. For instance, a character who always speaks kindly to others is likely a nice person.
• Consider their thoughts and feelings: Sometimes, a character's inner world — their thoughts and feelings — can tell you more about them than their actions or words.
• Take into account their appearance: How a character dresses or looks can give you clues about their personality or their role in the story.

Identifying characteristics is like collecting puzzle pieces about a character. It's not just about noting what you see or read, but about putting those pieces together to get a fuller picture of who the character really is. So, keep those detective glasses on and let's continue our journey in analyzing characterization in literature.

Now that you've got the basics down, let's move on to analyzing character development. This involves observing how a character changes and grows throughout the story. Here's the scoop:

• Track the character's journey: Look at where the character started at the beginning of the story and where they end up. Have they grown? Have they learned something new? Have their beliefs or attitudes changed? This can give you a sense of their development.
• Analyze key events: Major events in the story often trigger changes in characters. Examine these closely and consider how the character reacted, what choices they made, and how it affected them.
• Consider relationships: Relationships can greatly influence a character's development. How a character interacts with others, their reactions, and the changes in their relationships can all signify growth or change.

Remember, not all characters will develop or change in a story—that's okay. Some characters are static, meaning they stay the same throughout the story. Others are dynamic, meaning they undergo significant changes. Both are important and understanding this is a key part of analyzing characterization in literature.

Let's dive into another important part of analyzing characterization in literature: examining character interactions. This is all about how characters relate to each other. Let's break this down:

• Observe dialogues: So much can be uncovered from the way characters talk to each other. Do they argue? Are they supportive? Do they joke around? Dialogues can reveal a lot about relationships between characters.
• Look at their actions: Actions can speak louder than words. If a character helps another in a tough situation, or perhaps the opposite, betrays them, it can tell you much about their relationship and interactions.
• Consider their influence: Characters often influence each other's decisions and behaviors. If a character changes because of another, it shows the power and effect of their interaction.

When analyzing character interactions, it's important to note that these interactions can change over time—just like in real life. Characters can start off as friends and end up as enemies, or vice versa. Understanding these changing dynamics can give you a deeper understanding of the characters and the story as a whole.

It's time to explore the driving forces behind characters' actions. Understanding character motivations is a key part of analyzing characterization in literature. Here's what you need to watch out for:

• Desires and Goals: What does the character want more than anything? This could be anything from a physical object, a relationship, a change in their life, or even the resolution of a mystery. Their ultimate goal will heavily influence their actions.
• Fears and Worries: On the flip side, what does the character want to avoid? Fears and worries can be as motivating as desires and goals. They can push the character to take risks or to make safe choices.
• Values and Beliefs: What does the character believe in? What are their morals? These deeply held values can guide a character's decisions, even when they conflict with their desires or fears.

Remember, motivations can evolve as the story progresses. Characters might change their minds, achieve their goals, or face new fears. Keeping track of these changes can help you understand not just the characters, but also the bigger themes and messages of the story.

The plot of a story isn't just something that happens—it's often driven by the actions and decisions of its characters. That's why analyzing characterization in literature includes understanding how characters influence the plot. Here's how you can do it:

• Actions: Look at the key events in the story. How many of them are caused directly by the character's actions? A character who frequently makes things happen is likely to have a significant influence on the plot.
• Decisions: Similarly, consider the character's decisions. How do they affect the story's direction? Remember, a decision isn't always about doing something—sometimes, the decision to do nothing can be equally impactful!
• Reactions: Even passive characters can influence the plot through their reactions. How do other characters and events in the story change as a result of this character's responses? This can give you clues about their indirect influence on the plot.

As you can see, a character's influence on the plot goes beyond their actions. It's about how they shape the world around them, and how the world, in turn, shapes them. This give-and-take is a vital part of analyzing characterization in literature, and it can reveal a lot about the story's deeper meanings.

When analyzing characterization in literature, one often overlooked aspect is how characters can embody and influence the theme of the story. Themes are the underlying messages or big ideas of a story, and characters play a crucial role in expressing these. So how do you analyze a character's influence on theme? Here's a simple guide:

• Beliefs: What does the character believe in? Their beliefs can often mirror the theme of the story. For instance, if a character strongly believes in forgiveness, the theme of the story may revolve around redemption.
• Speech: The way a character speaks can reflect the theme. For example, a character who frequently talks about freedom and independence might hint at a theme of personal liberty.
• Behavior: How does the character behave? Do they consistently act in a way that supports the theme? In a story themed around courage, you might find a character who consistently stands up for what they believe in, no matter the cost.

Remember, characters are often vehicles for the author's themes. By diving into a character's beliefs, speech, and behavior, you can gain a deeper understanding of the story's larger messages. And that's the beauty of analyzing characterization in literature—it's not just about understanding the characters, but also the world they inhabit and the ideas they represent.

Another fascinating aspect of analyzing characterization in literature is the character arc and transformation. A character's arc is the journey they go through, the changes they undergo from the start of the story to the end. This can provide a wealth of insight into not only the character but also the story's overall message. Let's take a look at how to analyze this aspect:

• Identify the starting point: Where does the character begin in the story? Are they timid, confident, naive, cynical? This initial characterization sets the stage for their journey.
• Track the changes: As the story progresses, how does the character change? Do they become more confident? Do they lose their innocence? Identifying these changes can help you understand the character arc.
• Understand the catalysts: What events or experiences prompt these changes in the character? The reasons behind a character's transformation can be as revealing as the changes themselves.
• Analyze the end point: Where does the character end up at the end of the story? How do they differ from the character we met at the beginning? Assessing the end point of the character's journey can provide insight into the overall theme of the story.

Character transformation is one of the most compelling aspects of a story. It's what makes us root for characters, mourn their losses, and celebrate their victories. By analyzing a character's arc, we can gain a deeper appreciation for the intricacies of storytelling and the power of character development in literature.

How to write a character analysis essay

Now that we've covered the intricate process of analyzing characterization in literature, let's apply this knowledge to the final step: writing a character analysis essay. This task may seem daunting at first, but don't worry, we're in this together. Here's how you can approach it:

• Choose your character: Start by selecting the character you want to analyze. It could be a major character or a minor one—whatever sparks your interest!
• Identify key characteristics: Next, list down the key characteristics of your chosen character. Remember, these can include physical attributes, personality traits, and even their habits and quirks!
• Analyze character development: How does your character change over the course of the story? What experiences or events lead to these changes? This is where your understanding of character arcs comes into play.
• Consider character interactions: Look at how your character interacts with others. These interactions can reveal a lot about your character's motivations and their role in the story.
• Examine influence on plot and theme: How does your character influence the plot and the theme of the story? Their actions, decisions, and transformations can have significant impacts on the storyline and the underlying messages of the text.
• Organize your thoughts: Before you start writing, create an outline for your essay. This will help you structure your thoughts and ensure a smooth flow of ideas.
• Write, review, and revise: Now it's time to bring it all together! Write your essay, then take some time to review and revise it. Make sure your analysis is clear, your arguments are well-supported, and your writing is engaging.

And there you have it! With these steps, you're well on your way to writing a stellar character analysis essay. Remember, the goal is not to simply describe your character, but to delve into their personality, their changes, their motivations, and their impact on the story. So go ahead, flex those analytical muscles and dive into the wonderful world of character analysis!

If you enjoyed our Character Analysis Guide and want to dive deeper into the world of creating compelling characters, be sure to check out the workshop ' Creating Characters: The Design Process ' by Kit Buss. This workshop will provide you with valuable insights on how to design unique and memorable characters for your stories, further enhancing your understanding of literature.

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Characterization

Characterization Definition

What is characterization? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

Characterization is the representation of the traits, motives, and psychology of a character in a narrative. Characterization may occur through direct description, in which the character's qualities are described by a narrator, another character, or by the character him or herself. It may also occur indirectly, in which the character's qualities are revealed by his or her actions, thoughts, or dialogue.

Some additional key details about characterization:

• Early studies of literature, such as those by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, saw plot as more important than character. It wasn't until the 15th century that characters, and therefore characterization, became more crucial parts of narratives.
• Characterization became particularly important in the 19th century, with the rise of realist novels that sought to accurately portray people.

Characterization Pronunciation

Here's how to pronounce characterization: kar-ack-ter-ih- zey -shun

Direct and Indirect Characterization

Authors can develop characterization in two ways: directly and indirectly. It's important to note that these two methods are not mutually exclusive. Most authors can and do use both direct and indirect methods of characterization to develop their characters.

Direct Characterization

In direct characterization, the author directly describes a character's qualities. Such direct description may come from a narrator, from another character, or through self-description by the character in question. For instance, imagine the following dialogue between two characters:

"That guy Sam seems nice." "Oh, no. Sam's the worst. He acts nice when you first meet him, but then he'll ask you for money and never return it, and eat all your food without any offering anything in return, and I once saw him throw a rock at a puppy. Thank God he missed."

Here the second speaker is directly characterizing Sam as being selfish and cruel. Direct characterization is also sometimes called "explicit characterization."

Indirect Characterization

In indirect characterization, rather than explicitly describe a character's qualities, an author shows the character as he or she moves through the world, allowing the reader to infer the character's qualities from his or her behavior. Details that might contribute to the indirect characterization of a character are:

• The character's thoughts.
• The character's actions.
• What a character says (their choice of words)
• How a character talks (their tone, dialect, and manner of speaking)
• The character's appearance
• The character's movements and mannerisms
• How the character interacts with others (and how others react to the character)

Indirect characterization is sometimes called "implicit characterization."

Indirect Characterization in Drama

It's worth noting that indirect characterization has an additional layer in any art form that involves actors, including film, theater, and television. Actors don't just say the words on the script. They make choices about how to say those words, how to move their own bodies and in relation to other character. In other words, actors make choices about how to communicate all sorts of indirect details. As a result, different actors can portray the same characters in vastly different ways.

For instance, compare the way that the the actor Alan Bates plays King Claudius in this play-within-a-play scene from the 1990 movie of Hamlet, versus how Patrick Stewart plays the role in the same scene from a 2010 version. While Bates plays the scene with growing alarm and an outburst of terror that reveals his guilt, Stewart plays his Claudius as ice cold and offended, but by no means tricked by Hamlet's little play-within-a-play into revealing anything.

Round and Flat Characters

Characters are often described as being either round or flat.

• Round characters : Are complex, realistic, unique characters.
• Flat characters : Are one-dimensional characters, with a single overarching trait and otherwise limited personality or individuality.

Whether a character is round or flat depends on their characterization. In some cases, an author may purposely create flat characters, particularly if those characters will appear only briefly and only for a specific purpose. A bully who appears in a single scene of a television show, for instance, might never get or need more characterization than the fact that they act like a bully.

But other times authors may create flat characters unintentionally when round characters were necessary, and such characters can render a narrative dull, tensionless, and unrealistic.

Character Archetypes

Some types of characters appear so often in narratives that they come to seen as archetypes —an original, universal model of which each particular instance is a kind of copy. The idea of the archetype was first proposed by the psychologist Carl Jung, who proposed that there were twelve fundamental "patterns" that define the human psyche. He defined these twelve archetypes as the:

While many have disagreed with the idea that any such twelve patterns actually psychologically define people, the idea of archetypes does hold a lot of sway among both those who develop and analyze fictional characters. In fact, another way to define round and flat character is to think about them as they relate to archetypes:

• Flat characters are easy to define by a single archetype, and they do not have unique personal backgrounds, traits, or psychology that differentiates them from that archetype in a meaningful way.
• Round characters may have primary aspects that fit with a certain archetype, but they also may be the combination of several archetypes and also have unique personal backgrounds, behaviors, and psychologies that make them seem like individuals even as they may be identifiable as belonging to certain archetypes.

Good characterization often doesn't involve an effort to avoid archetype altogether—archetypes are archetypes, after all, because over human history they've proved to be excellent subjects for stories. But successful authors will find ways to make their characters not just archetypes. They might do so by playing with or subverting archetypes in order to create characters who are unexpected or new, or more generally create characters whose characterization makes them feel so unique and individual that their archetype feels more like a framework or background rather than the entirety of who that character is.

Characterization Examples

The characters of nearly every story—whether in literature, film, or any other narrative—have some characterization. Here are some examples of different types of characterization.

Characterization in Hamlet

The famous literary critic Harold Bloom has argued in his book The Invention of the Human that "Personality, in our sense, is a Shakespearean invention." Whether or not you agree with that, there's no doubting that Shakespeare was a master of characterization. One way he achieved such characterization was through his characters delivering soliloquies . The excerpt of a soliloquy below is from Hamlet , in which Hamlet considers suicide:

To be, or not to be? That is the question— Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.

Hamlet's soliloquy is not simply him saying what he thinks. As he delivers the soliloquy, he discovers what he thinks. When he says "To die, to sleep. To sleep," he is all-in on the idea that suicide is the right course. His words "perchance to dream" flow directly out of his thoughts about death as being like "sleep." And with his positive thoughts of death as sleep, when he first says "perchance to dream" he's thinking about having good dreams. But as he says the words he realizes they are deeper than he originally thought, because in that moment he realizes that he doesn't actually know what sort of dreams he might experience in death—they might be terrible, never-ending nightmares. And suddenly the flow of his logic leaves him stuck.

In showing a character experiencing his own thoughts the way that real people experience their thoughts, not as a smooth flow but as ideas that spark new and different and unexpected ideas, Shakespeare gives Hamlet a powerful humanity as a character. By giving Hamlet a soliloquy on the possible joy of suicide he further captures Hamlet's current misery and melancholy. And in showing how much attention Hamlet pays to the detail of his logic, he captures Hamlet's rather obsessive nature. In other words, in just these 13 lines Shakespeare achieves a great deal of characterization.

Characterization in The Duchess of Malfi

In his play the The Duchess of Malfi , John Webster includes an excellent example of direct characterization. In this speech, the character Antonio tells his friend about Duke Ferdinand:

The Duke there? A most perverse and turbulent nature; What appears in him mirth is merely outside. If he laugh heartily, it is to laugh All honesty out of fashion. … He speaks with others' tongues, and hears men's suits With others' ears; will seem to sleep o’th' bench Only to entrap offenders in their answers; Dooms men to death by information, Rewards by hearsay.

Ferdinand directly describes the Duke as deceitful, perverse, and wild, and as a kind of hollow person who only ever laughs for show. It is a devastating description, and one that turns out to be largely accurate.

Characterization in The Great Gatsby

Here's another example of direct characterization, this time from The Great Gatsby . Here, Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, describes Tom and Daisy Buchanan near the end of the novel.

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

But The Great Gatsby, like essentially all other literature, doesn't solely rely on direct characterization. Here is Nick, earlier in the novel, describing Gatsby:

He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.

This is an example of indirect characterization. Nick isn't describing Gatsby character directly, instead he's describing how Gatsby is behaving, what Gatsby is doing. But that physical description—Gatsby reaching out with trembling arms toward a distant and mysterious green light—communicates fundamental aspects of Gatsby's character: his overwhelming yearning and desire, and perhaps also the fragility inherent such yearning.

Why Do Writers Use Characterization?

Characterization is a crucial aspect of any narrative literature, for the simple reason that complex, interesting characters are vital to narrative literature. Writers therefore use the techniques of characterization to develop and describe characters':

• Motivations
• History and background
• Interests and desires
• Skills and talents
• Self-conception, quirks, and neuroses

Such characteristics in turn make characters seem realistic and also help to drive the action of the plot, as a plot is often defined by the clash of actions and desires of its various characters.

Other Helpful Characterization Resources

• Wikipedia entry on characterization: A brief but thorough entry.
• Archetypal characters: The website TV tropes has built a vast compendium of different archetypal characters that appear in film and television (and by extension to books).
• Encyclopedia Britannica on characters: A short entry on flat and round characters.

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The Gigantic List of Character Descriptions (70+ examples)

The vast majority of character descriptions are simply lazy.

They recycle typical ideas about hair, eye color, and build, giving you more information about the character’s fitting for a dress or suit than the type of information you need to know them intimately.

The first thing you should do when describing a character is to pick a category that isn’t so overused. Such as trying to describe: 

Describing your character in an innovative way will help retain the reader’s interest. You want your reader to be asking questions about this character, to not only learn something about them but to create mystery. What made them like this? How long have they been this way? Is there someone currently after them or is this paranoia because of a past experience?  Questions like these are what keeps the reader reading. 

Not only physical descriptions are needed. Consider: “How is this person viewed by another character?” Do they seem dangerous, alluring, secretive, suspicious? The way another character views someone else gives insight about them as well. Are they attracted? Repulsed? Curious? 

Another thing to take notice of is the type of person they are, despite their appearance.

• How do they think?
• What do they feel?
• How do they view/react to certain situations compared to how others would?
• What is their mental state?

Here is a list of examples of brilliant character descriptions to give you an idea and help you come up with your own:

3 Categories: Modern Literary, Literature, Popular

Modern Literary

1. vladimir nabokov, lolita.

” … Her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever.”

2. Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

” … in the last years she continued to settle and began to shrink. Her mouth bowed forward and her brow sloped back, and her skull shone pink and speckled within a mere haze of hair, which hovered about her head like the remembered shape of an altered thing. She looked as if the nimbus of humanity were fading away and she were turning monkey. Tendrils grew from her eyebrows and coarse white hairs sprouted on her lip and chin. When she put on an old dress the bosom hung empty and the hem swept the floor. Old hats fell down over her eyes. Sometimes she put her hand over her mouth and laughed, her eyes closed and her shoulder shaking.” 

3. Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

“Phyllida’s hair was where her power resided. It was expensively set into a smooth dome, like a band shell for the presentation of that long-running act, her face.”

4. China Miéville, This Census-Taker

“His hand was over his eyes. He looked like a failed soldier. Dirt seemed so worked into him that the lines of his face were like writing.”

5. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“And then the hot air congealed in front of him, and out of it materialized a transparent man of most bizarre appearance. A small head with a jockey cap, a skimpy little checked jacket that was made out of air … The man was seven feet tall, but very narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and his face, please note, had a jeering look about it.”

6. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Mama BekwaTataba stood watching us—a little jet-black woman. Her elbows stuck out like wings, and a huge white enameled tub occupied the space above her head, somewhat miraculously holding steady while her head moved in quick jerks to the right and left.”

7. John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly’s supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person’s lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one’s soul.”

8. A.S. Byatt, Possession

“He was a compact, clearcut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smile of amused friendliness and pleasure which aroused feelings of warmth, and something more, in many women.”

9. Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

“He did not look like anything special at all.”

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10. Henry Lawson, The Bush Girl

“ Grey eyes that grow sadder than sunset or rain, f ond heart that is ever more true F irm faith that grows firmer for watching in vain —  She’ll wait by the sliprails for you.”

11. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I am an invisible man. 
No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: 
Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms.
 I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -
- and I might even be said to possess a mind. 
I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me.”

12. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced–or seemed to face–the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.”

13. Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

“My brother Ben’s face, thought Eugene, is like a piece of slightly yellow ivory; his high white head is knotted fiercely by his old man’s scowl; his mouth is like a knife, his smile the flicker of light across a blade. His face is like a blade, and a knife, and a flicker of light: it is delicate and fierce, and scowls beautifully forever, and when he fastens his hard white fingers and his scowling eyes upon a thing he wants to fix, he sniffs with sharp and private concentration through his long, pointed nose…his hair shines like that of a young boy—it is crinkled and crisp as lettuce.”

14. Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books

“A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera the Black Panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path, for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.”

15. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“[Miss Havisham] had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker…”

16. John Knowles, A Separate Peace

“For such and extraordinary athlete—even as a Lower Middler Phineas had been the best athlete in the school—he was not spectacularly built. He was my height—five feet eight and a half inches…He weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, a galling ten pounds more than I did, which flowed from his legs to torso around shoulders to arms and full strong neck in an uninterrupted, unemphatic unity of strength.”

17. Ambrose Bierce, Chickamauga

“-the dead body of a woman—the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles—the work of a shell.”

18. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“…your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

19. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn’t no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl – a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes – just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on t’other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor – an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.”  

20. William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness.”

21. Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Vanity was the beginning and end of Sir Walter Elliot’s character: vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth, and at fifty-four was still a very fine man. . . .”

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22. Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book

“When the old king saw this he foamed with rage, stared wildly about, flung himself on the ground and died.”

23. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“He was commonplace in complexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe… Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy — a smile — not a smile — I remember it, but I can’t explain.” 

24. Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“His heart was like a sensitive plant, that opens for a moment in the sunshine, but curls up and shrinks into itself at the slightest touch of the finger, or the lightest breath of wind.”

25. Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson

“He followed with his eyes her long slender figure as she threaded her way in and out of the crowd, sinuously, confidingly, producing a penny from one lad’s elbow, a threepenny-bit from between another’s neck and collar, half a crown from another’s hair, and always repeating in that flute-like voice of hers: “Well, this is rather queer!””

26. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“He had a long chin and big rather prominent teeth, just covered, when he was not talking, by his full, floridly curved lips. Old, young? Thirty? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was hard to say.”  

27. Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged, but then no one would have thought of getting close enough to Mrs. Flowers to ruffle her dress, let alone snag her skin. She didn’t encourage familiarity. She wore gloves too.  I don’t think I ever saw Mrs. Flowers laugh, but she smiled often. A slow widening of her thin black lips to show even, small white teeth, then the slow effortless closing. When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank her.”

28. D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

“But her will had left her. A strange weight was on her limbs. She was giving way. She was giving up…”

29. Henry James, The Aspern Papers

“Her face was not young, but it was simple; it was not fresh, but it was mild. She had large eyes which were not bright, and a great deal of hair which was not ‘dressed,’ and long fine hands which were–possibly–not clean.”   

30. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Zanoni Book One: The Musician

“She is the spoiled sultana of the boards. To spoil her acting may be easy enough,—shall they spoil her nature? No, I think not. There, at home, she is still good and simple; and there, under the awning by the doorway,—there she still sits, divinely musing. How often, crook-trunked tree, she looks to thy green boughs; how often, like thee, in her dreams, and fancies, does she struggle for the light,—not the light of the stage-lamps.”

31. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Living among those white-faced women with their rosaries and copper crosses…” 

32. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been and was changed, was still upon her.” 

33. Rudyard Kipling, Many Inventions

“He wrapped himself in quotations – as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”

34. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.” 

35. Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.”

36. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

37. Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

“He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality, for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing.”

38. Jamie McGuire, Beautiful Oblivion

“Her long platinum blond hair fell in loose waves past her shoulders, with a few black peekaboo strands. She wore a black minidress and combat boots.”

39. N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

“His long, long hair wafted around him like black smoke, its tendrils curling and moving of their own volition. His cloak — or perhaps that was his hair too — shifted as if in an unfelt wind.” 

40. M.L. LeGette, The Orphan and the Thief

“A creature–a frightfully, awful creature–was mere feet from her. Its eyes were enormous, the size of goose eggs and milky white. Its gray, slippery skin was stretched taut upon its face. Its mouth was wide and full of needle teeth. Its hands rested on the rock, hands that were webbed and huge with each finger ending in a sharp, curved nail. It was as tall as a human man, yet oddly shrunken and hunched.”  

 41. Amber Dawn, Sub Rosa

“When he did appear his eyes were as brown as I remembered, pupils flecked with gold like beach pebbles.” 

 42. Julia Stuart, The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise

“His hair had been grown to counteract its unequivocal retreat from the top of his head, and was fashioned into a mean, frail ponytail that hung limply down his back. Blooms of acne highlighted his vampire-white skin.” 

43. James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain

“His khaki sleeves were rolled over his sunburned arms, and he had the flat green eyes and heavy facial features of north Louisiana hill people. He smelled faintly of dried sweat, Red Man, and talcum powder.” 

44. Stephenie Meyer, Twilight

“I vividly remembered the flat black color of his eyes the last time he glared at me – the color was striking against the background of his pale skin and his auburn hair. Today, his eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone.” 

45. Brian Malloy, Twelve Long Months 

“Whith her hair dyed bright red, she looks like Ronald McDonald’s post-menopausal sister. Who has let herself go.”     (This is one of my favorites, because I find it ridiculously funny)

46. Joan Johnston, No Longer A Stranger

“Actually, Reb had the same flawless complexion as her sister– except for the freckles. Her straight, boyishly cut hair fell onto her brow haphazardly and hid beautiful arched brows that framed her large, expressive eyes. She had a delicate, aquiline nose, but a stubborn mouth and chin.” 

47. Brian Morton, Breakable You

“Without her glasses Vivian did look a little frightening. She had tight sinewy strappy muscles and a face that was hardened and almost brutal – a face that might have been chiseled by a sculptor who had fallen out of love with the idea of beauty.”

48. Anne Rice, The Vampire Armand

“I saw my Master had adorned himself in a thick tunic and beautiful dark blue doublet which I’d hardly noticed before. He wore soft sleek dark blue gloves over his hands, gloves which perfectly cleaved to his fingers, and legs were covered by thick soft cashmere stockings all the way to his beautiful pointed shoes.” 

49. Becca Fitzpatrick, Black Ice

“His brown hair was cropped, and it showed off the striking s ymmetry of his face. With the sun at his back, shadows marked the depressions beneath his cheekbones. I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but I hoped they were brown…The guy had straight, sculptured shoulders that made me think swimmer …” 

50. E.C. Sheedy, Killing Bliss

“He stood, which put him eye to eye with the dark-haired woman whose brilliant, burning gaze poured into his worthless soul like boiling tar, whose mouth frothed with fury–and whose hand now curled, knuckles white, around a steak knife.”  (The author gives a lot of details about the characters emotions, but there is not one specific detail about neither of their appearances. Use this as an example of how physical appearances aren’t always the most important thing.)

51. James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain

“His wiry gray and black hair was dripping with sweat, and his face was the color and texture of old paper. He looked up at me from where he was seated on his bunk, and his eyes were hot and bright and moisture was beaded across his upper lip. He held a Camel cigarette between his yellowed fingers, and the floor around his feet was covered with cigarette butts.”  

52. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“She has bright, dark eyes and satiny brown skin and stands tilted up on her toes with arms slightly extended to her sides, as if ready to take wing at the slightest sound.”

53. Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush

“He was abominable…and the most alluring, tortured soul I’d ever met.”   (This isn’t describing him physically, but it is giving insight to how the main character views him)

54. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

“A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by  a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes,  glinting like black beetles under all the hair.” 

55. Anne Rice, Violin

“I deliberately thought of him, my violinist, point by point, that with his long narrow nose and such deep-set eyes he might have been less seductive to someone else–perhaps. But then perhaps to no one. What a well-formed mouth he had, and how the narrow eyes, the detailed deepened lids gave him such a range of expression, to open his gaze wide, or sink in cunning street.”

56. Kevin Brooks, Lucas

“As I’ve already said, the memory of Lucas’s walk brings a smile to my face. It’s an incredibly vivid memory, and if I close my eyes I can see it now. An easygoing lope. Nice and steady. Not too fast and not too slow, Fast enough to get somewhere, but not too fast to miss anything. Bouncy, alert, resolute, without any concern and without vanity. A walk that both belonged to and was remote from everything around it.” 

57. Anne Rice, Violin

“And she looked the way he had always hated her–dreamy and sloppy, and sweet, with glasses falling down, smoking a cigarette, with ashes on her coat, but full of love, her body heavy and shapeless with age.” 

58. Kevin Brooks, Lucas

“As we drew closer, the figure became clearer, It was a young man, or a boy, dressed loosely in a drab green T-shirt and baggy green trousers. He had a green army jacket tied around his waist and a green canvas bag slung over his shoulder. The only non-green thing about him was the pair of scruffy black walking boots on his feet. Although he was on the small side, he wasn’t as slight as I first thought. He wasn’t exactly muscular, but he wasn’t weedy-looking either…there was an air of hidden strength about him, a graceful strength that showed in his balance, the way he held himself, the way he walked….” 

59. Iris Johansen, The Face of Deception

“Kinky tousled curls, only a minimum of makeup, large brown eyes behind round wire-rimmed glasses. There was a world of character in that face, more than enough to make her fascinating-looking instead of just attractive.” 

60. Dennis Lehane, A Drink Before the War

“Brian Paulson was rake thin, with smooth hair the color of tin and a wet fleshy handshake…. His greeting was a nod and a blink, befitting someone who’d stepped out of the shadows only momentarily.” 

61. Gena Showalter, The Darkest Night

“Pale hair fell in waves to his shoulders, framing a face mortal females considered a sensual feast. They didn’t know the man was actually a devil in angel’s skin. They should have, though. He practically glowed with irreverence, and there was an unholy gleam in his green eyes that proclaimed he would laugh in your face while cutting out your heat. Or laugh in your face while you cut out his heart.”

62. Sam Byers, Idiopathy 

“Now here he was: sartorially, facially and interpersonally sharpened; every inch the beatific boffin.”

63. Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“As always, there was an all-American war hero look to him, coded in his tousled brown hair, his summer-narrowed hazel eyes, the straight nose that ancient Anglo-Saxons had graciously passed on to him. Everything about him suggested valor and power and a firm handshake.” 

64. J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

“The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars.” 

65. Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”  

66. Frank Herbert, Dune

“…a girl-child who appeared to be about four years old. She wore a black aba, the hood thrown back to reveal the attachments of a stillsuit hanging free at her throat. Her eyes were Fremen blue, staring out of a soft, round face. She appeared completely unafraid and there was a look to her stare that made the Baron feel uneasy for no reason he could explain.” 

67. Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Ender did not see Peter as the beautiful ten-year-old boy that grown-ups saw, with dark, tousled hair and a face that could have belonged to Alexander the Great. Ender looked at Peter only to detect anger or boredom, the dangerous moods that almost always led to pain.”

68. Caitlin Moran, How to Build a Girl

“He had his head in his hands, and his tie looked like it had been put on by an enemy, and was strangling him.”

69. Graham Joyce, Some Kind of Fairy Tale

“Peter was a gentle, red-haired bear of a man. Standing at six-four in his socks, he moved everywhere with a slight and nautical sway, but even though he was broad across the chest there was something centered and reassuring about him, like an old ship’s mast cut from a single timber.”

70. Brad Parks, The Girl Next Door

“…in addition to being fun, smart, and quick-witted—in a feisty way that always kept me honest—she’s quite easy to look at, with never-ending legs, toned arms, curly brown hair, and eyes that tease and smile and glint all at the same time.” 

71. Dennis Lehane, A Drink Before the War

“Sterling Mulkern was a florid, beefy man, the kind who carried weight like a weapon, not a liability. He had a shock of stiff white hair you could land a DC-10 on and a handshake that stopped just short of inducing paralysis.”

72. Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

“Lord Asriel was a tall man with powerful shoulders, a fierce dark face, and eyes that seemed to flash and glitter with savage laughter. It was a face to be dominated by, or to fight: never a face to patronize or pity. All his movements were large and perfectly balanced, like those of a wild animal, and when he appeared in a room like this, he seemed a wild animal held in a cage too small for it.”

73. Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

“I thought she was so beautiful. I figured she was the kind of woman who could make buffalo walk on up to her and give up their lives. She wouldn’t have needed to hunt. Every time we went walking, birds would follow us around. Hell, tumbleweeds would follow us around.”

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29 comments

woowwwwwwwwie

Love the compilation. Thank you for doing this

This is a great compilation! My students are working on writing characters right now, so I’m having them look through your list to see examples of a job well done 🙂 Thanks!

Thanks I’m using these for students to make character drawings from

This is really helpful ! Love it !

Do you have a way, where you could put the characters physical traits in this website?

Thank you for the awesome list. You should add this one; it’s from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: “Mr. Utterson, the lawyer, was a man of rugged countenance, that was never lightened by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable.” There’s more after, but I thought this was a good description.

And this one: “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering, and somewhat broken voice: all these were points against him, but all of them together could not describe the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing, and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him.”

The quote that stood out to me the most was the quote from ‘The Census Taker’. That quote captured the characters feelings so well. The author was able to compare in self worth by saying it was as dirt, so much so that the dirt was written in his skin. I have never seen self worth and failure described as part of a person’s face.

Thank you. I echo Chris’s comment Wowwwwww and add a few!!!!

Wonderful! Reading these enabled me to rewrite the descriptions for my two leading characters.

Thank you for this, very helpful! I don’t know if this is really related, but I’m writing a story including a mean girl who bullies the main character (also a girl). I’m struggling to write what the mean girl uses to bully the main character – what I end up coming up with is way too mean or unreal, etc.

Blinded by tears, she could hear the haze of pink shout, “See, poor baby cries. Great actress, dear. Why do you waste your talent on us, here?”

great great any book for description of physical appearance in narrative

Great list. And I have one to add. It’s from Michael Moorcock, riding the new wave of British sci-fi back in the 1960s. He’s been a favorite of mine for decades. The passage is from “Elric of Melniboné:”

“It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody, and from the loose sleeves of his yellow gown emerge two slender hands, also the colour of bone, resting on each arm of a seat which has been carved from a single, massive ruby.”

Thanks for this – very useful compilation for teaching – makes life so much easier! And helps in my writing, to look at expressions and word arrangements… I notice how some writers seem so good in visual description, and some others seem to be much better at character expressions..

wowzers!!! this is so cool!

I planned to just read a few, but I couldn’t stop reading. These are awesome! Thank you.

“Character Description” on The John Fox’s blog is a treasure trove of valuable tips and techniques for crafting compelling characters. The blog explores the art of painting vivid and multi-dimensional personas, adding depth to storytelling. Aspiring writers will find this guide indispensable for creating memorable characters that resonate with readers.

holy MOLY, thank you!

I liked them

wow thanks you have really helped me but can you put something to describe a character that is a tyrant please? that would really help

Absolutely remarkable. So very helpful in every since of the word.

OH HELLL YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

A killer set of fine examples! Thanks for compiling it!

Please, add sentences that can apply to more characters.

Love it but should be more single sentences

Every writer NEEDS this book.

It’s a guide to writing the pivotal moments of your novel.

Whether writing your book or revising it, this will be the most helpful book you’ll ever buy.

Learn how to:

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Master List of Physical Description for Writers

I created this list of ways to describe people

because physical description, when done well, helps the readers see characters in their minds. But sometimes when you’re in the middle of writing, it can be hard to think of physical adjectives and distinguishing features for characters. I find that describing facial features can be especially tricky!

That’s why I created this long list of physical characteristics. It’s kind of like a character description generator, and it’ll help you when you’re trying to think of how to describe a character’s appearance.

Eyes – General

 For all the words about describing facial features, I’m focusing more on physical descriptions rather than emotional expressions, though there’s a little crossover! You can also check out my long list of facial expressions.

heavy-lidded

fringed with long lashes

with sweeping eyelashes

with thick eyelashes

By the way, this post on how to describe (and not describe) the eyes of an Asian character  is really great. Check it out.

Eyes – Color

Brown is the most common eye color by far. Green is quite rare.

chocolate brown

cocoa brown

coffee brown

sienna brown

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cornflower blue

Arctic blue

glacial blue

crystal blue

electric blue

slate blue / slate gray

storm blue / storm gray

silver / silver gray

concrete gray

gunmetal gray

Skin – Color

Josh Roby made a great chart of skin tones and descriptor words, and I got a lot of these words from him. You can get that here .

The quote from N.K. Jemisin interested me: “I get really tired of seeing African-descended characters described in terms of the goods that drove, and still drive, the slave trade—coffee, chocolate, brown sugar. There’s some weird psychosocial baggage attached to that.” 

cream / creamy

rose / rosy

Skin – General

Some of these are better for the face, and some are better for other parts of the body.

translucent

luminescent

with large pores

weather-beaten

Face – Structure

heart-shaped

high forehead

broad forehead

prominent brow ridge

protruding brow bone

sharp cheekbones

high cheekbones

angular cheekbones

hollow cheeks

jutting chin

pointed chin

receding chin

double chin

dimple in chin

visible Adam’s apple

People don’t write much about noses, but they can be distinguishing features for characters!

Cupid’s bow

straight teeth

gap between teeth

gleaming white teeth

Facial Hair (or lack thereof)

clean-shaven

smooth-shaven

mutton-chop sideburns

a few days’ growth of beard

five o’ clock shadow

Hair – General

I threw a few hairstyles in here, though not many.

shoulder-length

neatly combed

slicked down / slicked back

buzzed / buzz cut

widow’s peak

Hair – Color

There are some repeats here from the eye color section!

salt and pepper

charcoal gray

brown sugar

tawny brown

toffee brown

Titian-haired

strawberry blonde

butterscotch

sandy blond

fair-haired

Body Type – General

average height

barrel-chested

heavy / heavy-set

pot-bellied

full-figured

leggy / long-legged

broad-shouldered

sloping shoulders

stubby fingers

long fingers

ragged nails

grimy fingernails

ink-stained

This list and many more are in my book Master Lists for Writers: Thesauruses, Plot Ideas, Character Traits, Names, and More . Check it out if you’re interested!

And if you don’t want to miss future writing posts, follow the blog, if you aren’t already — there’s a place to sign up on the lefthand side of the blog. Thanks for stopping by, and happy writing!

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127 thoughts on “ master list of physical description for writers ”.

Thanks, Bryn! This list has sparked a spark in my brain. I haven’t seen one of those for a while. I was getting worried I’d lost my flint!

I’m so glad you like it!

I love this, do you mind if we share on our blog WritersLife.org ?

Thanks for the positive feedback! You can’t reproduce it on your blog, but you can share an excerpt of 200 words or less plus a link to my site.

As a new novel writer all I can say is thank very much for sharing with us this wonderful list.

Ah you’re welcome! Thanks for visiting!

This is amazing! Thank you very much!

Thanks for the kind words–glad it seems helpful!

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Aw thank you for this it helped so much! I’m 15 and I’m trying to write a novel and this was sooooo helpful so thank you a billion 🙂 Best wishes.

Ah you’re welcome! Thanks for stopping by. Good for you for working on a novel, and good luck–I bet it will go great!

Hi, Bryn Thank you for doing these lists. They helped me a lot. Can you make a list on how to describe emotions like sadness or anger.

It’s funny you should ask 🙂 There’s a list like that in my book MASTER LISTS FOR WRITERS coming out this fall! I haven’t officially announced it yet, but hey 🙂

You can get a free copy when it comes out if you agree to give it an honest review. SIgn up for my newsletter if you’re interested!

Reblogged this on Kalynn Bayron and commented: Yes! This is great!

Was just looking for this type of lists.Great work.

This is so helpful.

I love your blog, btw. Your posts are informative and/or inspirational.

Are you on any social medial where I can follow you?

Oh, thank you so much! I just checked out your blog — I love the dream casting post! http://sbhadleywilson.com/blog/pull-ideal-cast-2/

I’m @BrynDonovan on Twitter, just followed you!

VERY helpful. I need to get basic descriptions of people done and out of the way to move on with plot. This quickens any details that might have taken me a long time to think through, or strain a sentence. Yuck. I know my females characters would pay attention to lots of physical details. not so with the males. Thanks!

Oh, so glad it’s helpful! That’s always what I’m trying to do with my lists — speed things up. I hate getting stuck on a detail and losing my momentum 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!

godsent list! Bryn, I wish you more brains.

Reblogged this on Jessica Louis and commented: This list is beyond helpful. Who knew there were so many eye colors!?

Thanks Bryn your list was amazing. I’m an aspiring writer and it really helped me a lot. When I can I’m going to get a copy of your book. I think it would help me become a better writer. My genre of choice is erotic, but it is so hard to get out there, but I’m hopeful one day I will. It’s what I love to do and I’m going to keep trying.

Hi Beth! Thank you so much for the kind words. If you do get the book, I hope you like it! And good luck on writing erotica — I’m doing a “WIP Wednesday” this Wednesday where you can share a bit of your work in progress, if you like 🙂

That would be great. I have some short stories publish on a site called Literotica. I have some editing issues that I’m trying to work out, nothing a few classes wouldn’t help. How do I share my work.

I am so sorry! I missed this comment before. The next WIP Wednesday on the blog is Dec. 2… if you’re following the blog you’ll see the post! (The follow button is on the righthand side of this page.) Hope your writing’s going well 🙂

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Reblogged this on PRINCE CHARMING ISN'T HERE and commented: what an amazing list! I always have a hard time describing features! words sometimes fail me!

i loved this list! thank you so much for making it! 🙂

So glad it was helpful!

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Thank you! This is so helpful to have for reference. Occasionally I’ll have a particular word in mind and can’t think of it, and I can usually pop over here and find it right away!

I absolutely love your master lists. They have helped me so much in diversifying the words I use when I’m writing. 🙂

Ohhh thank you! That is so great to hear. 🙂 Hope your writing projects are going great!

Thank you, and they are. I’m just about to publish a works I’ve been working on for the past couple of months, which is so exciting. XD Hope all your writing projects are going great as well. 🙂

What a wonderful and thorough list Bryn. Thanks for sharing it! I will at some point ‘link back’ to this fabulous article (I’ll let you know when I do.) I’m new to your site, but will certainly be back for more! I’m fascinated to learn that you’re also a home-grown KC girl. =0) Although, I remarried and moved to California 9 years ago, KC still tugs my heart-strings.

Hey, so glad you like it! Yeah, Kansas City is a special place. Come visit anytime 🙂 And thanks for visiting my blog! — I LOVE your username, by the way. Made me smile.

thanks for following my blog!

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Reblogged this on A Blissful Garden and commented: I find this very important!

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Reblogged this on Insideamoronsbrain and commented: Wow!!

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Thanks for sharing this list! It is amazing and so helpful !

I’m going to save this as a favorite. You always provide great information Bryn. Continue with your success.

Oh, thank you so much, Christopher! I really appreciate the kind words. So glad you like this!

This list is so complete! I haven’t worked on fiction in a long while, but lately I’ve been wanting to get back into it. I know this is going to be a great help when i sit down to create my characters!

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This is absolutely perfect for aspiring writers so that we don’t have to use Microsoft Word synonyms that tend to nit have what we’re searching for. Your introductory paragraph about readers falling in love with characters’ personalities and not theit physical attributes was spot on. Thank you thank you, thank you!

Chunny! Thank you so very much for the kind words. I’m so glad you found it helpful!!

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This is amazing! Thank you! I hope it’s alright if I use this as a reference in a blog post for character development.

Hi Jacquelyn! So glad you like it. That’s fine, just please link to the post!

I read this over and over, thank you for creating this! Can I just ask, when thinking of clothing and how to describe it, what are some things you would put? (I’m making a book draft and have never needed clothing described to me as much as now)

Thank you! It’s so important that we don’t reuse the same words too often, so this will help a lot with that problem.

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Thanks for helping me. It really made a big difference of helping me come up with something.

Hi Joseph! Sorry for the delayed reply! I’m so glad you liked it. Thanks for the kind words!

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Your book “Master Lists for Writers” has helped me incredibly. I’ve always wanted to be a romance writer but didn’t have the nerve until now. I am currently working on a short story about a college girl who is assaulted by a classmate. It was based on a dream I had a few nights ago. I haven’t developed how she gets her revenge on him. I know the story line seems dark but the dream stuck with me so much, I felt the urge to turn it into a story. Thank you again for your awesome book. What a great resource

Rhonda! Thank you so much for the kind words. I am so happy that the book is helpful, and even gladder that you’re going for it and writing! Sending you best wishes on your story!

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Great advice in this post, Bryn! Thank you.

Used this for school! It was really helpful!

Oh yay! So glad it was helpful!

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This is a great list! So comprehensive, and just what I was looking for. I struggle with physical descriptions of people and have a tendency to write the same kins of attributes. So this list is fab!

This is great!

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keep up the good work

Hey thanks 🙂

This is so helpful!!!!!

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Tiptoeing out there to publish my first book (I’ve been writing a long time). This post helped so much. Thanks!

oh my gosh, thank you! You have put a lot of effort in this list. I def appreciate it 🙂

Thank you I´m always using this when I´m creating new characters.

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Incredibly helpful! Thanks a lot :3

Thank you for sharing this!

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More extensive than my general list. My wizened goatee and elder Fu Manchu thank you for sharing your time and devotion to the craft.

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Very useful for ready reference. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mohan! So glad you liked it!

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I’ve been writing for a while, mostly for fun, but this was the one thing I could never get down, but this list is great! all around solid, and incredibly useful, I see myself using it every time I need to make a new character, good job!

You’re a legend! This is fantastic, thank you!

Hahaha, thanks for the kind words! 🙂 Glad it’s helpful!

I am following your prompts and valuable advice for writing a fantasy teen fiction novel. I think you are amazing. You might not know it but I was able to clear hundreds of my doubts through your help. Please keep up the good work and providing your valuable support to all of us upcoming writers.

Hey, thank you so much for the kind words—you made my day! It’s wonderful to hear that you’re working on YA fantasy. I’m so glad I could help, and I wish you every success!

I honestly would not recommend this as good writing advice. The focus is too much on describing someone’s physical features using analogies for food. That is not a good thing, it becomes trite and overdone. If used sparsely it’s okay but almost every word in this list is food related.

Hi, Larissa! Thanks for taking your valuable time to share your opinion.

You have done a great job preparing this Master List. Those who think such precise words for describing someone hurt their sensibilities, move on to another URL. I appreciate every bit of your effort.

Hi, Pradeep! I am so glad you like the list. Thanks so much for commenting!

Bryn, I love your master list book and use it all the time!

Ohh, thank you so much! I’m so glad it’s helpful!

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This is a godsend. I owe you my soul.

I work 20 hours per day, (regular business and writing the memoir). Just ordered the Master List–seems like having my own research assistant. I may be able to get 5 hours sleep now. Thanks

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No jaw descriptions? ;(

You saved my day with your wonderful, descriptive words! Now I’ve found the perfect features for my handsome male character. Thank you!

That is a lot of hours for books but I guess if you keep pushing it will happen.

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Hi Bryn, thanks so much for this information! I always appreciate your lists because I like comprehensive material all in one location as a reference (then if I decide to break the rules, at least I know what the rules are “supposed to be” first!). Have you considered making comprehensive lists of creative writing genre conventions (tropes, archetypes, settings, devices, etc.)?

Hello, and thank you for the valuable and useful information. I agree with Eleanore regarding the list of genre conventions. I’m more than pleased I found you website.

Thank u so much ❤️ that was so helpful

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