Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Denis LeDoux/@DenisLedoux
” I want to move with the character and describe the world in which they are living.” Gay Talese
This is a second session of memoir writing tips by Denis LeDoux in preparation for November is Life Writing Month (NILM). Today’s topic is describing characters. Here is the first session on action.
Welcome back, Denis!
The people in your story are your characters. It is your job to bring vivid literary characters to the attention of your readers. You must use descriptive writing to present believable characters. Without other people, our lives and memoirs risk becoming dull. Although ideas are pivotal for many individuals, relationships are even more commanding. We are intrigued with who other people are and how they function. “Who’s that? What are they doing? Where did they come from?” These are question we want answered. To write a strong story, capitalize on this interest.
In lifewriting, you create a strong, vivid sense of people by describing characters in sensual details. (The senses, of course, are: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.) The most effective descriptions of people make use of these.
Here are ways you can use sense details to describing characters more vividly:
Taste– Let the reader sample foods associated with your past or with the person you are writing about. Perhaps a food image or a metaphor will give a deeper sense of the person’s personality.
Many people mistakenly believe that characters in a story have to be well-known to be interesting. When they write their stories, they search their pasts for when they might have crossed paths with the famous. Consequently they write about when they were in the same elevator with some luminary back in 1968. This is not necessarily something that will make your story interesting. A representation of a vivid character is more likely to entice your reader. Describing characters well is about details not about fame.
Sight- What did the person you are writing about look like? Describing characters well requires you mention height, weight, color, shape, posture, mannerisms, contours of the face, prominent features. How did that person move, talk, walk, sit? Describe the person’s clothing, sense of style, hairstyles. In what ways ways did that person typically express emotion with body posture?
Sound- This includes voice modulation, timbre, and pitch as well as favorite expressions, accents, dialectical usage. Don’t forget throat clearing, foot scraping, or the knocking of a wedding ring against glass as a hand cleared frost from a windshield.
Smell-Your text should make references to perfumes, colognes, pipe tobacco, barn odors, the scent of a kitchen, the aroma of a bath, or the smell of a workshop. Smell is one of the most evocative senses in describing a character. A particular herb or soap or cleaning fluid can immediately return us to another time and place. Be sure to use that power in your descriptions.
Touch- Help the reader feel how rough your character’s skin was, or how smooth the clothing, how gentle the hands, or how furtive the caress.
Remember: describing characters well need not be that hard.
Good luck writing!
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Thank you Denis for showing us all the ways to bring our characters alive on the page by using the five senses.
Author Bio: Every November, Denis offers November is Lifewriting Month. NILM provides writing prompts via e-mail, free tele-classes on memoir-writing techniques and many surprise memoir gifts. Denis is the author of the classic Turning Memories into Memoirs/A Handbook for Writing Lifestories. Most recently , he completed his mother’s memoir, We Were Not Spoiled, and his uncle’s, Business Boy to Business Man. Denis is currently working on a book about “writing with passion.” Jumpstart materials are also available for writers wishing to be memoir professionals in their communities.
How about you? What’s your experience in describing characters?
Denis has generously offered to give away the Memoir Start-up Package at the end of the series to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
- The Memoir Start-up package
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 10/14: “Interview with Jerry Waxler on “The Memoir Revolution.”
Wednesday, 10/16: “Interview with Memoir Author and Ex-Nun, Karen Leahy: The Summer of Yes”
Friday, 10/18: “Memoir Writing Tips by Denis Ledoux: Establishing Your Setting”
As we’ve come to expect from Dennis, these are excellent tips that are not only helpful in memoir writing but in fiction writing as well. Thank you Dennis, and thank you Kathy for bringing Dennis back/
You are most welcome, Lorenzo. And thank you for your interest and support in Denis’ series. I appreciate you stopping by and commenting and I agree Denis’s tips can apply across all genres.
Thanks, Lorenzo.
Everyone, I am attending a family wedding today and will be at a family gathering tomorrow. (Lovely to see all the nephews and nieces growing up so well!) I have not forgotten you.
Please keep the comments and insights coming and I will return to dialog with you on Monday. And…
Remember that your writing—thoughtful, self-aware, honest—is your best teacher. Keep writing.
Thank you for an interesting post with some great tips for all writers.
Thanks Wanda. I’m happy you are enjoying Denis’ memoir writing tips. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
You’re welcome, Wanda.
I have been struggling to describe my heroine in my first endeavor at writing. The wisdom and tips that Dennis has given will be useful to bring my character to life. I am grateful for all the great resources that this blog supplies. To have resources available from experienced writers makes writing a creative experience..
Kathy, Your comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. I’m happy you are finding the resources helpful. Let me know if there are any other topics you’d be interested in.
An exercise that has worked for me for getting to details about a difficult-to-decribe character is the “hundred adjectives exercise.” Just write down 100 adjectives that describes a person you are writing about. (“Just” he says!) You will find that some of the adjectives return many times. Take these adjectives and find scenes in the character’s life that convey the quality of the words. This is one way to detail a character.
Denis and Kathy, I expected no less than expert tips and wisdom in this series when it was first announced. Today’s post, Denis, strikes a chord with me as I draft my memoir. My emotionally and verbally abusive mom is at its center, but as years passed I learned there was another woman living insider her via friends and outsiders with whom she worked and volunteered.
In attempting to show the contrast between her good side and bad side, I focused on smells — she was a great cook and in that regard took good care of us, she was a pristine woman always with the aroma of fresh air and flowers surrounding her, your linens always smelled like the outdoors because she hung them in the air to dry, and more.
On the bad side, I can remember the smell of daddy’s leather belt as she shook it in my face before using it, or the smell of the leaves I was made to strip from the switch she sent me out to get for my punishment to come, and the steaming smell of the hottest of water to clean away the dirt you weren’t to come in contact with.
Smells are evocative of many things, good and bad. Thank you for highlighting how all the things you mention enhance our characterizations.
Kathy, thank you for hosting this series.
Sherrey, It’s been my pleasure to host Denis in this series.Thank you for sharing the ways you have used to enhance your writing through these powerful images.These are excellent examples and a glimpse of what your memoir will offer. You have reinforced Denis’ memoir writing tips very effectively through your own examples! I appreciate, as always, your “presence around my kitchen table.” 🙂
Sherrey, I am sorry you had to live the abuse you write about. Research has shown that writing with details is therapeutic–more so than writing with anger.
I wish you the best.
Denis,
I started thinking about my published memoir, and whether I could have used more of your suggestions. You offer some great advice which I see Sherrey is using in her own memoir.
Thanks Kathy for helping all of us.
My pleasure, Sonia. We are all a work-in-progress and lifelong learners, continually learning from one another.
Great tips … my writing tends to be logical and these are just the sort of things I need to go back and do on the second and third drafts!
Hi Mary, Thanks for stopping by. Whatever you are doing, it seems to be working but I suppose we can all be reminded of”tricks of the trade.” I’m glad you enjoyed Denis’s writing tips.
Agreed that characters drive the story. Appealing to the five senses is how to bring our characters to life in all writing forms. P.