A story is told through the eyes and voice of your characters.  In order for a reader to get involved with story they must see, feel and hear what the character sees, feels and hears.  What moves the action?  Dialogue.  To bring voice to the character there are five elements to master.

1.      Speech. What the character said and how they said it.  Do they have an accent?  What kind of accent? It would be difficult, and sometimes very distracting to write the way a character might talk.  However, if the accent or dialect is important to the story…especially with secondary characters, use it sparingly. 

2.      Actions.  How does the character react to a situation they find themselves involved in?  Does the character jump to a conclusion or pause and think before they act?  What kind of demeanor does the character have?  Action of the characters is how they are set apart.  They must all react differently.

3.      Thoughts.  No matter what the situation, the character has thoughts.  How the character thinks a situation out is one of the strongest traits they have.  Thoughts are shared with the reader to bring them into the situation.  Thoughts are a direct result in the character’s upbringing, education and their age.  Again, Tom Sawyer is a prime example for juvenile reading. 

4.      Emotional reaction.  Everyone reacts to a situation and so must the characters in a book. 

5.      The five senses. A character, like their living counterparts, has to use

their five senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.

The main character of a book must have the strongest traits, however, when developing secondary characters opposite traits of the main character should be used.  Traits like good/bad, tall/short, fat/thin, friendly/shy and many more.

To describe a character is to tell what they have become.  This is also known as state of affairs.  To explain a character is to tell why…also known as emotions.

When I teach I often use cartoon characters as examples to characterization.  The Smurfs, or Snow White, for instance.  The Smurfs are troll-like characters that are all blue.  Well, there is Papa Smurf, and one girl Smurf, but they too are blue.  The rest of the Smurfs all look and dress alike.  So what sets each Smurf apart?  How can you tell one Smurf from another Smurf?  With character traits.  Each Smurf and the Seven Dwarfs were cleverly given a dominant trait that set them apart and that trait is the name they were given.  Try to name the Seven Dwarfs, the ones with dominant traits are remembered best…Dopey, Sneezy, Grumpy and Doc. The same with the Smurfs.  This cartoon is still on cable somewhere around the world.  If you ever come across it, watch it for a moment and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  Except for Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer, how many of us can remember Santa’s reindeer names? 

Assignment:

Continue with the books the class has selected.  By using this lesson talk about the different traits of the main character, then the secondary characters.  These characters will now come to life and feel like real people.  That’s why certain characters over the years have remained in our memory or became our favorite reading