Next time you’re in a public area look around until you see a stranger. Take a good look at that person. Now describe them. Most likely you’ll use descriptive terms related to their age, hair color, weight, attire and other things that you can visualize. Now describe a close friend or relative. If you’re anything like me the description will be very different. I might start with something like, “She’s really funny.” Or “He’s the nicest guy.” Because after a while, I think we all go a little blind to the obvious, because we’re not just looking at physical characteristics of a character. We’re looking a little deeper.
No Method to My Character Madness
My characters are like a close friend or family member, so my character description is usually rooted in their 
personality. They’ve been living in my mind for so long, that their physical description might be incorporated, but usually it’s last, almost an afterthought.
In fact, in one book I forgot to identify the color of the hero’s hair and had to go back and add in that information. My method might also be because my characters tend to arrive in my imagination and tell me how this whole story thing is going to go.
Welcome to this week’s Marketing for Romance Writers 52-week Blog Challenge. This week’s topic is, Working up Character and Setting Profiles.
Many authors will tell you that before they start writing they work up detailed profiles of their character’s appearance and the setting. I admire this. Because I’ve rarely done that, and if I have done it for a writing class, then I’m often left feeling like I’ve already read half the story. For me, the fun of writing is discovering the story.
What’s Their Story?
When my girls were younger, we used to sit on a bench on the boardwalk at the beach and take “people watching” a step further. We would play a game I called, What’s Their Story. I’d single out a stranger walking by and ask one
of my girls, “What’s their story?” Then they would proceed to explain this person’s backstory and what brought them to the beach. This was fabulous fun, especially because my girls enjoyed the game as much as I did— and they were really good at it.
Creating my own characters and story isn’t much different. If I need some additional details I interview my characters. I ask them a question and then see what they have to say. I often find out some amazing things that I had no idea about before.
So how do I work up my #character and #setting profiles? I don’t. #MFRW Share on X
It’s a Blog Hop
But I’m betting some of these other authors have some fabulously detailed and interesting methods to help you get a closer look inside how an author’s brain works.
My brain? You don’t want to go there. Who knows what unsavory characters might be lurking?
LMAO…..my mom and I were stuck in traffic last month, and started watching two vultures…..I started making up dialogue, and next thing I know, my mom started doing the ‘voice’ of one while I did the other! Gave me a great idea for my next story, b/c now those two are ‘in my head’ and won’t leave me alone!
SUCH a writer thing! Awhile back, my daughter and I made a ‘harrowing’ trip to the thumb region to watch the sun set over Saginaw Bay. It should have been an easygoing, two-hour jaunt but became awful from the get-go. By the time we arrived, we plunked down at our table in a diner and just stared in silence for at time. When I saw that my daughter was near tears, I looked around at all the other people there, talking, laughing, chowing, quietly disciplining their kids… I smiled at my daughter and said, “Just think, all us strangers are here at the very minute in time and will soon go our separate ways again.” She perked up, glanced around, and by the time our meals arrived, we’d created whole lives for a few of the other patrons and she had nearly forgotten the awful things we’d seen in order to get there. 😀 It’s fun! Thanks so much for sharing the good advice!
People watching is fun. I don’t get out as much, but when I do, I’m always checking out those around me. Like you, I don’t know beforehand what my characters will be. I get a basic idea of who they are when I get the story idea, and they form as the story does. Now I’ve goofed because I can’t remember stuff and mixed up eye color or something, but yay for betas and CPs that catch that sort of thing.