“Review the notes you’ve collected in your notebook to find a character to develop further.

Pick a character. If you’ve collected, in your notebook, details about people you’ve spotted or spoken to during this week, pick one of these characters. Alternatively, you can pick one of the characters from the opening video, Keeping track of useful details.

Write a short character sketch – no more than 200 words – in which you concentrate on appearance and any particular mannerisms you noted.

You will come back to this later so save a copy on your computer or device.

© The Open University”

Submission: generating a character

The ability to describe a person in detail…

Previous Submission:

A young woman with a gentle face, wearing a white beanie with warm coloured stripes, shields her eyes from the pure sunlight while she waits to cross the traffic junction.

To Do:

Concentrate on appearance

Concentrate on particular mannerisms

Attempt:

She’s Caucasian, white, does not look like any specific denomination or background – from her looks alone. She could be a Sarah.

her mouth curved in a soft smile

wearing a neat thin long army green jacket, its hoodie falling wayside…

golden brown hair with ends curling

looking down her long pointed nose

Final Submission:

Sarah, a young woman with a gentle face and soft easy smile, keeps her curling golden brown hair in place using a white beanie with warm coloured stripes. Staving of the early morning cold en-route to her website design job she wears a neat thin long army green jacket, its hoodie falling wayside. She shields her eyes from the pure sunlight and looks down her long pointed nose, concentrating while she waits to cross the traffic junction.

Reading Characters

“Reading other novels and stories to see how characters appear is one of the most essential preparations you can undertake.

Take a look at these character sketches from George Orwell’s Burmese Days and Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal. Note down how you think the writers are managing to portray character.”

“Note down how you think the writers are managing to portray character.”

In the way George Orwell describes Flory, you picture a self conscious man – one who is used to looking different and being looked at differently by people. The writer’s style is matter of fact and to the point in a way, almost saying without words “this is how it is”.

Zoë Heller’s description of Sheba is almost ethereal, she stretches out the description languidly which translates to understanding the watcher’s enjoyment in studying this strange fairy creature newly in their midst. You see Sheba as being a “dreamy”, head in the clouds, fragile being.