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Name your character. Note your character's gender, age, height, and weight. Describe your character's hair and eye color. Create distinguishing markers or scars on your character. Note your character's style of dressing. Determine your character's background and class. Conduct research on your character's profession or career.
A big identifier of your character will be their name. Think about people you know in real life who remind you of the character or who inspired the character. You can also play on an existing name you feel fits with the character and change the spelling. For example, Kris instead of Chris, or Tara instead of Tanya. Look for names that fit with your character's background and don't seem odd in terms of your character's role or position. A soccer mom who lives in suburban Portland and identifies as Caucasian is likely not going to be named Esmeralda. And an evil sorcerer from another planet will likely not be named Joe or Craig. There are several character name generators online that you can also use, filtering by background and gender. If your character was to fill out a census or a form at a doctor's office, what would they specify for gender, age, height, and weight? Though you may not use this character information in your story or novel, your character's gender, and age will affect their character voice and their point of view. For example, the young child character, Scout, in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird will view the world of the novel differently than her father, Atticus Finch, an older man. It's important to specify your character's physical characteristics, especially their hair and eye color. Often, description of characters focuses on hair color or eye color, and these details can help signal to your reader that your character has a certain ethnic background or appearance. These descriptions can also indicate a certain type of character. For example, describing your character's physical appearance as: "She had dishwater blonde hair and gray eyes that glazed over when she was bored" not only gives your reader a clear physical description, it also shows the character's personality. Harry Potter's lightning bolt scar is a good example of a distinguishing marker that identifies his character and makes him unique. You can also use birthmarks, like a mole on your character's face, or a marker due to an accident, like a burn mark or a scar due to stitches. These scars or markers can make your character feel distinct to your reader. They can also tell the reader more about your character. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout's brother Jem is characterized on the first page of the novel through a description of his broken arm: "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt." Harper Lee uses the injury, or physical marker, to introduce Jem's character and tell the reader that he has a shorter left arm, a distinguishing characteristic that makes him a more nuanced and believable character. Clothing can be a great way to show the reader more of your character's personality and preferences. A character who wears punk t-shirts, black jeans, and Doc Martens will come across as a rebellious character, while a character who wears a sweater set and loafers may come across as a more conservative character. Be specific when you are describing a character's clothing, but don't repeat descriptions too much in the narrative. Establishing your character's style of dress once will create a clear picture in the reader's mind that they can refer back to. In Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, the main character Philip Marlowe describes his clothing in two concise sentences: "I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it." Chandler uses very specific detail to paint a clear image of Marlowe and he injects the description with Marlowe's voice, "I didn't care who knew it," adding more depth to the description. Your character's station in life will affect how she navigates certain situations and how she will react to everyday occurrences. A young African American man living in Washington, D.C. will have a different experience or perspective than a young Southern man living in Little Rock, Arkansas. And a middle class woman living in New York will have different daily experience than a woman living on food stamps in New York. Your character's background and class experience will be an integral part of their perspective as a character. Though it is not essential that you announce your character's background and class to the reader, your character will feel more realistic and true if their station in life factors into their point of view. The characters in the fiction of Junot Diaz, for example, uses colloquial terms that indicate class and background to the reader. In Diaz's short story "The Cheater's Guide to Love" he notes: "Maybe if you'd been engaged to a super-open-minded blanquita you could have survived itbut you're not engaged to a super-open-minded blanquita. Your girl is a bad-ass salcedense who doesn't believe in open anything; in fact, the one thing she warned you about, that she swore she would never forgive, was cheating." In this story, Diaz uses Spanish terms to indicate the character/narrator's background, without having to tell the reader directly that the narrator is Spanish. Another way to make your character more believable on the page is to delve into the details of their profession or career. If you are writing a character who works as an architect, this character should know about how to design a building and may see a city skyline in a unique way. Or if you are writing a character who works as a private detective, this character should know basic P.I. protocol and how to solve a case. Use library books and online sources to make your character's career convincing in your story. If possible, try to speak to someone who is in the profession you would like to use for your character. Interview them about their daily habits at work to make sure you are getting the details of their profession right.