what image does the character give you?

My pictures in order you gave:

male - buff, superficial (sp?),arrogant, really into his own 'looks' (ie hair, face, clothes)

female - stupid cheerleader, bound to be a loser in life. No morals or scrupals.

female - down to earth, possibly comes from a farm/country childhood. Down-home feeling.

males - cute kids, twins at that? - interesting. they are normal kids for sure if they play tricks on older sister


Sounds like the family on the TV show - 7th Heaven!! Well sort of anyway.

new in town, freshman, movie star looking, the type of guy every girl has a crush on.

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Well... I picture a preview for "The O.C." or "Dawson's Creek" or any number of numb, teen-soaps populated by models.

The thing you need to realize is that there's no need to go into descriptions about the physical attractiveness of a character. There's not much need to describe the appearance of character's period. The reader naturally forms their own picture of each character, and naturally assumes them to be at least modestly attractive unless you specify otherwise.

If a character's appearance is important to the plot, that should come out in the actions, the dialogue, etc. For example, if the girl seems to be stuck-up, and everybody's asking her to the prom, we assume she's a big, giant hottie.

As a narrator, if you take special pains to describe the characters, it makes your work seem superficial, as though their looks are more important than anything else.

Just tell your story, and let the story tell us whether or not we should care what the characters look like.

I didn't create definite visual images from the descriptions given. I second what Mistook said. A lot of things are more important to a story than a character's height, hair color, or eyelash length. Notice how little space that kind of description takes up in professionally written fiction.

Freshmen come in two versions: high school and college. So the characters described as freshmen would be 14 (or thereabouts) or 18 (or thereabouts) if they went through school at the customary pace.

Instantly the #1 male brought back this true image of my past nieghbor:

He's about 5ft 9in, has a pompodor locke of hair that looks like a wave about to crash over his forehead. He always wears tight white Levi jeans sans underware, and never carries a wallet in his back pocket cause' it would destroy the lines of his hips. He has glossy model-like pictures of himself in an album he calls a professional portfolio. He'd fancies himself as a male model, but has only done some department store swimsuit catalogs. He's fond of saying, "Ain't nothing like fame, friends, and eight by tens." His parents brag endlessly about his star potential, but don't realize their son has a nasty meth addiction, hence his preocupation with looks.

Triceratops

Light of the World said:

I wanted help so I can use more of a description on the name message boards to find a name for them

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Remember the thread you started on the old board about naming characters? Most people keep the names their parents gave them. Parents name a baby without knowing what his or her personality will be at age 14 or 18. Consequently, a teenager's name won't necessarily fit an image of the person.

reph said:

Remember the thread you started on the old board about naming characters? Most people keep the names their parents gave them. Parents name a baby without knowing what his or her personality will be at age 14 or 18. Consequently, a teenager's name won't necessarily fit an image of the person.

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True, but as Jerry Seinfeld says, if you name your child Jeeves, you've pretty much mapped out his career.

LOL, very cute. Not exactly what I pictured, but cute.

Joanne