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Tip Tuesday #77

Tip Tuesday is a recurring feature where readers send in tips for fellow writers. I have a fun one from Katharina Gerlach to share today. Please visit her author site when you're done here. Thank you, Cat!

Recently, I realized that my novels are always short on description especially for the characters. Sometimes I even had glitches (MC brown haired at the beginning and blond at the end of the novel). With my latest novel, I decided to make visuals of my most important characters. I thought about making a collage (cutting different body-parts from different magazines), when I watched my youngest daughter play around with an online dressing doll.

Now, I use Candybar's dollmaker (http://elouai.com/doll-makers/new-dollmaker.php) to create the basic visuals of a character (no fancy background). Then, I save the doll to my PC, and whenever I need to remember what the character looks like, I just view the picture. If I have many characters, I put them into one big picture with a graphic-program (like MS-paint) for ease of use. That way, my descriptions are consistent AND I don't forget them when I write.

I do hope this helps,
Cat
on Tuesday, February 22, 2011

11 comments:

  1. Kate EvangelistaFebruary 22, 2011 at 3:26 AM

    That's such an interesting tip. I will have to use it. Thank you so much for sharing, Cat!

    Casey, I just wanted to let you know about this fantastic campaign started by a couple of bloggers. Here's the link: http://kateevangelistarandr.blogspot.com/2011/02/books-for-kids-lets-give-back.html

    It's something that touched me, and I wanted to share it with you.

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  2. Natalie AguirreFebruary 22, 2011 at 7:19 AM

    What a great idea. I've always struggled with descriptions. I'm thinking having a visual of who the person is might help. Thanks for the tip.

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  3. S.A. LarsenッFebruary 22, 2011 at 8:59 AM

    Great idea. I usually search through magazines or online photos to visualize my characters. I'll check out the site. Thanks!

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  4. The Kranky CrowFebruary 22, 2011 at 9:18 AM

    My daughter thought I was crazy, but when we got Guitar Hero 5, I made my MC into an avatar. He's pretty good on stage! lol

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  5. Laurie MuenchFebruary 22, 2011 at 9:53 AM

    What a wonderful idea! I am definitely going to do that. I appreciate the tip!

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  6. JeighFebruary 22, 2011 at 11:39 AM

    That's a great idea. Sounds like fun! I spent hours making all of my characters into Mii's on the Wii. Now I can play baseball and tennis with them :)

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  7. Katharina GerlachFebruary 22, 2011 at 3:29 PM

    I discovered it through my kids. They love dress-up dolls.

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  8. ArianeFebruary 22, 2011 at 4:53 PM

    This is interesting to me, because I really like the trend in writing to be less descriptive. I feel like writing is getting so much cleaner and more trusting of readers' ability to visualize characters and settings.

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  9. Lisa NowakFebruary 23, 2011 at 2:14 AM

    What a creative approach! Thanks, Cat.

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  10. nutschellFebruary 24, 2011 at 3:57 PM

    Cool tip! I usually scour the net for pictures of some actors that sort of embody my character, and then use them as a basis for description. :D

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  11. RachaelFebruary 25, 2011 at 11:31 PM

    Awesome tip! I have the same problem. Lately I've been scouring modeling sites for pictures that I can use to help with my description.

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