Comments on: Character Tags in Fiction

By: Anna

Anna — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 02:24:29 +0000

MaryAnn: By personality, of course! Even if you have to go back and make several rewrites of chapters to make it so, be sure to have a distinct personality the reader can easily recognize. For instance, you may have one charactor be very scholarly, so anything you have them say will sound intellegent with uses of words that have to be explained. Another could be the cliche teenage girly-girl who could have her sentences clogged up with “like”, “uh”, “um”, and text-talk, such as “GTG” and “BTW”.

By: Leigh

Leigh — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:07:03 +0000

I’m more inclined to categorize ‘good gravy’ and ‘pawed’ as verbal tics– overuse of words without the author being aware of it. One author used ‘arguably’ every few pages. It’s difficult for a writer to catch his/her own tics.

By: MaryAnn

MaryAnn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:08:38 +0000

I think my male character can only be told apart from my female character with the he said/she said. That’s not good. Any examples/suggestions to ensure the reader would know the male had spoken just by how he said it?

By: PreciseEdit

PreciseEdit — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:51:05 +0000

Excellent post.

I’ll add another type of character tag: response.

Each character has a unique personality (or should) and will, therefore, respond in particular ways to experiences. These responses are typically consistent, given similar experiences.

For example, imagine a handsome teenage boy. The girls at school flirt with him. Because his responses are governed by his personality, he will respond in a manner that is unique to him. Once the response pattern is established, the reader will notice how his personality is changing through changes in his responses–which helps make the content interesting.

I’m looking forward to what others have to say about character tags. This is an essential topic.