TAKE THREE OLDIES

WHO'S DESCRIBING THE CHARACTERS IN YOUR BOOK?

The way an author describes a character can depends very much on the viewpoint character. A child, a younger adult, a contemporary, each will see/hear/note different aspects. Here are three examples.

TOMMY, AGED 5, MEETING HIS GRANDFATHER FOR THE FIRST TIME:

He thought Grampa looked interesting. He looked like a nice apple, small and round and rosy, and his hair was white and wispy. The top of his head shone through like pink china. His eyebrows were very thick and bushy and when he saw Tommy watching him, he wriggled them like caterpillars. For a moment he looked quite fierce but then he held out his arms and smiled. THE FAMILY ON PINEAPPLE ISLAND)

THIRTY-ISH MANAGER OF A RETIREMENT HOME, DESCRIBING ONE OF THE RESIDENTS:

Art is Patrick's thing. In his room he paints exquisite miniature watercolours of miniature birds - wrens, robins, blue tits. You'd never suspect it to look at him, such a large man, over six feet tall and heavily built. A plain man with a florid boozy complexion and coarse red hair now faded to the colour of stale cornflakes. It's always struck me as odd that he should choose to paint such tiny pictures. (ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS)

Sometimes a mix of dialogue and action work well.

ELEVEN YEAR OLD DANNY AND HIS MOTHER'S SEVENTY-ISH CLEANER:

Up on the first floor I can hear Mrs Maggs, our cleaner, thumping her broom against skirting boards, bellowing out 'Land of Hope and Glory'. Nobody tells her to be quiet, even though it's only half past eight in the morning. I think they're all afraid of her. She appears at the top of the stairs with a cardboard box full of cleaning cloths and brushes. She is wearing fuzzy pink slippers with holes cut out for her bunions.

'What you doin' there?' she asks me.

'Waiting for my Uncle Frank.'

'Hmmph!' She shuffles down, muttering something about persons who have nothing better to do than sit on the stairs getting in other persons' ways and swipes a damp smelly cloth across my face as she passes.

She pulls a duster from her overall pocket and glares at the life sized statue of Mercury beside the front door.

'Some persons,' she grumbles, 'don't know they're born! Some persons just don't know when they're well off, living in one of the best mansions in Bristol, full of statues and stained glass, instead of a Council flat in St Pauls with compensation running down the walls. It's all right for some,' she grumbles, 'but what about them that has to work? Eh?' (THERE'S A LION IN MY BED!)