Paint with Words

Since MasterMind Groups are about sharing, I thought I would pass on a resource a fellow Tweep, @keisawilliams sent out into the Twitterverse over the weekend. http://tinyurl.com/ljmjrb is a list of character analysis vocabulary words from the writing center at Valle Verde that can help you put the right face on the right character.

For instance, when you introduce the heroine, she can be beautiful, pretty, fair, comely or delicate. All could probably describe a cast of runway models, but each shows a slightly different side of our evolving damsel and can translate into different actions later in the story.

Similarly for our everyman hero. He can be virile, robust, hardy, strapping, stalwart or brawny. Any of the above might be able to open a pickle jar, but might react differently if in a pickle that required a moral judgement. 

When it comes to shading our characters characters, it helps to have a palette full of subtle variations to cast just the right tone.

Isn't that what we do? We paint with words. The wrong word can create a picture that just doesn't look right somehow, like a cubist Picasso painting, but for the wrong reasons. 

Practice describing famous people with your MasterMind Group using the Valle Verde list as a jumping off point. Them move to real people who have not already been made into caricatures by the media. See how changing just a few words alters the mood of the image. 

Feel free to share the results here.

Yours in Writing,

Promptmasters

Jennifer Sander

JT Long