Creating Compelling Characters: Tags and Titles

Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms. She writes weird books for teens in lots of weird genres like, fantasy (Blood of Kings trilogy), science fiction (Replication), and dystopian (The Safe Lands trilogy). Find Jill on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or on her author website.

Welcome back to my series on creating compelling characters. I'm your host Jill "The Randomizer" Williamson. We are working our way through my new Character Worksheet, which you can download by clicking here. I am using as an example character, Prince Trevyn from the book I'm currently writing.

Today we are going to talk about tags and titles for your characters.

TAGS
Tags are descriptive ways authors can create memorable characters. Such tags are unique to each character and sets them apart from other characters in a way that makes it easy for the reader to remember who is who. J. K. Rowling does this very well in her Harry Potter books. For example:

Harry Potter: lightning-shaped scar, broken glasses, messy hair, clothes that are too big (because they're Dudley's hand-me-downs), looks just like his father but for his mother's green eyes.
Ron Weasley: red hair, freckles, poor, uses a hand-me-down wand, wears shabby clothing, has a shabby pet rat... everything he owns is shabby.
Hermione Granger: buck teeth, bushy hair, clever, often carries a book or seven, has a pet cat.
Rubeus Hagrid: half-giant, eyes like black beetles, has a wild beard and hair, loves animals, probably has some animal food or an actual animal in his pocket at all times. Is a terrible cook.
Draco Malfoy: blond, pale and pointed face, wealthy, arrogant pure-blood, has two minion-like friends who follow him everywhere.

Each of the above tags aid the reader's physical description of the character that they're picturing in their mind as they read. But they also match who the character is. Because of Harry's backstory, he wouldn't be arrogant like Malfoy because the Dursely's treated him so badly. He wouldn't be as clever as Hermione since he didn't have the opportunity to read so many books. Who he is comes from the life he has lived. That is what makes all his tags possible. If he had died when Voldemort had tried to kill him, he wouldn't have a lightning-shaped scar on his head, he wouldn't be famous, and Dumbedore wouldn't have had to hide him with the Dursleys, who treated him so badly and made him wear Dudley's old clothing.

Here are some tags for Prince Trevyn: tall and skinny, dimpled smile, long neck, wrinkled clothing, charcoal-smudged fingers, rolls of maps under his arm, often seen scaling walls or running through the palace and yelling out, “Sorry!” after he has knocked people over. (I'll explain more about these behaviors in the coming weeks as we talk backstory, motivations, and hobbies.)


TITLES
Titles are roles that each character fills. If I were to describe myself in titles, some of them might be: wife (my husband sometimes calls me "wifey"), mother (my kids still call me mama), author, friend, daughter, big sister, mentor, artist, blogger, entrepreneur, librarian, and The Randomizer (this is my superhero identity).

For my characters, I like to divide titles into two camps: names and roles.

Some example names that people call Prince Treyn are: prince, His Royal Highness / Your Highness, that boy (by his mother), firebrand (by many), Your Magnanimousness (by Hinck, his friend), Trev (occasionally by Hinck).

And here are some roles that Trevyn fills in his life: prince, son, brother, friend, student, map-maker, explorer, celebrity, potential husband (his mom is trying to marry him off), investigator, truth-finder.

See how that works? Choose one of your characters and post some tags and titles for that person in the comments.