Playwriting - Part 4B - Character Biographies, the Physical Features

When creating the physical features for your characters, start with the basics: name, age, height, etc. Think of what you fill out on the top of a doctor's form. Put these things down for your characters. They can help you to establish the type of relationships your characters will have with each other. Ages can help you decide if you want to go with traditional near ages for relationships or if you want to do things differently like when many arranged marriages of 50-70 year old men to teenage women or more like today when once people are adults, age is just a number and it doesn't matter. (I've met people who give me the example that Hugh Jackman's wife is 12 years his elder and I've even met people who have wives 20 years their elder and they love it). Sometimes these things matter for a play.

However, these are not the only things you are going to want to write for the external world. You will also want to write down the physical characteristics that others characters use to describe this character. These might stay as important details in your play or they may end up not being important at all. However, they can help with your ideas for writing, especially if you are experiencing writer's block. I, for one, tend to go back and forth with many different tips about writing. Then, when I am inspired to write more of my play, I write it.

Perhaps your character is female and has skin the color of milk chocolate. You'd write that. Your character may have cornrows of two colors - some that are caramel colored and some dark as the blackest night. You'd write that. You'd write the character's eye color, voice tone, weight, posture, vocal tone, grooming quality, and anything else that you find important about physical features. Write as much as you need to about your character in order to write your play. If you don't need to write so much, don't be concerned about writing it. However, if you need to picture your character, writing out the external world and physical features will help.