Our guest blogger is sick this week, so back to old Ed. The blog
tour ends next month. Character tags are a good way to clearly
identify your characters and make them come alive. There are
many ways to do this. Do you remember Uriah Heep in Dickens’
David Copperfield? He was always rubbing his clammy hands and he
kept trying to make himself ‘humble’ by using that word in every
context. These tags made him come alive – we readers hated him
Tags can be: - Tapping a pen on a table - Pulling at one’s ear -
Clearing your throat (my wife claims that when I talking on the
phone to an attractive woman, I clear my throat a lot. She’s
wrong.) - A shuffle walk - The sound of a cane - Chewing gum
like it was a cow’s cud - A harsh, annoying laugh - An unusual
odor, e.g. coco butter - Constant eye blinking. - Playing with
hair - Certain kinds of clothes - Tugging at one’s ear - Words –
careful use of words, such as Dickens did - Manner of speaking –
stuttering, muttering, bombastic - Habits – when I see someone
rolling a s