Navigating Prompts: Characters – Images

Is it possible

If you put that search string into Google, you’ll get a lot of autocomplete options. One of the most fascinating ones is “Is it possible to write a story without characters?” The answers are sure, certain: No. Yes. 

One of our favorite answers is “yes, it’s possible to write a story with no characters. A story has a subject, which is often but not always a character.” And yet, character is often critical to the story you want to tell. Who’s there, what are they doing, and why? This is part of why characters show up so often in prompts. “Here is a person, with a history, thoughts, dreams, and ideals. Build a story around them.” It’s a fascinating challenge, and one that we know you’re dying to take on.

Ready, set, go

This is our second deep dive into character prompts, this time focusing on what to do when you’re given an image, not a description, of the character. For our initial look at character descriptions, check out April’s post. While many of the tips still apply, there are some additional things to consider with an image prompt. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

Why is it here?

Image-based character prompts are an easy favorite because they can be very broad in terms of plot and setting, but also test the writer’s ability to use precise and appropriate language to bring a specific character into a story. They can also suggest the feel that a competition or anthology is looking for. A brightly colored cartoon image is likely to yield a very different type of story from a black and white photograph. The type of image can help the prompt writer encode additional information for the prompt-ED writer.

How do you use it?

As per usual, check the instructions first. You may be directed as to how to incorporate the image into your story or essay. Does the character need to be the main character, or do they just need to show up somewhere in the story? Is the setting or background of the photo important?  Can the character change clothes or hairstyle? Is the image meant to broadly inspire a story, or is the image supposed to be narrowly interpreted? We covered a lot of these questions in our posts on character descriptions, so forgive us the duplication, but if you haven’t read that one we don’t want to force you to read two posts to understand one.

For any character image, no matter how simple, you can separate out two components: what you see in the image, and what you infer from the image. The former is objective; the latter will inevitably be influenced by your own particular background, history, perspectives, and expectations. You should challenge these expectations when you can so that they don’t lead you into writing a biased story.

For example, you can see things like: “a human with long blonde hair wearing a dress and standing in a field of flowers,” but you are likely to  infer that the image is of a woman based on your expectations of a woman’s appearance and typical surroundings.

Important: Examine your inferences, because they’re going to be shaped by the society you grew up in and your early programming. That doesn’t mean that the person in the image is not a woman, but it does mean that you don’t know and you are therefore making assumptions. Always check assumptions for bias. If the picture is a Black person standing in an alley at night, and you infer that they are a criminal, that’s a racist assumption. But if the person in the alley is holding a gun and someone else is handing them money, your inference is less based on racial bias.

Another hint: Check out the image description. If the image description says “a woman in a field of flowers” or “a drug dealer standing in an alley” that’s your prompt regardless of whether it shows bias. (And if you come across an assumption like that in an anthology, you might want to reconsider whether that anthology is the right fit for your writing, but that’s another problem entirely and we can’t solve it for you in a few sentences. Just be aware that promptwriters are not immune from bias, and that those biases say something about the work your work is likely to be associated with in the anthology. You may want to make a moral decision about that.)

We’ll talk about specifics and show you some examples below, but let’s start with the basics.

We covered how to look at a photo in our post on setting images, so some of this may sound a little familiar, but let’s take a look through the lens of a character image. Any of these elements can help direct the plot of your story, so pay attention. At the very least, you should come out of this analysis with a better understanding of who the character is.

What do you see?

• What are the unique characteristics of the person in the image?
• What color are the person’s eyes, hair, and skin? Do they have facial hair? How is their hair styled?
• What are they wearing? Do they have makeup or jewelry on?
• Is it a portrait, or is the character placed in a setting? Are they performing an action?
• What is around them? What colors are used? What objects are with them?

What can you infer?

This is where it gets tricky, and where your personal experiences and biases (you have them. it’s fine. just be aware of them.) come into play.

• What can you infer about the character?
  • What gender is the character?
  • What background do they come from?
  • What type of occupation do they have?
  • What kind of people are they likely to know?
  • How much education do they have?
• What can you infer about the location or time period, based on the character’s appearance and/or image setting?
  • What kind of clothing are they wearing? How is their hair styled?
  • What’s in the background of the photo?
  • What (if anything) is the character holding?
• What can you infer from the action (or lack thereof)?
  • What’s actually happening in the photo?
  • Is the character standing still or moving? Are they looking straight out at the viewer, or off to the side, and if the latter, can you see what they are looking at?
  • Is the character performing another kind of action—reading, yelling, making a phone call, etc.?
  • What props are involved in the action?

What can you imagine?

Once you’ve figured out what you see, and what assumptions you’re comfortable making from that, you need to figure out who your character is. Some of this is inference; most of it is imagination. All of it will help you create a well-rounded, convincing character.

• If their sexuality or gender is going to be relevant to the story, what is it? (You may want to know this even if it’s not relevant to the story. That is, not every story about a gay character is a gay romance or a coming-out story. Not every story about a trans character is about coming out or transphobia.)
• What’s their family situation (both their family of origin and their current family)?
• What do they do for work?
• What do they do for fun?
• What do they like and dislike most?
• What do they want most in the world? Or: what do they want right now?
• What do they avoid?

Once again, check the instructions for the prompt. If the character must be the main character in your story, knowing the answers to these questions will help give you a strong character arc. But even if the prompt character is a secondary one, these answers can help define their relationship to your MC, which can have an impact on your plot.

Sky’s the limit? Maybe not.

What you see can limit your storytelling options. Many promptwriters will tell you if the character is the only thing in the image you’re supposed to use, or if the background is relevant. In this way they can slip in a dual prompt, really, because even if they don’t mention a setting or genre, they’re controlling what elements you can use. If the character is standing on a moving walkway surrounded by robots, you’re likely writing a scifi or cyberpunk story, not a historical romance. 

Likewise, what the character looks like (or is wearing) can also inform your story’s setting. If the character is tall and slim with pointed ears, wearing a long flowing gown and holding a fireball in one hand and a glowing staff in the other, well, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find yourself writing some flavor of fantasy story. (Or writing up my last roleplaying game session. [Hey, Christine, how many years ago was that and what are you doing Thursday at 8? /RBG]) 

Unless the instructions tell you these details don’t matter, your safest bet is to assume that they do. 

Bring your character into the story

You may find yourself waxing eloquent about the person in the photograph, describing their facial features, their clothing, their background (based on your inferences and your imagination), their lifestyle. This is wonderful! But it’s not a story. Don’t forget to give your character something to do. Introduce a conflict (whether or not one is implied in the image) or an opportunity for growth or change. Make sure your character acts in a way that is consistent with what you have been able to infer from the image, or that there is a reason for them to act inconsistently. For example, if your character is an elderly woman who walks with a cane, it would be inconsistent to have her running down a flight of stairs—unless she is secretly a superhero, and the cane is part of her mild-mannered disguise and she is in a hurry to save the day.

Stay in character

This may sound pretty basic, but it’s also where a lot of writers run into trouble. The most important thing about a character is that they stay in character. That is, now that you know all about them, the  character should not act in ways that are inconsistent with what you know (unless there’s a reason, like 13 dwarves and a wizard showing up to kidnap them).

Once you have a well-rounded character—or at least a sense of who your character is—you need to write their actions in a way that lets them stay in character. That means, if your character has to take a specific action based on the plot you have in mind, figure out why they’re doing it, and whether that reason is consistent with what you know about them. If you can’t make the why line up with the who, then you’ve got three basic choices: either have another character who wants to take that action do it, figure out a way to motivate this character to take the action, or make your plot not revolve around that particular action.

Examples

We could describe what to do with prompts all day, but it’s going to be easier on you if we just give you some examples. Let’s look at some images, and talk about what we see and what we can infer from each. While we’re not including image descriptions because that’s literally part of the analysis so you’ll get that organically, you should always include image descriptions for people who use screenreaders, and if you come across a competition or anthology that isn’t using those, maybe give them a gentle nudge so that they can remember to be inclusive.

What you can see:

• A person who is neither remarkably thin nor fat with medium-toned skin and chin-length, layered, styled red-brown hair.
• They appear to be in their thirties or forties.
• They are wearing a green button-down shirt with a v neck and zippered chest pockets, and jeans with worn knees.
• They are wearing makeup, and their eyes are closed and their lips are pursed.
• They are wearing blue over-the-ear style headphones.
• They are seated cross-legged, with one hand up touching their headphones and the other extended to drape over a knee.
• The background is black

What you might infer:

• This is a woman.
• This person is listening to music.
• This person is a musician – possibly a singer if they’re singing along.
• This person makes a decent amount of money- at least a living wage for their area.
• They have experienced systemic oppression.
• They live in a certain area of a certain country.

Challenge your inferences:

• What if they’re not a woman?
• What if they are actually very poor but got those clothes as a gift or from a good thrift store?
• What if they’re Deaf?
• What if this isn’t set in the location you thought it was? How would that affect their experiences and marginalizations?

What you can see:

• A person who is moderately overweight with pale, wrinkled skin, blue eyes, and a huge grey mustache styled into two thick curls.
• They are wearing a grey wool flat cap and a heavy duty grey button down shirt which is unbuttoned to show a dark grey v-neck tee.
• They are only visible from the chest up, but their arms appear to be at their sides.
• The background is grey with a single light source which makes a light patch just behind the person.

What you might infer:

• This is a man.
• He is from a working class background.
• He is conscientious about his appearance and surroundings.
• He may speak with an accent.
• He may have children and even grandchildren.

Challenge your inferences:

• What if they’re not a man?
• What if this is a costume?
• What if the setting isn’t what you assumed?

What you can see:

• A city street made of large square light grey pavers with one person on it. Two buildings are visible and they share a common wall. One has a tall wooden door and the other has a window with a decorative metal screen. Both buildings are stucco covered but the door building is medium brown and the window house is white. There is a small piece of graffiti on the door and a large, faded piece on the wall by the window.
• A person who is moderately overweight and bent at the waist is standing on the street facing to the viewer’s left. They are supporting themself on a stick as tall as they are when bent over.
• They have light-to-medium wrinkled skin. Their eye color is not apparent. They have dark grey straight hair that is pulled back to the back of their head but is escaping confinement to leave wisps around their jaw.
• They are wearing a heavy dark blue jacket, a dark blue shirt, a dark blue or possibly faded black knee length skirt, black tights, and black open-toed leather clogs with wooden soles.

What you might infer:

• This is a woman.
• She does not have a lot of money.
• She has neglected some medical care, or not had access to it.
• She is alone.
• She may have children and even grandchildren.
• She is in Ecuador.
• She has probably experienced systemic oppression.
• She is likely to be religious.

Challenge your inferences:

• What if they’re not a woman?
• What if their religion or ethnicity aren’t what you assumed?
• What if the stooped posture is due to a different cause than you thought?
• What if the setting isn’t what you assumed?
• What if there are literally thousands of people just outside the frame of this picture? 

Save yourself some trouble: don’t make these common mistakes

• At the risk of sounding like a broken record, don’t forget to actually describe the character. The reader should be able to recognize your character in your story. That is, if you were to show them the photo, they should be able to pick out which character the photo represents. Take the time to describe what your character looks like, using the words your character would find appropriate. This is especially important if the character does not look like you. Find a sensitivity reader if you need one—somebody with the relevant background or experience—and find a way to compensate them for their time and labor. If this sounds like a lot, check out some resources put together by Ylva Publishing.
• Remember that a story is more than a static description. The prompt may suggest or imply a conflict or objective, but it might not. Give your character something to do—an obstacle to overcome, a choice to make, a way to grow as a person. Someone should change over the course of the story, whether it’s the character or the reader, and a static image of one moment in time or even a flashback to something important in the character’s life will rarely accomplish that.
• Watch your language. Words matter, and this goes triple for words used to describe a person’s appearance. Here are a few things do’s and don’t’s when describing a character based based on a photo:
  • Do describe the person, including their skin color. Don’t assume that white is the default, but don’t assume that in a story with no descriptions your readers won’t make that assumption.
  • Don’t use food words to describe a person’s skin color. (Honey, chocolate, cream, etc.) Writing With Color has a fantastic guide on describing skin color.
  • Don’t describe somebody’s appearance as “exotic”—it’s rude and it’s othering, not to mention it’s going to take you hundreds of words to establish what “normal” is without assuming some intense biases on the part of your reader.
  • Do be aware that some words are problematic, or even just plain offensive. Again, Writing With Color has compiled a list of articles to help you out here.
  • Don’t assume ethnicity, national origin, or gender identity based on what you see. If the person in the photo looks like you expect a woman to look, that doesn’t mean that they are a woman. If the person is identifiably Asian, don’t guess at their specific national origin (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.). (If you know it, on the other hand, feel free to use that! Or figure out a way to write around it.) That being said, you should be able to create an identity informed by what you see.
  • Don’t feel obliged to make the character’s apparent race, ethnicity, gender, or disability the main focus of your story. If the photo shows a character using a wheelchair, the story does not need to be about the supposed trials and tribulations of a wheelchair user. This element should not be ignored, but neither should it define the character. Let them be a whole person.
  • If you are writing outside your comfort zone or lived experience, find a sensitivity reader. What—have we mentioned this before? That’s because it’s important. Anytime you are writing about an identity you do not share, it’s a good idea to have someone “in the know” run their eyes over it. (And be prepared to compensate this person, whether that’s with a trade of services, a cup of coffee, or cold hard cash.)

Practice makes perfect

Many writers struggle with describing their characters. Like most skills, the only way to get better is to practice! Try writing up descriptions of various people in your life, or if that makes you uncomfortable, here’s a gallery of photos that you can practice with. What do you see? What can you infer from the photo? Once you’ve done that, try building a story around them.

Your turn!

Check out our weekly prompt posts and try to tell a story using the character image prompts given each week. Don’t forget to ask for help in the Coffeehouse on Facebook or Discord if you’ve got questions—you can post a link to your draft or even a snippet of your story or essay (up to 250 words) for immediate feedback. Don’t forget to use content warnings where they’re merited, so that you can get the best and most engaged readers for the words you like to write.

What’s next?

Wondering what the year has in store? Here’s a handy roadmap!

Get out your map

Here's the general flow of this year's workshop series. You don't have to follow them in order, but you may find that one builds on the next.

September: Retellings

October: Style over Substance

November: Combination Prompts

December: Roundup

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me

About the author: