To Know Your Main Character Better, Create a Vision Board
But, you might say, I’m a WRITER. I paint with words. Words are my jam. Text is my Queen. What is this vision board thing anyway, and how can it help me?
I get it. I too, am a textually/verbally based person. I was recently shocked to read that not everyone has an inner monologue going on in their heads all the time. Mine isn’t just a monologue, it’s often dialogue as well – between two of my characters, or two characters from a book I read or movie I saw, or between me and another person who isn’t present (or whom I don’t even know). I narrate as I write. Scenes unfold like a text scroller as I hang laundry. When someone tells me to “visualize” something, it’s always accompanied by words. I just assumed it was that way for everyone. (Read the article, seriously – the comments are gold.)
Although apparently research quoted in the above article suggests that:
“…visual and verbal thinking are highly linked. While people often think of themselves as being either more verbal or visual, this isn't necessarily the case. In fact, people with a clear inner monologue typically have stronger mental visuals to accompany their verbal thoughts.”
That is not the case for me. I am firmly verbally-based.
However, the ability to visualize things is necessary for a writer. You have to know what your characters and settings look like; where people are spatially in relation to each other and objects in a room; how action sequences play out… there are many times when visual awareness is needed, otherwise we have simply a bunch of talking heads, and readers get lost.
It can be helpful to not just visualize things inside your head, but outside it as well. You can find pictures online of just about anything you can think of that you will need in your story: houses/mansions/castles/interiors of every description, fields, woods, boats, cars, historical items that are no longer used… you can keep a file of these for reference or inspiration, possibly with Evernote or another note-taking tool.
I also like creating a vision board for my main character. You can do this online as a digital vision board, or on paper or posterboard, as a collage. I prefer a paper version, that I can look at for inspiration as needed.
This involves finding a photo of what the person looks like – or as close as I can get to what is inside my head.
Then, other images or text that reflects them:
colors I associate with them
words or phrases that epitomize something about their life philosophy or goals
objects that might be something they own or metaphors for something key to their personality, their history, or their aspirations
There are two ways to do this: Create it as a visual reference to help you “see” the character and their world better. Or you can create the vision board from their point of view. In other words, you flip through magazines searching for images and text as if you were them, making a vision board for themselves. This is a great way to get into your character’s head via images that speak to their deepest desires and dreams. How do they visualize themselves and their life? (You can, of course, do a bit of both.)
It doesn’t have to be glued together as a collage. It can be assembled on a corkboard, wall, or refrigerator. It should be somewhere you see it often, especially when you are writing. Don’t spend too much time on it – it’s not meant to be a work of art. In fact, images and text are best selected quickly, without too much thought. You never know what you may come up with that will spark a new idea or understanding of your character. I am consistently amazed how much more clearly I can see them once I’ve taken the time to create a vision board of them and their world, even if I’m absolutely sure I know what they, and everything in their environment looks like.
Plus, it’s an activity that gets us out of the verbal and into the realm of the intuitive and visual. It allows us to relax our hold on what we think we know, or the need to figure everything out in a logical way. Sentences, paragraphs, stories have to make sense. A vision board doesn’t, at least in a linear way.
Have you tried creating a vision board for your main character? If so, please let me know in the comments how it went!
