Mystery Character

Write one or two paragraphs (50-100 words, about half a page) describing a well-known person or character without naming that character. Your mystery character can be an entertainer, an athlete, or a politician. It can be someone living or dead -- or even fictional, such as a character from a well-known movie or cartoon.

The catch is that I want you to describe your mystery character without actually saying who it is. Instead, I want your description to do the work. I want you to use telling details will that enable the rest of us to recognize who it is from your description alone.

That means you need to write a description that not only captures their physical appearance, but also reveals what is distinctive and credible about them. You need to show us how they move, how they sound, how they gesture and talk, how they dress -- you need to focus on what you think are the most telling details about that person. And you need to try to avoid dead-giveaways, such as "He's the President of the United States."

A good way to do that is to show them in action. For example, it would be pointless to describe Michael Jordan as a "tall, bald African-American man" that could be way too many people. But if you can describe the way he moves, you've revealed something singular about him -- something others will recognize.

About 15 minutes before the end of class, we'll stop -- and I'll ask for some volunteers to read their descriptions aloud -- and we'll see if we can identify your mystery characters.

I also want you to print out a copy of your mystery character description to hand in at the end of the class.

Here's a sample mystery character from a previous semester to give you an idea of what we're talking about.