Gather evidence from their words, actions, the narrator and others' reactions, and track how they change.
What “write about a character” really means
When a Literature question asks how a writer presents a character, it is asking about craft, not about a person. A character does not exist outside the text. A character is a set of words that a writer chose to make you think and feel in certain ways.
The best character essays never say “she is a kind person”, as if talking about a friend. They say “the writer presents her as kind”, and then show how.
They look at what she says, what she does, how the narrator describes her and how others respond to her. This small shift, from person to presentation, is the base of the whole skill.
Character questions appear throughout the Literature route, especially for prose and drama. The wording and marks differ by board and syllabus year, so we teach from each board’s official syllabus. See our qualification pages.
A character is built, not born
If you treat a character as real, you start guessing at motives the text never gives, and you drift into storytelling. If you treat them as built, every point goes back to a choice the writer made. For example:
- The writer gave him short, blunt sentences to make him seem cold.
- The writer shows her only through other people’s eyes to keep her mysterious.
- The writer never tells us what he is thinking, so we do not trust him.
The phrase “the writer presents” is not a habit of style. It keeps your analysis on craft, where the marks are.
A five-step method
- Read the question. Does it ask about the character’s whole presentation, or one quality?
- Gather evidence from four sources. These are the character’s words, their actions, the narrator’s description and other characters’ reactions.
- Track change. How is the character shown early, what changes them, and how are they shown later?
- Analyse method and effect. For each point, name the language or structure the writer chose, and explain how it shapes our view.
- Link to purpose. What is this character there to do in the text as a whole?
This is easier to improve with a teacher beside you. A paid one-hour trial starts from your child's own recent work.
A worked example
The character, text and analysis here are our own, invented for teaching.
Question: How does the writer present the shopkeeper, Farah?
Weak, person-focused answer: Farah is a nice lady who works hard and cares about people. She is friendly to everyone who comes in.
This describes a person and analyses no craft.
Stronger, presentation-focused answer: The writer first presents Farah through her hands, which are always “wiping, stacking, straightening”. We understand her through constant work before she speaks a word, and her restlessness feels like a way of holding worry away. When a frightened child comes in, the writer changes her register: her short shop-talk softens into one gentle line.
The contrast reveals a tenderness that her busyness usually hides. By the end, the same hands are “still for once”, which quietly signals that something in her has settled. Through action, contrast and a final image, the writer builds a woman who shows care through movement, not words.
Every point returns to a choice the writer made.
Common mistakes
- Treating the character as real. The student guesses at feelings the text does not support.
- Describing a fixed character. The student ignores how they change.
- Relying on one famous scene. The rest of the text goes unused.
- Listing traits. “She is brave, kind and clever” does not show how any of them is created.
- Retelling the story. The student narrates events instead of analysing presentation.
Writing “the writer presents” before each point prevents most of these, because it makes you name a craft choice.
How to practise
Build a character map as you read. Keep a short list of telling moments across the whole text.
Note a line of dialogue, an action, or another person’s reaction, with the method beside each. When a question comes, your evidence is already spread across the text.
Another drill is the rewrite. Take a sentence about a character as a person and rewrite it as a sentence about presentation. Notice how the analysis deepens.
Third, describe a character in one sentence at the start of the text and one at the end. Then explain what the writer achieved by the change.
Where students usually get stuck
Students often know their characters very well, but write about them like friends. In 1-to-1 lessons, our teachers answer each of your claims with the same question: how does the writer make you think that?
That pulls every point back to the words on the page. This is a regular part of Literature in English tuition.
If you want a teacher to check your character paragraphs, book a paid one-hour trial and bring a past essay.
What to read or try next
Study the annotated model response for a prose essay, then try the practice tasks. Then read how to write about a theme and how to analyse a dramatic scene.