How to do People Entries

GUIDE FOR DESIGNING PEOPLE
In order to describe new people in our world please stick to the following rules. There aren't much rules when describing person

Overview
Give a general overview on the person on top. When you look at this overview you should see at once

- who this person is/was
- what he/she did
- where this all happened
- and why there is a Compendium entry for this person

Important: Don't forget the exact life dates (e.g. 456 b.S.-398 b.S.)!

Appearance (Optional)
Please give a description of the person. The more accurate the better, as this may also help artists to draw a good pic from this information later on. A description of a persons's appearance is not always necessary, depending on the type of person you want to describe in the entry.

Personality (Optional)
Add all personality traits of a person here, which you deem important to be included in the entry. Mention whether this person has a humorous character, is stern, determined or hot-tempered - or everything at the same time. What does he/she do, like? - Whatever helps to define the individuality of the person should be put in here. Like the Appearance section this section is not always necessary, depending on the type of person you want to describe. However, usually a Personality or Appearance section often is very helpful to have.

Biography
Write in detail where the person grew up, which education he/she got etc. Just mention all important incidents in the persons life, and as often as possible: Try to add dates which make the entry more accurate from the historical point of view. You don't really need to go into all the exact details - at least the entry should also be an interesting read, eh?

Mandatory as well to be included: What is very important is that you add short captions in front of paragraphs (if possible with dates), whenever you move on to a new event in the person's life.

Examples:

1598 - Mysterious Birth. Dalmac was conceived and born in the little town of Chaun, on the edge of the Vontron Forest (near the Ximaxian peninsula, just north-west of Horth), to a wealthy farmer, Martyn Brandivere, and his wisewoman wife, Jennet. etc.

1605 - Dalmac's Childhood. Thanks to Jennet’s written account, and the reminiscences of various ancient wisewife cronies of hers, we have some notes on Dalmac’s earliest days. etc.

This way the reader can skim through the entry and find information he/she seeks much easier by looking at the captions only. The more meaningful the paragraph captions, the better the organizarion and the more efficiently a reader can retrieve information.

Importance
At the final section of the entry you can/should try to talk a bit about the general importance of the celebrity, e.g. if you describe a king you can describe how his people liked him, which impact all the things he did were for later generations he did, if there exist some kind of lore or anecdotes etc.

Picture (Optional)
Also try to find a pic perhaps for the person you describe in the Resources Forum. You can also go to the Resources Forum first of course, decide that a certain pic would make a good entry and start your entry according to the pic (but you should check back first on the Forum if the pic isn't already reserved for someone else).

That's it! Happy describing

Edited by: Artimidor Federkiel at: 9/9/05 20:14