Character Sketch

“Character Sketch (noun): A brief descriptive portrait in writing of an individual, usually with close observation of his or her distinctive traits.

‘In 1928 a private press published her character sketch of the Sapphic poetess Renee Vivien, born Pauline Tern, in London, of an English father and an American mother, a fragile neurotic figure who spent most of her short, self-destructive life in Paris, maintained in mysterious semi-Oriental elegance and living on spiced foods and alcohol in a garden apartment by chance next to Colette’s, near the Bois de Boulogne.’ Janet Flanner, Janet Flanner’s World”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.