Although they often seem like real people, dramatic characters are actually created in the mind of the playwright, who has wide latitude in how to present a character and in what to emphasize. A stage character can be drawn with a few quick strokes, as a cartoonist sketches a political figure; given the surface detail and reality of a photograph; or fleshed out with the more interpretive and fully rounded quality of a portrait in oils. Traditionally, several major types of characters have proved effective in theater. These include extraordinary characters who are in some way "larger than life"; representative or quintessential characters who are in many respects typical or ordinary, but who are significant because they embody an entire group; stock characters who are not complete or three-dimensional and who exemplify one particular characteristic to the exclusion of virtually everything else; characters with a single dominant trait, or "humor"; minor characters who appear briefly and serve chiefly to further the story of the major characters; narrators or choruses who comment on the action of the main story; and nonhuman characters. Characters are placed together by the playwright in certain combinations to obtain maximum effectiveness, and sometimes they are orchestrated to reinforce a theme in different manners.