About The Character Trick

Post 1210:

I’d like to ruminate on characters for a second or two. Come on and let’s see if anything shakes loose.

When writing a character, you feel like you know them. You’ve got an image of them in your mind and where they fit into the story. Maybe you see their end. Probably you see their beginning. It’s an interesting situation; pretty unique when it comes to invention.

I wonder how much I need to write or describe to the audience so they see what I see. Actually, that’s not right. I need to write enough so they see what they need to see.

That’s the trick. It’s hard to project yourself into someone else’s brain. How do other people’s imaginations work, anyhow? Probably a lot like mine. Surely. But surely, not exactly like mine.

At a minimum, you have to give the audience enough to make the character’s actions logical within the confines of the story. This doesn’t have to happen all at once, but it needs to happen. I’m not anti-mystery—just don’t be a dick to someone who is trying to understand what’s going on.

I like complex characters. People are complicated, even the simple ones, so characters should be too. But I don’t want to know every complication and complexity. Same goes for characters in a story. Enough for me to connect, understand, and for things to make sense. That’s a good place to start. After that, you can get to the business of writing, re-writing, cutting, writing some more, and questioning your sanity.

You know, the fun stuff. Cheers and see you after.