by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig.
I’m currently reading a mystery (no surprise there) that I’m really enjoying: Death of a Cozy Writer by G.M. Malliet.
One thing I love as a mystery reader is finding clues to a character’s personality, talents, or weaknesses.
One of the characters in the book, Albert, (no spoilers, I promise), is a major alcoholic. His siblings talk about how much he drinks, and he’s portrayed as inebriated at every meal and even in the mornings.
Another character, Jeffrey, is mulling over people he’s recently met, one of them Albert. He thinks that:
…he rather had the idea Albert drank.
This made me laugh at the understatement and the general cluelessness of the character. It also gave me an important insight into Jeffrey’s character—he’s not observant. In a mystery, this means that his impressions of other characters/suspects in the book might not be accurate.
I’m not a fan of reading info dumps. An author could describe a character with well-written, vivid details and I’ll going to skim it. I’m usually more interested in picking up on little details that point to qualities the character has. Or a slipped-in description—a character whose shoulders are stooped from listening to shorter people around him. Or the character with lots of smile lines and raven’s feet….sort of a double-duty description. Cheerful and wrinkly!
With indirect characterization, you let the reader draw their own conclusions: based on character dialogue, internal musings shared with the reader, and other characters’ observations about a character. Then the readers can pick up the hints and feel clever about their deductions.
For instance, we can show one character’s demeanor when dealing with the protagonist—and add dialogue clues to hint at character traits and the characters’ relationship with each other.
You could have a character that you want to portray as someone who talks too much. This could easily be expressed by interruptions from a second character or their signs of impatience. Or of them putting off a phone call with the character. Much better than pages and pages of chatty dialogue to prove the point.
Since I’m a mystery writer, I’m also interested in planting the wrong impression of a character. I might mislead the reader. (Other novelists might want to do the same thing, for different reasons.) Maybe the character is unnaturally chatty because they’re nervous. Maybe the second character is just an impatient person who interrupts—maybe they’re not making a point about the character’s loquaciousness at all.
Do you enjoy leaving clues to your characters’ personalities and appearance?
Image—Flickr—Brian D. Perskin
Hi Elizabeth,
I *love* to leave clues as to who (or what!) characters are when I’m writing. In my current WIP, I’m misleading, hinting, and in one case, never revealing to the protag OR to the reader who someone really is. The fun part is that the other secondary characters are in on the secret, although it’s not something they’re maliciously hiding. They simply assume the protag knows. I’m sure some readers will figure it out, which I hope is fun for them. I might explicitly reveal it in book #2. We’ll see. ;)
Thanks for another great post! Have a great weekend!
I do love writing in clues, not that good at it yet.
People watching is a great way to discover character traits and description to use in a story.
T
Elizabeth – Your example of indirect characterisation is so excellent! One of the things that I find about character development is that the more real-life it is, the more interesting the characters. In real life, we learn about characters indirectly and most importantly, we learn about ourselves through what we think of others. So why shouldn’t it be that way in fiction? In other words, anything that makes a story more real-life enhances it and that includes the way characters are revealed.
This is so something I have to learn to do. Writing fiction isn’t for sissies.
Karen
There’s so much that can be revealed in interaction. That’s what makes people watching so valuable – we get to see it in action.
I’m working on being better at this!
Thanks for the insights and ideas! I’m working on the notes and outline for my first mystery and I need all the help I can get! I read your blog faithfully.
Naomi
I’m not a fan of chunks of description either. I’d much rather read snippets that give me insights into the characters. I think I’m getting better at doing that in my own writing :)
Sophisticated character showing and development (including misleading) is a sign of a good author. It’s a lot more interesting that info dump >:)
Cold As Heaven
Tracy–I love your twist on this! That the supporting characters are in on the fun–and I bet the readers will love it, too!
Journaling Woman–I’ve gotten better about surrepticiously watching them. :)
Diane–I love people-watching better than people-interacting!
Margot–Very good point–it’s all about impressions of people, isn’t it (especially those all-important first impressions!)
Alex–Me too. :)
Karen–There’s always something to work on, isn’t there? I feel like there’s always something I’m struggling with!
Naomi–Thanks so much! I really appreciate your coming by.
Jemi–It’s amazing how quickly I start to skim!
Cold As Heaven–And misleading is always so much fun! :)
As a reader, it’s so much more fun if I figure out the character of the character myself, without being directly told what to think. Great post, Elizabeth.