Bringing Characters to Life on the Page

How to effectively reveal characters through showing and telling.

- TIFFANY YATES MARTIN

The most exquisitely developed characters in the world won't make an impact unless those characterizations are clear and vivid in the pages of your story.

Bringing characters to life on the page comprises a myriad of context and detail that, if done well, may seem invisible to readers, but which work together to create a full, cohesive picture in their minds of who your characters are, who they have been, and who they are becoming.

It's not an exaggeration to suggest that character is revealed in every moment, every choice, every reaction.

Every detail in your story can be used intentionally to create and convey character and character arc.

Elements of Characterization

We learn who characters are the same way we get to know people in real life: We are introduced to them, we get a first impression, we see how they act and behave, what they do, how they react and interact, and little by little, we form a composite, ever-deepening picture of who they are.

Every thought, preference, motivation, preoccupation, behavior, interaction, etc., can convey something about them: what they drive, drink, wear, eat, listen to, watch, do, love, hate. Their mannerisms, habits, verbiage and dialect, vocabulary, grooming, demeanor, affect, expressions. Their actions and inaction. What they say and how they say it, and when they say it, and why they say it-and what they don't say. Their ideology, worldview, beliefs. Their illusions and assumptions.

But creating complete, fully fleshed characters doesn't happen believably and effectively in swaths of info dump or long passages of description or information. Like an Impressionist painting, characters take on depth, dimension, and texture with countless layered brushstrokes of detail, and every single moment of the character on the page is a chance for you to lay in another stroke of color.