Narrative (Part II)

Characters and Locations.

When describing characters and locations, you don’t want the narrative to break the flow of the action. You don’t want the reader to stop and ponder your words. You want your readers to be focused on what your characters are doing in the locations in which you have placed them.

Characters

When a character first enters your story, you want the reader to have a quick impression of who your character is. You create this impression by presenting the reader with the essential physical appearance and traits necessary.

An Exercise

As an exercise, go somewhere in public and look at strangers as they pass. What do you notice about them first? What opinions and ideas do you form based on those first glances? Your description of your characters is that same experience for your readers.

Tell them what they are seeing.

Tell them what they are seeing — and only what they need to know right then. You will have plenty of time later to reveal other qualities, secrets and contradictions in your character as you peel away the layers of who they are. First, your reader needs to have an impression of who they think the characters are. It can be an accurate impression, or it can be wholly wrong.