After receiving feedback on something I had written for a contest, I began searching websites for ways I could better develop my fictional characters. I came across the terms direct and indirect characterization. One website I found this morning and downloaded was www.nownovel.com. There was a piece written by someone simply named Jordan. He writes, and I quote, direct characterization means the character details authors explicitly describe. For example, telling the reader a character's desires, life philosophy or current emotional state explicitly.
Indirect characterization, he goes on to write, shows readers your characters' traits without explicitly describing them. He mentions types of indirect characterization as any writing that helps us infer or deduce things about a person's personality.
Dialogue - where a character's bossy, kind, mean, or other qualities come through.
Actions - what a character does (for example jumping on a beetle to squash it) reveals, incidentally, their character (in this case that a character is needlessly unkind or violent).
Description - how a character looks often gives indirect characterization. We might assume, for example, a pale-skinned character is antisocial and hides away from the sun.
Jordan goes on with examples from Steinbeck, Virginia Woolf and Dickens.
Would you be open to posting examples of direct or indirect characterization from your own writing?
Indirect characterization, he goes on to write, shows readers your characters' traits without explicitly describing them. He mentions types of indirect characterization as any writing that helps us infer or deduce things about a person's personality.
Dialogue - where a character's bossy, kind, mean, or other qualities come through.
Actions - what a character does (for example jumping on a beetle to squash it) reveals, incidentally, their character (in this case that a character is needlessly unkind or violent).
Description - how a character looks often gives indirect characterization. We might assume, for example, a pale-skinned character is antisocial and hides away from the sun.
Jordan goes on with examples from Steinbeck, Virginia Woolf and Dickens.
Would you be open to posting examples of direct or indirect characterization from your own writing?