We all have a need for one particular skill – putting characters into somebody’s mind. I mean that literally – we want our readers to see our characters vividly.
It’s all very well to describe what a character is doing:
“He hastened down the street.” / “He looked at her bag suspiciously.” / “He pushed her aside.”
Nothing wrong with that. But what if you said, instead:
“He footed it down the road.” / “He eyed her bag.” / “He elbowed her aside.”
The phrasing that uses body parts as (slangy) verbs is far more effective at conveying the actions of the imaginary character, so much more vivid as you watch bits of him moving around that he seems almost to take up a presence in your head, rolling around in there, full of life.
I look for opportunities to use embodied movement terms like:
Kneed / Bellied up / Footed it / Headed out / Eyed / Fingered / Handed it / Elbowed / Shouldered / Tongued /Nosed /
… and that’s just for the people. Don’t overlook the four-footed actors who Lip and Paw and Bite, and Toe, etc., just as vividly.
What sorts of steps do you take to increase the vividness of your characters, to give them independent life and motion and transport them from the page to the reader’s imagination, where they can take up residence?
Mad Genius Club 
7 responses to “Homunculi”
Scents. A character who is very sensitive to scents catches reader attention, because it is unusual. Most of us generally ignore scents unless they are clearly danger signs, or especially good (or bad). Someone who is always testing the air, trying to catch hints of warning, or who associates, oh, diesel exhaust with happy memories of a place, is going to make readers curious, and seems to add color to character and world building.
Or it can make something distinctive, like a gun that has that acrid smell of spent powder mingled with mint.
(Froglube is a non toxic gun cleaner, lubricant, protector that uses, among other things, mint oil. So your guns end up smelling minty fresh. Which is memorable the first time your gun safe smells like toothpaste.)
I try to add details on characters whenever I can. Dialog is a big one-I want to avoid the ping-pong game of “he said, she said, he asked, she answered,” and I try to do things like…hm…
“You know,” Sarah mused, looking at her monitor, “Karen does have a definite point here.”
“How so?” Charles asked, fingers still tapping on his keyboard.
She turned to look at Charles over her shoulder, “The more details, big or small, you add to your text, the more depth and immersion you create. The more you create immersion, the more your characters a little more bulk.”
Charles paused, picked up his University of North Trenton mug and sipped at the lukewarm coffee, frowned at the contents of his mug, and set it down. “Most characters in a story are…well, background characters. Cut-outs at best. But nothing says you can’t give your cut-outs some depth to them. A few accessories to make you think as a reader that there is more than just another target to knock down.”
“Give me one suggestion,” Sarah smiled.
“You’re writing a werewolf romance story on spec,” Charles mused, then his voice picked up. “And we don’t know they’re werewolves until about…a quarter of the way through the story?” Sarah nodded and he continued. “For all your werewolves, don’t use human terms like said or asked such. Use canine terms like whined or growled or whimpered or snapped,” and here Charles snapped his hand out like the imaginary jaws of a very large dog, “and you’ll start to prime your audience that there is something going on with this cast.”
“You’re writing a werewolf romance story on spec,” Charles mused, then his voice picked up. “And we don’t know they’re werewolves until about…a quarter of the way through the story?” Sarah nodded and he continued. “For all your werewolves, don’t use human terms like said or asked such. Use canine terms like whined or growled or whimpered or snapped,” and here Charles snapped his hand out like the imaginary jaws of a very large dog, “and you’ll start to prime your audience that there is something going on with this cast.”
Oh, I like that idea.
1-If I was going to edit this, I would have said, “snapped his fingertips together, like the imaginary jaws of a large dog.” My bad!
2-Once again, those little added details. You can get away with a lot if there are prompts with the details ahead of time but don’t tell them until the revelation.
Writing is a battle between the generic and recondite. Thus far, I think the happy medium is winning for me.
I try to start them out doing something revealing of them, and possibly even relevant to the story.
Yani ran his hands down the old mare’s legs. Her knees weren’t bad; his last fix of her knee cartilage was holding well. Tendons, stiff, the navicular bone arthritic.
“She needs to retire. Think of the foals she could have.” He kept his voice tentative, head down like an obedient groom.