Less is More: Characterization

The original draft of Lucid began (after the prologue) with a 4,320 word journal entry from the main character about consciousness, God, other “mysteries of life,” money vs. passion, competition vs. cooperation, and his quarter-life crisis. I received feedback early on that perhaps it was too long. Perhaps I would even consider cutting it?

But no, I had a style. I wanted the reader to know the main character as intimately as possible. I wanted full immersion. Journal entries and dreams were media for this effort, and I loved every word I’d written.

Over time I cut that first entry a bit. Then a bit more. I started to get it that readers learn as much, if not more, about characters by what they say and do. The concept of "show, don’t tell" was sinking in. And the flow of the story was improving. I eventually deleted the entire thing. It wasn’t an easy decision. There was a lot of me in those passages, and I loved them. But as Stephen King says in On Writing, sometimes you have to kill your darlings. I remember telling my wife that I’d cut it and her politely saying that she thought it was a good idea (as opposed to I told you so).

My editor did a great job of articulating the concept of less is more when it comes to characterization. Below is an excerpt from the developmental memo he wrote for me for Lucid, with character names redacted. I include excerpts from this memo in two other posts, one about point of view, the other about dialogue, in case you want to read more. And if you’re interested in that journal entry, here’s a small piece of it: Dear Confused Self.

Developmental memo excerpt

I felt as if I learned much more about [character A] [in these chapters] than I did in [these other chapters], even though those other chapters were packed with journal entries and so on. Why is this? I’d say that a large part of it is that there is so much navel-gazing that structures those other chapters—via internal monologue, very lengthy journal entries, dream sequences, text and phone conversations, and so on—that readers, if they don’t give up, will likely just skip over much of those chapters searching for action, for immediacy. If I remember correctly, you said that some of your first readers mentioned something to the effect that nothing “happens” in those chapters, which is another way of saying that there’s very little suspense, little tension.

Characterization needn’t take lengthy exposition and extensive peeks into his journals and text messages, etc. Renni Browne: “A lot of writers seem to feel they have to give their readers a clear understanding of a new character before they can get on with their story. They never bring a character onstage without a brief personality summary . . . in effect, the writer is psychoanalyzing the characters for their readers.” In [character A’s] case, however, his “personality summary” isn’t brief, but exhaustive. Readers are smart. A few artful descriptions or characterizations in the beginning is all they really need to get a decent fix on where your protagonist is in his life.

For example, imagine that, say, instead of thousands of words of journal entries and such, character B walks through the apartment door: Character A stopped writing when he heard the keys in the hallway. He set his pen on the coffee table, splayed the journal across his chest. He reached for the potato chips. Character B sailed through the front door, cell phone to her ear, probably planning one thing or another. She was always planning, character A thought. [Pet] pawed at character B’s shin as she placed her keys in a little wooden bowl on the table next to the threshold. She looked at character A on the couch, pointed at the journal on his chest, and gave him that look again, that look that said, You’re writing about quantum physics or consciousness or the meaning of life or something again, aren’t you? Character A popped a chip into his mouth, crunched on it. “What?” he said, wide-eyed, barely able to suppress a smile.

Note how much is going on here, how much is being revealed—and with such a scarcity of words. We get a sense of [A and B’s] relationship and how close they are—how much they understand each other. We also get an idea of what’s on A’s mind these days. Most important, we’re learning about the characters through actions, through behavior, and through dialogue—the building blocks of immediacy, of scenes. And we’re learning about everyone piecemeal; that is, we’re avoiding extensive “personality summary,” as Browne puts it. And if these chapters are handled more this way, then once A meets D and learns [about stuff], and once he meets E and begins to learn [other stuff], readers will feel as if they’re witnessing A’s growth, his personal development, his psychospiritual awakening—not as if they’re watching A realize slightly more clearly what he’s already believed to some extent from the beginning.

If I were to suggest broad strokes for these chapters, here’s what they’d be: Reduce it by one- to two-thirds, with a focus on immediate actions between A, B and perhaps up to two or three friends of theirs. Cut the texts and journal entries and dream sequences as much as possible—not entirely, because dreams and their symbols are clearly important subjects of the book and are important to you, too. (Pages 60 through 63, for example, are probably much longer than necessary.) Also, cut the information dump related to [marginal characters] on pp. 34–36. None of these characters show up again—readers will likely be confused by this. Consider reducing the timeline of these chapters from five to six weeks, as it currently is, to less than a week. This will bring greater control, discipline, and focus to these chapters. It will also heighten the suspense and tension.