The magic that happens when turning characters into people
Some thoughts on Direct and Indirect Characterisation
I found a picture on my computer the other day, hidden away among many others in an album marked Miscellany. And in a very roundabout way, the kind of way that happens when you are looking for one thing and find something else, it lead to this piece.
The picture was taken a few years ago, on a Friday, aboard a train from Oxford where I was doing my MA in Creative Writing. I sat in a crowded carriage of commuters returning home. There was a sharp early-autumn sun slanting through the windows. An air of weekend expectancy buzzed through the conversations into phones and faces. The smell of a meat pasty hung in the air.
An older gentleman squeezed into a seat opposite, smart in a neatly knotted tie and crisp white shirt, half-hidden under a beige-coloured macintosh coat he closed tight around himself. He held a workbag on his lap, the edges worn and darkened by use, the strap still looped over his shoulder, as if he were frightened of someone snatching it away.
He had white hair, scarlet ears, and brown, unkempt eyebrows that gave him a stern look as he stared out of the window at the passing countryside, his hands clasped together stroking his knuckles with the tips of his fingers, first one hand, then the next, over and over.
When the ticket inspector came, he broke from his reverie for a moment. The two exchanged a intense, silent look. There was no attempt to ask for a ticket, no unclasping of the older man’s hands to reach for one. The ticket inspector nodded and then moved on. The man returned to his staring.
There was something fascinating about this man, the tight intent of him. Something in the droop of his jowls and the long furrows of his cheeks, the way he held himself, the nothing-and-everything interaction with the ticket inspector. And that bag – not a smart briefcase, but something altogether scruffier, cherished, well-used. I took a picture, quietly, without him noticing. It is the picture at the top of this post.
So what, you might think. Just another commuter going home. But something drew me to him, the hinterland of a life I could see in him. Maybe he was on his way back home, a neat suburban semi-detached house, living alone, the weekend an unknown, a routine to be endured. No one there to take his coat and hang it on the peg. No-one to ask how his day had been, did he want tea, isn’t that show we like on the television tonight?
Or maybe there was someone waiting for him, and inside that worn bag was precious gift for them, a framed picture of a new grandchild, or a bottle of expensive wine that would help take them both take the edge off the week.
There was contradiction and complexity in this man - the sterness of his face and those horned eyebrows spoke of an authority that played against the way he huddled and hid behind his bag. It suggested to me someone who had done things, regretted things, had wanted more, yet carried some sense of deep dignity within him.
And this is the point. When we write about characters - what they look like, what they carry, how they are dressed, the way they move – it needs to do more than simply give the reader a picture in their mind. As the British author Vanessa Gebbie once wrote:
Show me something that tells me something about the character - not just them as coat-hanger... If their blue dress is important, let the dress show me why it is. Is it unironed? Dirty - a patch of food down the front? Ancient and old fashioned? Torn in six places? Much too big for her? All those say something about HER, not the bleeding dress...”
Physical description is a form of Direct Characterisation – telling the reader what you, the author, want them to know about this character. But it only has real value when it is paired with Indirect Characterisation – the thoughts, actions, dialogue, and manner of relationships with others that add depth and humanise. It’s what takes them from characters to people in the reader’s mind.
As writers, we can use these physical attributes as a gateway to the inner world and workings of the characters during the writing and development process. But we don’t need them, necessarily, in the final text, especially when it comes to short fiction. Arguably there’s more need in longer forms, where there is the space and the demand from the reader to be able to carry a picture of the characters in their minds. But that Direct Characterisation still has to carry some weight. It has to be there for a purpose.
Let me leave you with a flash fiction piece from Diane Williams. It’s called Personal Details, which is very apt, but also an ironic title. There are no personal details in terms of Direct Characterisation of the narrator – no physical description, no name, no sense of what they look like, or how they are dressed. Nothing of their real job, or if indeed they have a job. No home life is mentioned. And yet, through the diction and syntax, through the tone of their observations, through the humour, the sexual longing for past lovers and in the situation of being an observer of an absurd world, we learn much about this character.
PERSONAL DETAILS
by Diane Williams
On the avenue, I was unavoidably stuck inside of an uproar when the wind locked itself in front of my face.
Nevertheless, I had a smeary view of a child in the whirlwind who was walking backward. He was carrying his jacket instead of wearing it. And he kicked up his feet with such aptitude.
In a luncheonette that I took cover in, I overheard "Yes, I do mind…"—this while I was raising and rearranging memories of many people's personal details, tryst locales, endearments—faces, genitalia, like Jimmy T's, or Lee's, which I pine for.
This is regular work with regular work hours that I do.
Through the window pane of the coffee shop, I could see clearly into a hair salon across the street, where two men—both with hairbrushes and small, hand-held dryers—together—down-stroked the mane of a cloaked woman.
The men were performing feats of legerdemain. Streamers sprang up around her head, as if snakes or dragons were busy eating their own tails.
And then, weighing down her shoulders, there was the golden hoard—for future use—of bullshit.
(From: The Collected Stories of Diane Williams, Soho Press, New York, 2018)