How to Write Character Introductions
Last week, I wrote about Seth Godin’s idea that we should tell people our super power when we meet them and how that I believe that what we ought to do is introduce others and tell their super power . Today, I want to look at his idea in another way in that I want to talk about how we introduce our characters in our writing. It may work in the comic books, but in a novel, having a character step into a scene and describe himself is down right lazy. Also, it comes across as hollow or conceited. We naturally feel a little suspicious of self descriptions. Another method is to have the narrator introduce the character. We tend to believe the narrator. If he says our character is the smartest person in town, he is. If the narrator says a character is beautiful, she is. But this method does have its problems. It doesn’t work well with first person and close third person. Some authors have tried to get around this by having the character look into a mirror so the character can see her reflec...