This is the final blog in the How to Introduce a Character series. In the first three blogs, we touched on the basics, tips on how to introduce characters, and examples from both films and books. This blog will complete the examples and ways to introduce a character, whether main or side.
Ways to Introduce a Character:
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing allows your audience to experience characters before they are formally introduced. They get a hint of who the villains or heroes are before the person arrives on the page or screen. This helps build anticipation and reputation. Other characters act as witnesses to help establish a character before he or she is revealed. This helps heighten the tension, threat and character ahead of time. Think of this as a glimpse at what is to come. It’s Darth Vader’s reputation before he appears on screen in Star Wars: A New Hope or the shark in Jaws before he lunges toward the boat. Even Gatsby’s reputation reaches his guests before he arrives on the scene. Hannibal Lecter too. The opening scenes of Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris sets up Lecter’s evil acts and menace before Clarice ever steps foot in the prison.
It begins with Jack Crawford explaining to Clarice that the FBI is trying to interview all serial killers in custody, but one has refused. Then he asks:
“Do you spook easily, Starling?”
To which she responds:
“Not yet.”
Then he tells her who he wants her to interview:
“The psychiatrist—Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” Crawford said. A brief silence follows the name, always, in any civilized gathering.
Starling looked at Crawford steadily, but she was too still. “Hannibal the Cannibal,” she said.
“Yes.”“Yes, well—Okay, right. I’m glad of the chance, but you have to know why I’m wondering—why me?”
This sets up the persona of Hannibal Lecter before he ever appears on the page or screen. It’s the anticipation of meeting Lecter that increase the tension and unsettles the reader. This impression is heightened as she talks to Dr. Chilton at the facility holding Lecter, and he warns her of the rules:
“Do not reach through the bars, do not touch the bars. You pass him nothing but soft papers. No pens, no pencils. He has his own felt-tipped pens some of the time. The paper you pass him must be free of staples, paper clips, or pins. Items are only passed to him through the sliding food carrier. Items come back out through the sliding food carrier. No exceptions. Do not accept anything he attempts to hold out to you through the barrier. Do you understand me?”
Chilton then shares stories of Lecter’s various acts of violence and attempts at escape.
All of this foreshadows the evil the audience is primed to meet in the sociopath known as Hannibal the Cannibal. Until Starling comes upon the man himself:
“Dr. Hannibal Lecter himself reclined on his bunk, perusing the Italian edition of Vogue. He held the loose pages in his right hand and put them beside him one by one with his left. Dr. Lecter has six fingers on his left hand.
Clarice introduces herself.
Dr. Lecter considered, his finger pressed against his pursed lips. Then he rose in his own time and came forward smoothly in his cage, stopping short of the nylon web without looking at it, as though he chose the distance.
She could see that he was small, sleek; in his hands and arms she saw wiry strength like her own.
“Good morning,” he said, as thought he had answered the door. His cultured voice has a slight metallic rasp beneath it, probably from disuse.
Dr. Lecter’s eyes are maroon and they reflect the light in pinpoints of red. Something the points of light seem to fly like sparks to his center. His eyes hold Starling whole.
Another way to handle this is through a bald statement that hooks the reader. Here is an example from Alan Alda’s autobiography, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed:
My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that. Her detached gaze, the secret smile. Something.
Foreshadowing helps elevate a character before being introduced. But be sure that the character lives up to the foreshadowing. Using this technique when it isn’t warranted can cost you readers.
Reversal of Expectations
A reversal of expectations is akin to foreshadowing. It too uses your audiences’ preconceived notions of a character against them. Where they might expect competence, they get bumbling. Where they expect refinement, they get buffoonery. Where they expect magical, ordinary, before another reversal to type. These examples refer to Inspector Clouseau from the Pink Panther films; Mozart in Amadeus; and Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original with Gene Wilder) respectively. In each of these film examples, the audience expected one outcome and got another.
This technique is often found in romances where the meet cute is really a meet hate. The main characters begin at odds without a speck of romance or love present (except maybe a spark they fight against). Then comes the reversal when they fall in love and are brave enough to admit it. Reversals also happen, in a much longer form, with twist endings. Your reader expects one outcome and gets another. This type of reversal is saved for the ending, but it is reversal all the same. Think of it as a long con.
It also works in nonfiction, as evidenced in Shonda Rhimes’ memoir Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person:
I’m a liar.
And I don’t care who knows it.
I make stuff up all the time.
Before you start speculating on my character and my sanity…let me explain myself. I make stuff up because I have to. It’s not just something I like to do. I mean, I do like to do it. I thoroughly enjoy making stuff up. Fingers-crossed-behind-my-back flights of fancy make my motor run, shake my groove thing, turn me on.
I do like to make stuff up.
I love it.
It’s also kind of ingrained in me. My brain? My brain naturally just leans in the direction of half truths; my brain turns toward fiction. Like a flower to the sun. Like writing with my right hand. Fabrication is like a bad habit that feels good, easy to pick up, hard to quit. Spinning tall tales, knitting yarns made of stories, is my dirty little vice. I like it.
But it’s not just a bad habit. I need to do it. I have to do it.
It turns out that making stuff up?
Is a job.
For real.
Seriously.
She tells you one thing: she’s a liar. She plays on that statement and drags it out for some tension. Then she tells you it’s her job, which is a reversal from the path she has laid with her honesty about lying. This is a fun audiobook to listen to as she tells her story of spending one year saying yes to everything.
Another example from fiction can be found in News of the World by Paulette Jiles:
She seemed to be about ten years old, dressed in the horse Indians’ manner in a deerskin shift with four rows of elk teeth sewn across the front. A thick blanket was pulled over her shoulders.Her hair was the color of maple sugar and in it she wore two down puffs bound onto a lock of her hair by their minute spines and also bound with a thin thread was a wing-feather from a golden eagle slanting between them. She sat perfectly composed, wearing the feather and a necklace of glass beads as if they were costly adornments. Her eyes were blue and her skin that odd bright color that occurs when fair skin has been burned and weathered by the sun. She had no more expression than an egg.
The reader doesn’t expect the last line of that description. It is a reversal of expectation that helps solidify the character in the reader’s mind. This is not an ordinary girl and the reader should not expect ordinary actions or reactions moving forward.
Through Bits
Sometimes it pays off to reveal characters in tiny bits. Iconic symbols that define them, like Indiana Jones’ hat and whip. Just watch the first five minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark to see how Indy’s character is revealed in glimpses before he is ever shown completely. Before you see his face, you already know what to expect. The same is true for the rumbles in the water glasses in Jurassic Park. You see them and know the dinosaurs are coming, way before the T-Rex appears on screen.
This technique also helps heighten tension. It allows the author to hide the whole, while revealing key symbols and details. It’s Alfred Hitchcock showing the knife through the shower curtain in Psycho, but hiding Norman Bates dressed as his mother until the end. It’s showing a white hat in a western to indicate the good guys or a swastika to reveal the opposite. Going small lets your audience anticipate who they are about to meet. Unlike the reversal above, these parts make up the whole. They are a slow reveal, but an honest one. Your reader gets what they have seen and expect from those images.
Here is an example of a first=person slow reveal from Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem:
Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I’m a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster. I’ve got Tourette’s. My mouth won’t quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I’m reading aloud, my Adam’s apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks empty of breath and tone. (If I were a Dick Tracy villain, I’d have to be Mumbles.) In this diminished form the words rush out of the cornucopia of my brain to course over the surface of the world, tickling reality like fingers on piano keys. Caressing, nudging. They’re an invisible army on a peacekeeping mission, a peaceable horde. They mean no harm. They placate, interpret, massage. Everywhere they’re smoothing down imperfections, putting hairs in place, putting ducks in a row, replacing divots. Counting and polishing the silver. Patting old ladies gently on the behind, eliciting a giggle. Only—here’s the rub—when they find too much perfection, when the surface is already buffed smooth, the ducks already orderly, the old ladies complacent, then my little army rebels, breaks into stores. Reality needs a prick here and there, a carpet needs a flaw. My words begin plucking at threads nervously, seeing purchase, a weak point, a vulnerable ear. That’s when it comes, the urge to shout in the church, the nursery, the crowded movie house. It’s an itch at first. Inconsequential. But that itch is soon a torrent behind a straining dam. Noah’s flood. The itch is my whole life. Here it comes now. Cover your ears. Build an ark.
“Eat me!” I scream.
You get bits of Lionel’s character before you understand what they mean. This slow reveal helps you understand his voice and actions. They lead you into his world and experience slowly so you understand when he starts to yell and twitch.
Pacing
Slowing your character’s introduction allows your reader to get to know your character more in depth. If you rush your introductions you lose the opportunity to establish the longer form of character development. This technique is helpful for character-driven stories where development is the crux of the plot. Here is an example of how pacing helps Laura Hillenbrand introduce her subject in Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption:
In the predawn darkness of August 26, 1929, in the back bedroom of a small house in Torrance, California, a twelve-year-old boy sat up in bed, listening. There was a sound coming from outside, growing ever louder. It was a huge, heavy rush, suggesting immensity, a great parting of air. It was coming from directly above the house. The boy swung his legs off his bed, raced down the stairs, slapped open the back door, and loped onto the grass. The yard was otherworldly, smothered in unnatural darkness, shivering with sound. The boy stood on the lawn beside his older brother, head thrown back, spellbound.
The sky had disappeared. An object that he could see only in silhouette, reaching across a massive arc of space, was suspended low in the air over the house. It was longer than two and a half football fields and as tall as a city. It was putting out the stars.
What he saw was the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin. At nearly 800 feet long and 110 feet high, it was the largest flying machine ever crafted. More luxurious than the finest airplane, gliding effortlessly over huge distances, built on a scale that left spectators gasping, it was, in the summer of ’29, the wonder of the world.
This opening gives us a baseline for a boy who years later would be captured by the Germans and held prisoner. It sets the reader up for dramatic contrast and growth over the course of the book.
Comparison
What you say and what you leave out carries weight. Character introductions rely on the author to reveal what is needed and no more. For example, in three short paragraphs, Susanna Clarke draws a distinct picture of Miss Wintertowne in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell:
There was no on there.
Which is to say there was someone there. Miss Wintertowne lay upon the bed, but it would have puzzled philosophy to say now whether she were someone or no one at all.
They had dressed her in a white gown and hung a silver chain about her neck; they had combed and dressed her beautiful hair and put pearl-and-garnet earrings in her ears. But it was extremely doubtful whether Miss Wintertowne cared about such things any more. They had lit candles and laid a good fire in the hearth, they had put roses about the room, which filled it with a sweet perfume, but Miss Wintertowne could have lain now with equal composure in the foulest-smelling garret in the city.
Clarke begins the introduction by denying anyone exists, then goes on to describe a beautifully adorned woman in a warmly lit room with flowers, only to reverse it all by saying that Miss Wintertowne would be the same in a foul place. The comparison of the high-brow room is at odds with the description of the decrepit quality of life. This reveals more about Miss Wintertowne’s condition than any amount of telling could.
Likewise, the next excerpt from If the Creek Don’t Rise by Leah Weiss, shows the state of the main character’s relationship with her father by sharing one act, which is all that is needed to show a lifetime of neglect. She doesn’t need to add more.
Daddy loves me better in death than he ever did in life. In life, when I was ten, with my hair in crooked braids, me sitting on a overturned bucket in a corner of the kitchen, watching the men round the table gamble, he threw a night with me in the poker pot instead of five dollars he don’t have. Granny and Aunt Marris never heard what he done, and I don’t say cause they’d take a belt to him and take me away from him when he needs me. Daddy won the hand. Said he counted on it. But he woulda made good on his bet if he’d lost. He won’t go back on his word.
Characters are everything in stories. They are how readers and audiences connect to what is happening. Getting the introduction right is paramount. Did I leave anything out? Let me know below.