Breathing Life into Characters

Picture a protagonist who stumbles upon a mysterious artifact but shows no curiosity, or a group of friends who sit down separately at the summit of a hike under a breathtaking sunset, without a moment of communal awe.

Keeping your characters engaged with the story keeps readers engaged with it, too. Whenever something significant happens in the story, readers expect the characters to sit up, notice, and process its impact at some level.

The plot’s unfolding impact on the characters lends an organic quality to the storytelling. The characters’ reactions and their attempts to derive meaning from the events around them make the story seem kinetic, vital, living.

This meaning can’t be adequately conveyed by exposition; that would be “telling,” not “showing.” Instead, giving readers direct access to the context allows them to discover the meaning for themselves. This means exposing your characters’ interpretive process—their emotions, thoughts, and reflections about what’s happening around them.

Read more: 3 action-reaction misfires that flatten your writing

Writing Strategy: The Progress Report

Think of folding character interiority into a passage to create a “progress report,” showing the character’s ongoing impressions of what they know and feel so far while the action is still unfolding.

“Simply recognize that there will be a number of sharp twists and small setbacks during the conflict portion of the scene,” writes Jack M. Bickham in Scene & Structure, “and your viewpoint character will experience each of these turns as a stimulus; before he replies in most cases you the author have the option going into his brief internalization concerning what was just said or done. It is in these internalizations that you can remind the reader what’s at stake, and how things seem to be going in the opinion of the viewpoint character.”

When it seems time to check in with your viewpoint character’s sense of how things are progressing, ask yourself these questions:

• How does the character think things are going so far?

• Are they closing in on their short-term and long-term goals, or are they losing ground?

• What’s their mindset when they ponder their goals: anticipation, hope, determination, trepidation, gloom?

Building the Stream of Perspective

Progress checks don’t need to be purely analytical. Action beats also help convey a character’s emotions and show how they’re adapting to what’s unfolding.

Say the boss has just marched into the room with the announcement “All of that data is out of date.” You may be tempted to give your poor protagonist an action beat like Jason sighed.

Although that sigh is clichéd and a bit flat—a sigh alone doesn’t tell readers whether Jason is dejected, pissed, or what—your instinct to put a reaction right there is spot on. That’s where readers expect your protagonist’s reaction. That’s where readers want to see how the announcement matters to Jason.

So infuse that action beat with thought to turn it into a statement of intention: As the room exploded with protests, Jason tossed his useless notepad into the trash and groped in the bottom drawer for his whiskey flask. 9:36 p.m.—this was going to be a butt-burner of a night. Now readers know the protagonist’s state of mind: While everyone else is still carping over the problem, Jason’s already bracing himself to correct it. This progress check tells readers what he thinks is important at this point and what he’s planning to do next.

Progress checks like this are the connective tissue that sweeps a story from one point to the next. Keep this burbling stream of perspective turned on throughout every scene.

Opening New Avenues

At their most effective, progress checks serve as more than mere acknowledgments. They’re often insights of some sort, showing the character’s first glimmer of potential solutions.

• Uncovering new consequences

• Understanding another character

• Grasping a problem

• Fathoming the story world

Read more: The link between character thought and credibility

Don’t Wait to React

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A major influx of realizations and new information for the viewpoint character often signals that it’s time for a dedicated reflection sequence or scene—but that doesn’t imply you should reserve all emotions, reactions, and thoughts solely for post-action review sessions.

Thought constitutes the most narratively significant part of your viewpoint character’s perspective. It offers readers the sense of an unfolding, real-time experience.

Lengthy passages of dialogue or action without enough interiority leave readers locked outside the character’s frame of reference. When thought is saved exclusively for a post-action analysis, it often comes across more like a narrator’s explanation than spontaneous character experience. Inner life that’s tacked on in flabby lumps after the action or dialogue is over can feel forced.

So stay in touch with the characters’ reactions on every page—sometimes every paragraph. Keep the spigot of your viewpoint character’s interior analysis flowing. Infuse every page with their opinionated judgments and personal perspective about virtually everything they encounter.

Crafting effective character reactions that move the story forward is an art. Taking the time to unlock your character’s perspective, however, makes the story moving and memorable.

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