Dynamic Characters Read Free

their poached eggs.
    —Macon Dead, in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon
    Each of these descriptions creates a vivid picture (can't you just see Morgan Gower, or Carrie White?) But each also does more; it links appearance to personality, letting us glimpse the person underneath. We not only visualize Morgan, we sense his exuberant, childlike eccentricity. We are convinced that Carrie White is passive and Macon Dead is dangerous. And all from descriptions of less than a hundred words.
    HOW DO THEY DO THAT?
    These authors and the others quoted throughout this chapter achieve so much with visual description because they choose and present details that suggest more than their literal meaning. You, too, can choose from several categories of details that accomplish this. Consider the following as a literary smorgasbord, to sample as you wish.
    Use Appearance to Indicate Personality
    The technique is to choose details that match your character's inner self, and then to use language that makes that connection clear. There are hundreds of details that could be cited about anyone's appearance. Stephen King chose to describe Carrie's blemished skin, passive posture and colorless hair because they suggest an unattractive person, a victim. This suggestion is reinforced by King's word choices: stolidly, dispirited, sogginess, letting the water run off her—even the word splat to describe the water hitting her, since splat is usually a sound associated with someone being hit, rather than someone enjoying a hot shower. The facts that Carrie is plain and overweight would not, by themselves, indicate a victim—there are plenty of plain, overweight, feisty fighters in the world. It's King's diction that transforms a collection of physical details into a memorable impression.
    Similarly, Margaret Mitchell selects some details over others in describing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind:
    Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. in her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia skin. . . .
    By focusing on Scarlett's square jaw, aggressive eyebrows and feminine skin and lashes, Mitchell emphasized the contradictions within Scarlett's nature: a delicate Southern belle with a will of steel.
    Use a Character's Own Reaction to His Appearance to Indicate Personality
    This is Sylvie Fisher, from Marilynne Robinson's novel Housekeeping:
    After a while they would turn on the radio and start brushing Sylvie's hair, which was light brown and hung down to her waist. The older girls were expert at building it into pompadours with ringlets at ears and nape. Sylvie crossed her legs at the ankles and read magazines. When she got sleepy she would go off to her room and take a nap, and come down to supper with her gorgeous hair rumpled and awry. Nothing could induce vanity in her.
    From this we learn that Sylvie has long, thick brown hair. This helps us visualize her, but we actually learn more about Sylvie from her reaction to her own beauty. She is unimpressed. Rather than participate, she passively lets her sisters fiddle with her hair. She destroys their efforts carelessly, preferring sleep to vanity. Sylvie, for the entire length of Robinson's novel, remains careless and unimpressed.
    How does your character feel about her own appearance? proud? Indifferent? Dissatisfied (if so, why)? Insanely jealous of people with more attractive exteriors? Would including her reaction to another's appearance give us vital information about her? If so, do it.
    Use Appearance to Indicate a Temporary Situation
    In this