How to introduce characters
Imagine you’re at a party.
You know the host, but everybody else is a stranger. After a few minutes of standing around awkwardly, half-empty glass in your hand, you decide to introduce yourself to a similarly friendless guest. You extend your hand; they roll their eyes and walk away. Chances are your first impression of them isn’t going to be positive.
But what if you’d simply managed to meet them after a particularly bad day? 364 days a year they are charming, friendly, and eager to make new friends. You just happened to approach them at a party they didn’t even want to be at on account of them losing their job, crashing their car, and finding a new bald spot all in the one day.
Aside from your feelings being hurt, you’ve just experienced a false introduction. This is where you meet someone who is not behaving in their typical way. One of the drawbacks of this is that it can take a long time before your opinion of them changes, and catches up with reality.
False introductions aren’t limited to real life.
When writing a story, every character (except for secret agents, probably … ) should be introduced in a way that shows us exactly who they are. If they’re brave, make their first scene feature them rescuing an orphan from an incoming train. If they’re awkward, open with a room full of people staring in horror after listening to their naively inappropriate gastro story.
Ask yourself: what is the most important quality of this character? Then, showcase that quality the first time they appear in your story. If you don’t, you risk your readers forming an unintended impression of them. It may then take several chapters before they get the right idea, but by then will they even still be reading? If your reader’s first impression of a character is wrong, then nothing that character does afterwards will feel completely believable.
Of course, characters need to change throughout their story. An introductory scene only needs to reveal who they are at that moment. But, once established, their arc will stand out and resonate more with your readers.
Let’s look at some examples.
Back in primary school, The Book of Three was my introduction to ‘proper’ books. Until then it had been pretty much nothing but Asterix comics and how-to guides on becoming a spy. I had read the entire series multiple times by high school and haven’t touched it since. Too frightened to discover that I don’t enjoy them anymore, I guess.
Take a look at the first few paragraphs of chapter one, and pay attention to how the protagonist, Taran, is introduced:
TARAN WANTED to make a sword; but Coll, charged with the practical side of his education, decided on horseshoes. And so it had been horseshoes all morning long. Taran’s arms ached, soot blackened his face. At last he dropped the hammer and turned to Coll, who was watching him critically.
‘Why?’ Taran cried. ‘Why must it be horseshoes? As if we had any horses!’
Coll was stout and round and his great bald head glowed bright pink. ‘Lucky for the horses,’ was all he said, glancing at Taran’s handiwork.
‘I could do better at making a sword,’ Taran protested. ‘I know I could.’ And before Coll could answer, he snatched the tongs, flung a strip of red-hot iron to the anvil, and began hammering away as fast as he could.
It’s an innocuous scene, but it achieves a lot. It shows us his what (probably an apprentice of some kind, poor, and fairly young), his when (medieval) and his where (forge). Most importantly however, it shows us his who. Taran is impetuous, bored, and disrespectful. He wants more than a life of servitude and has just about reached his limit.
This scene immediately shows us a bit of who Taran is; more is revealed throughout the stories. The author, Lloyd Alexander, has made a conscious choice to reveal these aspects of Taran’s character. Almost identical, in fact, to the introduction of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.
In Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, we first see Eleanor at the doctor’s. There, she explains that her back pain is caused by the combined weight of her breasts, around 3 kg. She knows this because she weighed one on her kitchen scales, and assumed the other would be roughly the same. Her matter-of-factness and lack of social awareness tells us almost everything we need to know about her.
This same technique works just as well in films and TV. One of my favourite series ever, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, introduces us to Midge by having her give a very funny, impromptu wedding speech. It reveals that she is quick-witted, confident, and a dedicated partner to her new husband. Similarly, I don’t think I will ever forget the first time I saw Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The way he poses on the mast of his sinking boat and nonchalantly steps onto the pier just at the last second tells us everything we need to know about his audacity, charisma, and piratical ability.
There are so many good examples out there. The bizarre arrival of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (the original film, we don’t talk about that other one), the opening action sequence in every James Bond film ever, or Sokka’s confidence and Katara’s lack thereof while fishing in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
So what’s the tl;dr?
Pick a character.
Boil down their essence into one or two characteristics.
Reveal these qualities in their introductory scene.
Repeat as necessary.
As always,
Happy writing.
