On Character Recognition

No, not that kind of OCR.

You don’t have to look far, on Substack or elsewhere, to find a ton of advice on how to 'develop' characters, and on the need to establish them swiftly in the mind of the reader. I thought I’d look at a few examples from books I’ve particularly enjoyed, and which in many cases remain very important to me.

I’ve ordered them chronologically; feel free to draw your own conclusions about any significance this may or may not have.

And I’m starting with a book that remains hugely popular over 200 years since first publication. (It is a truth universally acknowledged that you won’t actually need me to identify it for you.)

Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813

It’s all a bit second-hand, isn’t it? At this point we might have expected to get Lizzy’s direct impressions, rather than this sort of collective judgement… but we’ll get there soon enough. And this was an era when the judgement of 'society' was massively important. Still, what this paragraph does do, and pretty efficiently, is deliver a good deal of significant information about the whole Netherfield party but particularly—and crucially—about Darcy, including his ten thousand a year and large estate in Derbyshire.

By the way, does this count as 'showing' or 'telling'? Or something in between? And does it matter, if it gets the job done?

This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts, test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames. There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. 'I've found it! I've found it,' he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. 'I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else.' Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his features.
'Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,' said Stamford, introducing us.
'How are you?' he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. 'You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.'
'How on earth did you know that?' I asked in astonishment.

Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, 1887

This is our first sight of Sherlock Holmes. Coming about five pages in it’s rather sooner than our first glimpse of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, but I reckon modern editors would have told Doyle to get to the meat a lot quicker. In the first page and a half we have pretty nearly Watson’s entire life-story, and then, when he meets his friend Stamford, we get a chunk of second-hand, and rather vague, description of Holmes. Few modern readers are going to think the book really comes to life before the passage quoted above—and then we’re kept waiting for Holmes to explain his comment, 'You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.' Well, it’s a hook.

BTW, though not strictly relevant to characterisation, who’s noticed that two pages later, as Holmes and Watson get acquainted, Watson remarks, “I keep a bull pup"? And is the poor pup ever mentioned again or just abandoned?

'Oh damn!' said Lord Peter Wimsey at Piccadilly Circus. 'Hi, driver!'
The taxi man, irritated at receiving this appeal while negotiating the intricacies of turning into Lower Regent Street across the route of a 19 bus, a 38-B and a bicycle, bent an unwilling ear.
'I’ve left the catalogue behind,' said Lord Peter deprecatingly, 'uncommonly careless of me. D'you mind puttin' back to where we came from?'
'To the Savile Club, sir?'
'No - 110a Piccadilly - just beyond - thank you.'
'Thought you was in a hurry,' said the man, overcome with a sense of injury.
'I’m afraid it's an awkward place to turn in,' said Lord Peter, answering the thought rather than the words. His long, amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola.

Dorothy L Sayers, Whose Body?, 1923

From the first appearance of one famous detective to another—and dare I say we’re now in the hands of a superior writer? These are the very first paragraphs of the first Wimsey book. How much do they tell us about him? Actually, not that much, apart from his address, but just enough to intrigue. And just how much work is done here in fifteen words? His long, amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat.

'Is she young?'
'It's too far to tell.'
'But I can guess who it is. It must be poor Tragedy.'
'Tragedy?'
'A nickname. One of her nicknames.'
'And what are the others?'
'The fishermen have a gross name for her.'
‘My dear Tina, you can surely—'
'They call her the French Lieutenant's Woman.'
'Indeed. And is she so ostracised that she has to spend her days out here?'
'She is… a little mad. Let us turn. I don't like to go near her.'
They stopped. He stared at the black figure.
'But I'm intrigued. Who is this French lieutenant?
'A man she is said to have…’
'Fallen in love with?'
'Worse than that.'
'And he abandoned her? There is a child?
'No. I think no child. It is all gossip.'
'But what is she doing there?
'They say she waits for him to return.'

John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1969

This first sighting of the title character comes in Chapter Two, but that’s okay. The 'Woman'—Sarah—remains an enigmatic figure until much further in. It’s entirely appropriate that she’s introduced in this distant way, as the object of rumour and gossip. And when you know that the participants in this exchange, Charles and Tina, are a respectably engaged Victorian couple, then the moment where Tina wants to turn away but Charles—'intrigued'—insists on a closer approach… well, it isn’t just offering us insight into his character but establishing much of the narrative impetus for the whole book.

And, by the way, the 1981 film, directed by Karel Reisz, not only succeeds in adapting a book many had thought 'unfilmable', it arguably adds to our understanding of it. My tip for best 'film of the book'… ever.

'You're kidding, right?'
I read the sign (people change it occasionally), and shook my head. 'No, I'm serious. Can I have my mail, please.'
'So, uh. Like parties, shows, stuff like that?' He looked past me, as though he expected to see a white tiger, or possibly some skimpily clad assistants prancing around my one-room office.
I sighed, not in the mood to get mocked again, and reached for the mail he held in his hand. 'No, not like that. I don't do parties.'
He held on to it, his head tilted curiously. 'So what? Some kinda fortune-teller? Cards and crystal balls and things?'
'No,' I told him. 'I'm not a psychic.' I tugged at the mail.
He held on to it. 'What are you, then?'
'What's the sign on the door say?'
'It says 'Harry Dresden. Wizard.'
'That's me,' I confirmed.
'An actual wizard?' he asked, grinning, as though I should let him in on the joke. 'Spells and potions? Demons and incantations? Subtle and quick to anger?'
'Not so subtle.' I jerked the mail out of his hand and looked pointedly at his clipboard. 'Can I sign for my mail please.'

Jim Butcher, Storm Front, 2000

Not quite the very beginning, but this is from Page One, Book One, of the second-greatest urban fantasy series. Obviously it’s telling us that Harry Dresden has a sign on his door that says 'Wizard', which is a good start; but there are quite a few other clues to his character and situation—like 'people change it occasionally' and 'not in the mood to get mocked again'. And we aren’t going to be surprised when he turns out to have a ready supply of barbed quips and one-liners.

Jackson switched on the radio and listened to the reassuring voice of Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour. He lit a new cigarette from the stub of the old one because he had run out of matches, and faced with a choice between chain-smoking or abstinence he’d taken the former option because it felt like there was enough abstinence in his life already. If he got the cigarette lighter on the dashboard fixed he wouldn’t have to smoke his way through the packet but there were a lot of other things that needed fixing on the car and the cigarette lighter wasn't high on the list

Jackson drove a black Alfa Romeo 156 which he’d bought second-hand four years ago for £13,000 and was now probably worth less than the Emmelle Freedom mountain bike he had just given his daughter for her eighth birthday (with the proviso that she didn't cycle on the road until she was at least forty).

Kate Atkinson, Case Histories, 2004

Where 'literary' meets 'genre', and ruthlessly exposes the limitations of such categorisations. And look how much we pick up in the first couple of paragraphs of the first Jackson Brodie-centric chapter. There’s the forensic exactitude of the specific references: Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour (indeed, could there be a more reassuring voice?); the colour, model and price of the car; the model of the mountain bike, and all the implications of 'that she didn't cycle on the road until she was at least forty'. But there are more allusive/elusive references too: 'enough abstinence in his life already'; 'a lot of other things that needed fixing'.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Jackson… and yet, already, we know Jackson.

The body was gone, the detectives had left and the forensic people unanimously agreed there was nothing more that could be done until dawn - which was three hours away. Until then, they just needed a couple of mugs to guard the crime scene until shift change.
Which is how I came to be standing around Covent Garden in a freezing wind at six o'clock in the morning, and why it was me that met the ghost. Sometimes I wonder whether, if I'd been the one that went for coffee and not Lesley May, my life would have been much less interesting and certainly much less dangerous. Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I'm considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, 'Who knows why the fuck anything happens?’

Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London, 2011

And so we come to the best urban fantasy series, and hello Peter Grant, who doesn’t yet know he’ll soon become the UK’s first official apprentice wizard in a very long time. 'Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny?' Right now he’s still thinking he’s a 'mug', but there’s some heavy-duty foreshadowing going on in 'and why it was me that met the ghost' as well as the bit about life being interesting/dangerous.

And who, we wonder, is Lesley May? Well, that’s a question that will resound through the whole series.

And here, for whatever it’s worth, is the opening of the first book in my Shattered Moon series.

Jerya moved quickly, climbing the steps almost at a run, hurrying beneath the Dawnsinger’s tor. There was nothing to be seen above but wrinkled and bulging stone, but every time she passed there she felt as if the rocks themselves were watching her.
Just beyond, by two lesser pillars of rock, the path split; but one was forbidden, the Singer's private path to… who knew what? Curiosity burned within her, as always, but there were some rules even she dare not break. She kept to the main path, moderating her pace now, calming her breathing. Above, the moons were pale ghosts of themselves in the bright sky.
The day had begun cool, the stonecourt still in shade, yet Jerya had felt the promise of heat in the air. She bent to her work with extra speed, attending to the ebb and flow of gossip even less than usual. As the heat and glare grew, the women began gathering their things and grumbling their way inside. When no one was looking, Jerya had simply stepped back between two of the great boulders and waited for the court to empty.
At the next fork, both ways were open to her, but today's destination was already settled in her mind. Today the forest called, and she spared only a fleeting glance for the other path rising to the right, towards the moor.

She had climbed that way times beyond counting. On top of the moor her small world became great.

Jon Sparks, Three Kinds of North, 2023

You’ll have to judge how successful this is, but I have at least aimed to do quite a few things here. You’ve got the allusions to the Dawnsinger and to the moons, plural. Are we on another world, or is this Earth after some sort of calamity? And who or what is a Dawnsinger?

And, I hope, we’re learning a few things about Jerya. 'Curiosity burned within her, as always, but there were some rules even she dare not break.' 'Attending to the ebb and flow of gossip even less than usual.' 'On top of the moor her small world became great.' But really the whole of the first chapter (2700 words) serves to introduce us to Jerya and her 'small world'—just in time for the moment when she’ll be abruptly thrust into a larger one.

I’ve no neat conclusions to offer about the 'right' way to introduce a key character. Far from it; I think these extracts—chosen partly by whim and partly by convenience of having the text to hand—illustrate that there is no one right way. The question is not 'is this done according to formula', only 'does it work?' And I can only hope my offering gets a thumbs-up along with the rest.