In his deeply philosophical and thought-provoking book How Fiction Works, James Wood talks
about the danger for apprentice writers of showing their characters in static
mode, and I can see where he's coming from.
It's tempting to describe the appearance of your hero or heroine, and
talk about what their job is and where they live, all of which can be useful
background information but doesn't get to the heart of who they are. To reveal this to your reader, you need to
show them in action. By this, I don't mean describing how they
walk, or do their makeup in the morning, or chop logs, although again all of
this can help to paint a picture: you need to show them doing something
typical. If your heroine is bolshie,
show her in the middle of a blazing argument; conversely, if she is shy, show
her agonising about having to walk into a crowded room and approach somebody
that she is in awe of.
As you can see, none of this is rocket science, but it can
be easily overlooked and it adds up to the difference between looking at a
photograph and watching a film. You can
learn a certain amount from studying a picture of somebody, but it is action
which reveals them in all their different facets.
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