Characterization

Characterization is "the representation of characters (persons, creatures, or other beings) in narrative and dramatic works." The article splits the craft into two approaches. In direct (or explicit) characterization, "the author literally tells the audience what a character is like," through the narrator, another character, or the character themselves. In indirect (implicit) characterization, "the audience must infer for themselves what the character is like," from thoughts, actions, speech, appearance, mannerisms and interactions, and character speech in particular is "a powerful way of revealing the character's personality."

For a novelist, characterization names the whole job of putting people on the page, and modern fiction does most of it indirectly: every line of dialogue, choice and habit becomes evidence the reader assembles. The how to create characters guide covers the building of a character, want, need and flaw; the sentence-level discipline for letting inference do the work is show, don't tell.