As a writer, the methods you use to reveal your characters affect your readers’ engagement with the story. Characters are the vessel through which readers experience the events of the story, so it’s important to create characters that readers can sympathize with and cheer on as they embark on their physical or emotional journey. One way to do this is via direct and indirect characterization.
Remember the concept of “showing” versus “telling”? Direct characterization uses the “telling” method, as it explicitly describes the character through physical description, desires, and passions. On the other hand, indirect characterization uses the “showing” method, as it describes a character through other means, such as their thoughts, actions, and dialogue.
Direct Characterization
So, when do you use direct characterization? Explicitly describing your characters’ personality or traits is beneficial when introducing them for the first time or revealing a character’s motivation. Take a look at this example from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
“He seemed to be a person who was always angry, and his eyes were hard and cold.”
This description of Tom Buchanan’s physical traits and personality through the eyes of the protagonist, Nick Carraway, is straightforward and clear. Readers do not need to infer anything about Tom’s character because Fitzgerald directly tells the readers these traits.
In addition, direct characterization affects the pacing of the story. Because direct characterization pauses the narrative to feed the reader descriptive details, it can significantly slow the pacing down if it is used too heavily. However, when used sparingly, direct characterization can also speed up the pacing if you use short, concise descriptions that don’t require much pause and keeps the narrative moving.
Indirect Characterization
Indirect characterization reveals a character using ways that require the reader to draw their own conclusions regarding the character’s traits and personality. These ways include a character’s thoughts, dialogue, actions, perceptions of their surroundings, or other characters’ perception of them.
As an example, let’s take a look at Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger:
“I hate actors. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding, I really hate them. It’s just that they’re so phony, you know? They’re always so interested in themselves, it drives me crazy. They don’t even act like real people.”
Salinger doesn’t directly tell us that Holden is cynical, but readers can infer this trait through his thoughts, conversations with other characters, and perception of his surroundings. The example above shows this through his thoughts and perceptions about actors. In the novel, there are many more instances in which Holden Caulfield uses the word “phony” to describe certain people, which further establishes his cynicism about the world without directly telling the reader.
Using indirect characterization is more immersive and impactful for the reader than direct characterization because it allows readers to experience the characters the way they do with people in the real world.
Balancing Direct & Indirect Characterization
While direct and indirect characterization each have their use, if you use one more than the other, you may risk losing readers’ engagement. For example, if you use too much direct characterization, readers may feel you are spoon-feeding the information to them, or worse, your characters may lack the necessary depth. In contrast, if you use too much indirect characterization, you risk readers drawing different conclusions than you intend.
This is where balancing direct and indirect characterization is key. You can use brief and concise direct characterization to establish a sense of clarity without slowing down the pacing too much. On the other hand, you can use indirect characterization to add depth to your characters and maintain the reader’s engagement.
One example of balanced characterization appears in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, who uses direct characterization to describe her protagonist, Elizabeth Bennett:
“Elizabeth Bennet was the youngest of the five daughters of a respectable family, and had, in consequence of her sisterly duties, a rather reserved and contemplative disposition.”
However, what makes Elizabeth Bennet one of the most vivid female protagonists in literature is Austen’s use of indirect characterization through Elizabeth’s witty dialogue with other characters, and her actions that other characters may find disagreeable for a woman of her time period, such as walking three miles in the rain to visit her ailing sister and arriving at Netherfield with her petticoats covered in mud.
Conclusion
Once you master the balance between direct characterization and indirect characterization, you will be on your way to creating vivid characters with depth, which are sure to engage readers in your novel from the first word, to the last word on the final page.
