Back to the subject of character. How do you persuade the reader to adopt an opinion about the actors in your tale, positive or negative? In very simple fiction it's easy. Good people wear white hats, bad people black ones. Good people are white-skinned, athletic, have nice smiles and pat any dog that passes. Bad guys have scars, crooked teeth, greasy hair, swarthy skin and pull the wings off flies.

Ahem. Even in kids' fiction that doesn't work except as a joke. I can't, I'm afraid, accept either that you disclose the personality of individuals by attaching a simple label to them. 'Renowned scientist Roger Frick'... 'Courageous Captain Hearty'... Sorry. I need more subtle tricks.

Here's one.

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As I've emphasised before, in the Costa books I usually work very strictly to the method known as the third person restricted viewpoint. This means that every scene is seen through the eyes of a single character, as if the reader is sitting on his or her shoulder, viewing what's happening through their eyes.

There are reasons why this particular viewpoint is the most common in modern third person fiction. One of them is to do with characterisation. When I was starting out as a writer I thought that you established character by writing about the individual directly. You show him being kind or cruel. You reveal him as a hypocrite or liar by showing how his inner thoughts conflict with his outwards action and what he says out loud. You paint him directly on the page.

This is fine, and something that all writers can and will do. But if you adopt the third person restricted fully you can approach this problem another way. Remember, if you get this right the reader is inside the head of your POV character, seeing everything through his or her eyes. When your character, and through him your reader, views other people a subtle and potentially powerful chain reaction kicks in. The response of the reader is refined and enhanced by the very fact they are discovering this person indirectly, through the eyes of another character in the book.

Think of it like this for a scene in which Costa is the POV character.
<ul>
	<li>Nic Costa is dealing with two of his colleagues.</li>
	<li>He clearly likes one and appreciates his opinion.</li>
	<li>Nic does <em>not</em> like the other guy.</li>
</ul>
Because we know Nic, like him and trust him already, his opinion comes to colour ours. Through his eyes we understand that the one he likes should turn out to be trustworthy and decent, unless Nic's a bad judge of character (which is rare). And we suspect the other guy, even if Nic doesn't go that far, precisely because Nic is such a good judge of character. So we've established some personality traits without ever having to state them baldly, and they are reinforced by the relationship the reader already has with Nic. Works well all round for me.

It gets even more interesting if the POV character is less reliable. Supposing he's <em>not</em> a good judge of character and the reader knows this. If he then starts trusting someone, we're going to think... uh-oh, this may not be such a good idea.

In real life we judge people both directly and through the eyes of others. Books are no different. There's a powerful and ingenious tool here for anyone who wants to use it.

Quick point: since I'm going to deal with character issues piecemeal and at a random pace there's now a 'Character' tag in the sidebar. You can quickly pick up every post on the subject by hitting that, or the tag at the bottom of this article. And remember: if you'd like me to answer another question or expand on this one just say so in a comment and I'll hope to get back to it one day.