Jan 23 2010
Opinions Make the Character
Hopefully your writing sounds more interesting than this: “I called my agent for lunch. I went to Panera. I tried to find him there but he was late.” This is just a bland list of facts. As a writer, it’s your job to make the story as interesting as possible by bringing in details that shake up the narrative. One possibility is opinions.
In the above passage, the narrator doesn’t have any interesting opinions or any other thoughts about what’s going on around him. He doesn’t have to be that invisible.
My agent was late to lunch. Probably getting seduced by some cold-eyed harpy with a Twilight-meets-Eragon manuscript. Sparkly dragon vampires. He fell for bestsellers every time.
Notice that the narrator/author hasn’t said anything about himself, but he has shown much more about his personality and why he’s an interesting character. We also learn more about the missing agent, even though it’s all just opinion.
PS: If you can remove unnecessary details, like where they were meeting for lunch, please do so. Alternately, find a way to make the detail useful.
