: Re: Listing character traits I wonder if when talking about characters (in a book with a third perspective narrator) one can list their personality traits. I realize how that might be taking something

@LarsenBagley300

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I only like including something questionable - if it serves a second purpose. Then, I love when a line does multiple things. But I think you can't always find that second and third purpose necessarily until a later draft.

So, I might start in my first draft with: 'He was a funny boy, he was good hearted, and studious. He had hair that was blond but that took on a greenish tint from his swims in the lake, and he had blue eyes in a pale face.'

I would work with that. The blue eyes in the pale face with the greenish hair would get played with, to become patches of blue sky, in clouds of white, ringed with leafy trees. Looking at him was like lying on the ground looking up, that this was what person thought of, when they looked at him. I'd say that this was a funny effect, funny, like the little boy was funny, almost as if he pretended to be the world around him, and he must have known that he had that effect. maybe he'd even studied it. Who knows? He seemed to study everything.

-I'd work with it like that. Not a laundry list, but something that feels like it has multiple angles happening at the same time.

Having said that, keeping it simple (like a laundry list) can work, but maybe make that a 'feature not a bug.' In other words, if it becomes part of your style, use it in such a way that the reader expects it. We're good at learning code.

(Disclaimer: I've been attempting my first fiction book since last summer.)

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