Darkman
While thinking about how much I reveal about myself, I began thinking the same toward my characters. There’s an odd balance between what they show to the audience and what is kept under the surface. The trick is to know when and how to bring the underside of a character into the light. One that starts off with their emotions and thoughts on their sleeves is easy. Another that keeps something locked away for most of a series makes thing more difficult. This is why writing Luke Callindor is slightly easier than writing Timoran Wrath. I’ve established that Luke doesn’t hold much back while Timoran is rather restrained. As I near the big reveal for the red-headed barbarian, I find myself slipping out a few hints. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
This is a difficult thing to do too because not every reader will enjoy the appearance of a hidden persona. Showing that the tough hero has a soft side can result in people accusing you of damaging the character. It’s even more challenging with a villain since many people have told me that they don’t want bad guys to be humanized. You’ll probably see several comments about this. It’s interesting how we want depth, but there are limits to what we want revealed. Does Baron Kernaghan have a more sensitive side? Maybe, but I’m sure some readers wouldn’t be happy to find out. So you always have that risk when it comes to adding a facet to a character.
That’s where some confusion can come from, especially within a series. There are aspects and stories of a character that might not come to light over the course of the books. One can argue that if they weren’t written then they weren’t important, which I can agree with to some extent. If it had no impact or connection to the events then the reader wouldn’t really care. Yet these things are still there for the author and it falls into the ‘true self’ of the character. It does seem that problems occur when an author does an after the fact reveal. People think it’s solely for attention and you really can’t prove that the information existed prior to the completion of the books. After all, a series can contain some parts that the author wished to do differently.
I really don’t have rules or a system when it comes to revealing a character’s true self. It simply happens when it feels right. Writing in present tense helps me with this because there is a sense of the ‘now’ and many revelations happen in the heat of the moment. So there is an emotional weight and release that comes with such scenes. Guess it’s a hazard of fiction writing since we know our characters better than anyone else and have added more than we actually use.
