by Sacha Black
The lens is made up of four parts:
Actions
Thoughts
Dialogue
Feelings
These four are wholly unique to your character and your character’s personality should be reflected through them.
But what makes a sparkly unicorn a sparkly unicorn?
Because I’m all about full circles and connecting webs, I’m swinging back around to the Gestalt principle.
I’m a whole person. So are you. We’re the product of our experiences, our upbringing and our traits. How I see the world is the culmination of all of those things and a little more – my conscious interpretation of the world, which will be different to yours. Let me ask you a question:
Is turquoise more blue or more green?
The answer is irrelevant, but what I can assure you is this: half of you reading that question said more green, the other half said more blue.
Understanding how and why it is you see things differently to everyone else helps you understand what makes your viewpoint unique. That’s what you need to grasp for your protagonist. Often, we connect with each other because we either see the world through a similar lens, or our lenses are so different we learn something about ourselves from the other person. It’s these similarities and differences that help us connect.
The way your protagonist describes her experiences – the metaphors and descriptor choices – tells the reader about their personality. It creates the nuances and quirks that separate one hero from another. It also demonstrates those traits in action.
An angry hero might see a town parade like this:
The villagers weave through the street brandishing placards like rifles. They’re soldiers marching into their last battle. The war-drum beat of their feet grinds into my ears, rattling my teeth and making my blood boil.
But a depressed hero might see the same town parade like this:
They move like a current, each person flowing past the next. Supposedly united in their cause, but as they chant and sing for solidarity, it sounds like the melody of mourners. I see the tiny fractures, the gaps they leave between each other, the scattered looks, the fear of isolation. Each of them is drowning in a swelling crowd, and yet, despite the mass of bodies, they’re all fighting alone.
In both of those examples, I haven’t used either the word ‘angry’ or ‘depressed’ and yet those emotions are implicit in the paragraphs. Why? Because of the hero lens. Each protagonist experiences the same event. Yet they feel, hear and see different things.
How the character sees the world, how they feel or smell or taste, combined with their traits and experiences, creates distinctions between characters. Imbuing your hero’s descriptions with their unique sense of personality will give your hero depth and make them sparkle on the page.
Here’s an example in fiction, the main character in Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood. Alice is an intense and curious girl who likes to tear the skin off the world just to see what’s underneath. Here’s a couple of examples of how Albert embodies her personality through her description:
"He sat up straighter, his eyes refocusing on mine. The serene smile inched back onto his face, but now that I'd seen beneath it, I could tell it wasn't a perfect fit." Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood, p.98.
"But already the edges were rubbing off the memory's freshness. I could feel it degrading in my hands." Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood, p.21
Most characters don’t think about the texture and the feeling of a memory or the fact that it degrades as time passes. But Alice does because she looks at the world in intense detail like she’s unwrapping the layers of every character she meets.
Quirks versus habits
Often writers will turn to quirks and habits to make a hero seem different. I want to be clear on the difference between a character habit and a character quirk.
A habit is a routine movement, action or behavior often done in a repeated pattern. It’s automatic and something a reader would deem normal.
For example, pushing your glasses up, checking the doors locked before bed or always reading the newspaper in the morning.
A quirk is unique and idiosyncratic to your character; it’s a deliberate behavior. Usually, it will stick out to your reader or other characters.
For example, in the movie East is East, one character, a young boy called Sajid, refuses to take his jacket off, EVER. He wears it rain, snow, sun or sleeping. This is a quirk because it’s unusual and out of the norm.
One way to create a believable character quirk is to integrate it into your story. Rather than having the quirk as an add-on, give it a function in your novel, whether that’s connected to a flaw, part of character growth or an obstacle.
Another handy trick is to have the quirk accentuating one of your hero’s personality traits or flaws. Like Monica Geller from Friends with her cleaning habits.
Quirks typically help:
define your character by distinguishing them from other characters
show the reader the character’s uniqueness rather than telling them
create tension
create conflict
create a barrier or flaw for the hero to overcome
Spice is spicy, quirk is quirky
Your taste buds are inevitably different to mine. I quite like to sweat while I eat my curry. My spouse on the other hand, curses the air blue when I sprinkle even the tiniest of pepper pinches into our lasagna. Readers are the same. Some want hardcore hero-in-your-face, smothered in oil, banter dropping their jaws. While others prefer the more demure and reluctant hero.
Wherever your preference lies, we all have our limits. While I might appreciate a hot curry, I don’t want to sweat blood while I eat. There’s only so much spice a regular girl (or reader) can take. It’s better to use a handful of herbs and spices and savor the flavor than to blow your taste buds into the next century by trying to demolish a Phaal curry. It’s the same for quirks and traits. It’s better to give your hero one or two quirks and make the most out of those, than it is to have a loud gregarious hero with extreme charm, intense banter, blue hair and a toenail eating fetish. It’s too much. It overpowers the flavor of the story and the reader loses sight of the hero’s true personality. Subtle and nuanced quirks work more effectively and efficiently than an oil tanker full of them.
Making Memories
Despite living a short time, we meet tens of thousands of people throughout our lives. Yet when we’re old and drooling, we only remember a small handful. It’s not the loud garish ones who shout the loudest that we remember. It’s the ones who had the greatest impact on us, for example:
They changed us in some way – making us think differently or by giving us a realization about ourselves
They made us feel something
They surprised us
We related to them because we saw part of ourselves in them
Let me give you a real-life example.
Travel is my second passion, so every spare penny I have goes on my next adventure. On one particular trip to Paris, I’d decided I wanted to buy some macaroons. When in Paris… Rome? Moving on.
I’d been eyeing up a rather cute looking macaroon shop all weekend and decided to fill my sugary boots. The shopkeeper came to my assistance as I was visibly distressed by the extensive rainbow of biscuity delights. She asked me what I wanted. So, I started to order. I managed to order a couple: lemon, caramel, rose (obviously) but then I attempted to order a vanilla macaroon… This is how the conversation went:
Me- "Can I have a vanilla one please?"
Shopkeeper- "Non."
Me- "Huh?”
*looks at an entire rack of vanilla macaroons*
Me- "Sorry, umm, I meant one of those ones."*points at vanilla macaroons*
Shopkeeper- “Oui,” she nods, indicating she understood which macaroon I meant.
I jab my finger at the vanilla macaroons again, (just to make sure… cause, I really want a vanilla macaroon).
Shopkeeper - “Non.”
Me- "Um. Okay? Why?"
Shopkeeper- "They no good."
Me- “Riiiight?!”
I gave up and ordered some other flavors. But she found a permanent home in my memory as the shopkeeper who refused to sell her own goods. I won’t forget her because what she did was unexpected. I mentioned the psychological heuristics we build as children in STEP 3 — they help us 'know' fundamental things. Things like ‘red’ on the road means stop, or that girls have bits boys don’t, and that chocolate is the food of gods.
My heuristics tell me that it is quite literally the shop owner’s job to sell me her goods. When she refused to – and especially because she deemed her macaroons not good enough – it rocked my teeny tiny world.
Surprises catch a reader’s attention. Going back to my previous point, that it’s better to have one or two quirks than hundreds — the rest of the shopkeeper was perfectly normal. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you what she looked like now. The only thing I remember is the quirk.
This technique is often used when a character’s personality has been well established to indicate change or emotion/reaction. But it’s just as useful for introducing characters and creating humor.
Using the unexpected
The unexpected is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal as a writer. If readers know what to expect the entire way through your story, what would be the point of reading it? This tool is top-notch unicorn dust. Sprinkle that shit liberally.
It’s also effective at describing character’s appearances:
"You look like edges and thunderstorms. And I would not have it any other way." Roshani Chokshi, The Star Touched Queen, p.98.
Characters are rarely compared to weather. It was unexpected and that’s why it caught my attention. The contrast between clouds, which are soft and fluffy (even if they are thunder ones), and the hardness of an edge, is so rich, and it’s a unique description to that character. It’s that character’s lens.
Likewise, the unexpected can implicitly tell the reader about the protagonist’s personality.
"Bleeding in three places, I watched her go, glad she knew I'd rather have retribution than comfort." Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood, p.51.
Despite bleeding in three places, the protagonist happily watches her mother leave her. This is unexpected because society expects mothers to flock to protect their babies. It’s especially shocking when the mother abandons her bleeding daughter not to seek help, but revenge. What is more telling is that the daughter approves of her mother seeking revenge for her. This tiny sentence tells the reader so much: the protagonist values retribution over comfort, she’s tough enough to look after herself when injured and she got that attitude from her mother.
Juxtapositions
Juxtapositions are quite possibly my favorite literary device. A juxtaposition is defined by Dictionary.com as
“An instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.”
Juxtapositions aren’t just used in description. You can weave them through emotion, dialogue, theme and action. Some of my favorite scenes contain juxtaposed emotions.
Juxtapositions and emotion
The reason juxtapositions work with emotion is that humans are layered and complex beasts. Psychologically, we rarely feel just one thing. For example, when a loved one passes away after a long and traumatic illness most are desperately sad, but some will also feel relieved that their relative is no longer in pain and the trauma is over for everyone.
Replicating that mix of emotions in your characters adds depth to both the scene and the complexity of your protagonist (or other characters). It makes them seem real because that’s what we do as people.
Rip your hero’s heart out and smear it across the page
The key here is how you display those emotions. For humans, it’s rare that we feel two strong or contradictory emotions openly. What tends to happen is that we display the stronger emotion (or the emotion we think is expected of us) openly. Then we hide the conflicting emotion by either suppressing it or keeping it to ourselves. But, more often than not, our actions and body language give us away, it’s these clues you need to give the reader. Clues, subtlety and what’s not said create the implicit hero. Think of the conflict as inner and outer emotions.
In the example I mentioned above – the loss of a loved one after a long traumatic illness – the outer emotion would be sadness and the inner emotion would be relief.
A juxtaposed emotive scene will have an ‘obvious’ central emotion. Usually, that’s the more explosive ones like anger, sadness or hate. Simmering underneath will be the softer, more conflicted emotions like regret, relief or love.
To show both in a scene in a realistic way without ‘telling’, you need to keep the emotions separate. The more explosive ‘outer’ emotion should be shown through action and dialogue. The inner emotion should be shown through thought and body language.
For example, the relative standing by the side of their loved one’s bed might burst into tears. But it’s the subtle sag of their shoulders that tells you they’re also feeling relief. The combination of those emotions isn’t necessarily unique, but the way your hero expresses it will be – that’s your hero’s lens.
"My voice trailed off as the Darkling turned slowly to me, his slate eyes drifting to where my hand gripped his sleeve. I let go, but I wasn't giving up that easily." Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone, p.46.
Alina feels fear at the Darkling’s movement and stops what she was doing, but her after thought is full of determination not to give up.
Juxtapositions in description
The reason juxtapositions are so effective at describing people is because they evoke such strong imagery. That’s never truer than when describing characters. Melissa Albert, author of The Hazel Wood, is a master at using juxtapositions for descriptive purposes.
"Beneath the beauty and the charm and the sharp sparkle of her personality, she had a core of steel. She was like a blade wrapped in a bouquet of orchids. I hoped to god whoever took her made the mistake of underestimating her." Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood, p.112
Albert pits beauty and charm, something often seen as soft, against ‘sharp and steel’. It evokes such a clear picture of what this woman was like, especially when combined with the additional simile – which is also juxtaposed – comparing the character to a blade buried in orchids.
I’m not saying you have to litter your novels solely with juxtapositions for the rest of your linguistically descriptive career. Far from it. What I’m trying to do is demonstrate how studying and using different literary devices can bend and shape your hero’s lens. Where one character (Alice) is intense and detailed, another character (Hermione) might be intelligent and mildly arrogant.
Become a hoarder
In this final section, we’re going to look at ways to strengthen your prose and, in doing so, enhance your ability to create unique hero lenses. But first, I want you to create a new habit.
Task: When you read, ensure you have a pack of Post-its with you, or shredded paper – something to mark the page. Depending on how willing you are to mark a book, a pencil would be handy too. When you read, try and pick out sentences and passages of description or dialogue that particularly attract your eye. If it attracts attention, there will be a reason, and hopefully not because they’re rubbish! When you finish the novel, review all of the sentences that caught your eye and try to spot the patterns. Buried in there will be the hero’s lens. Somewhere in the rhythm and pace of sentences, in the word choice and device usage, will be the mark of each character’s lens.
The action lens
Action was the first aspect of the hero lens I noted earlier. Depending on what action your hero is taking, whether it’s in a fight or a moment of perspective, the style of description will change.
For example, in a fight scene, movements and actions are typically speedy and violent. Your prose
should reflect this. Shorter sentences create pace and push the reader through your story quicker. Cleaner language has the same effect. The fewer descriptive words there are, the faster your fight scene will be. Actions should be described physically in real terms rather than in metaphors and similes.
But a scene where your character is falling in love would be described differently. When someone falls in love, they pay attention to every tiny detail about the person they’re falling for. They become more aware of their senses and the sensations their bodies are experiencing, which is synonymous with slow sentence structures filled with metaphors and similes.
Quick tip: Think about the action your characters take. Can you reflect that in the structure and composition of your prose?
Example: The Star Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
“His hands roamed over the threads, fingers flicking, yanking, snarled in strands that he pulled out in swift, merciless strokes like he was tearing throats instead of threads." Roshani Chokshi, The Star Touched Queen, p.173.
This is one long, luxurious sentence, and that length reflects the action the character is taking – pulling out long silky threads from a tapestry. But it also has an interesting simile comparison. Chokshi deepens the smooth, gentle imagery of thread pulling by comparing it to something violent, like tearing throats. This tells you (implicitly) about the hero’s lens and her perception of the other character. The comparison to violence tells you (without saying it explicitly) that she is uneasy and distrusts the character.
Passages of time and the act of change, AKA before and after