How do you make a character come to life? Not by having them stare at mirror or having them stand heroically posed for the reader.
Over at the Guardian, the brilliant writer James Woods delivers a master-level course on character creation in this essay. I plugged in some hyperlinks to make the quote more searchable, but this is a goldmine for new writers:
"Ford Madox Ford and his friend Joseph Conrad loved a sentence from a Guy de Maupassant story: 'He was a gentleman with red whiskers who always went first through a doorway." Ford comments: 'that gentleman is so sufficiently got in that you need no more of him to understand how he will act. He has been 'got in' and can get to work at once.'" (Thanks, Bookninja).
If you want a lighter look at characterization, check out this pop-friendly essay by Steve Bryant about book trailers, celebrity novels, and the directors who love them.
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