Libby Drew has been great in providing us with content for the GA News Blog and continues to bring us some wonderful articles on the art of writing. I hope you all enjoy this lesson that she took the time to put together for us.

That thing I say all the time, how less is more? It applies to your characters too.

Less detail makes for more believable characters.

Carlton entered the room. Six feet tall, broad-shouldered, he wore a finely tailored three-piece pinstriped suit that cost more than my monthly salary. His shoes glowed. I could even see my face reflected in the black patent leather. His coiffed hair was as flawless as his impeccably trimmed fingernails and gold cufflinks. In one hand, he carried a black BOSS briefcase, and in the other, the newest iPhone. He slapped the case on the table, acknowledging no one until he’d thumbed the screen through several emails, making it clear his time was far more precious than anyone else’s. As he slipped out of his suit jacket, a waft of Clive Christian No. 1 drifted towards me, mixing with the odor of leather and heavy paper stock. This is what money smells like, I thought.

I know some of you are probably thinking: What’s bad about this? I mean, that’s a thorough description. Vivid. Detailed.

Maybe. But the above description also takes something precious away from the reader. Every time we attempt to flesh out a full, unambiguous picture of a character, we leave no flexibility for that reader to add his own details. And it’s those personalized, reader-inserted details that will bring your story to life.

Broad strokes—that’s all a reader needs. It’s less important to describe whether a character has brown or blue eyes than it is for the reader to understand what kind of person they are and, from that, how they might act in a given situation.

Rely on a reader’s preconceived notions.

These notions are a vast, often untapped, tool for the writer. Capitalize on them. Use stereotypes to draw readers in. Yes, stereotypes.

It’s not a comfortable idea, is it? Because in the real world, there is always more to someone than a stereotype. Yet by using them, you can establish in one or two sentences most of what the reader needs to know about a character. It won’t be a complete picture, which is fine. It’s a framework, one which you build upon as the story progresses.

So instead of all that detail (points above), aim for less:

Carlton walked into the room, the epitome of rich banker. I know the type. Too self-important to give you the time of day, or even put you above whatever new fascinating app had just hit his iPhone. He reeked of money.

How does less detail increase believability?

Why do we even describe characters at all? So whoever is reading the story will feel and believe certain things about them.

Stereotypes work precisely because they leave more to readers’ imaginations. If I say a character “looks like a CEO of some major bank,” readers form a mental image of all the banking CEO’s they’ve ever known, met, or seen. And whatever image they make for themselves will be the most believable to them. It may be different from what you, the writer, envisioned, but it will be 100% believable to the reader.

Use preconceptions to create believability; use details to create depth.

A stereotype brings a wealth of details to the reader’s mind. Many of those details are predictable, and you can use them to your benefit.

The rest of the story should be used to build on those details. Here is where your vivid and colorful descriptions belong. His hair. His shoes. His briefcase. Maybe your CEO takes advantage of his corporation’s gym. He’s fit, stomach tight and flat, because appearance matters to someone in his position. His skin, however, is pale to the point of translucence. He doesn’t get out of his office much. In fact, his last vacation was two years ago this past Christmas.

As your story progresses, build on your original stereotype. (Just not all at once.) Be careful not to contradict what your readers have already assumed. Don’t, for example, have your banking CEO leave for work in shorts and a T-shirt every day. That might work at Apple, but probably not at Wells Fargo. However, if there is something that sets your character apart from his or her stereotype, mention it early or, even better, immediately. Don’t give readers a chance to cement a character trait in their heads that might be false. Especially if that “difference” is integral to your plot.

What it comes down to…

You get a reader’s deep buy-in, their suspension of disbelief, by tapping their preconceptions and forcing them to imagine their own details. And you do that by giving only the minimum necessary to guide them to your story-relevant stereotype.

You get depth by carefully layering small additional details on top of the stereotype, like shiny shoes and a BOSS briefcase.

Less is more because when you include too much detail, you’re telling your readers how to envision the character, rather than showing them how to envision the character for themselves. You, the writer, will never be able to tell them anything that’s as convincing and believable as what they invent on their own, or what you lead them to invent through the use of their own preconceptions.

~Libby