Let Me Introduce You To the People in My Head

Making a character up is easy, making other people believe they exist is the hard part. Yet, so far, in all the stories we've read, every author has seamlessly (and almost infuriatingly) made us believe in the people that they cooked up in their imaginations before displaying them on the page. I guess now the question is: how in the heck do they do it?

The first thing most of these writers have done is almost too obvious, they've each described some basic, yet key, aspect of their characters. Oates, Wolff, and Bloom used this technique in their respective stories. Though nothing is explicitly stated about their characters in their introductions, the attributes speak volumes about the person they are connected to. For example, Oates introduces Connie in "Where Are You Going" by simply stating her name before delving into her vain and shallow habits. This not only gives us the most basic information about Connie, it also provides us with her manners that we conceive as pivotal to advancing the plot. We understand exactly what kind of person Connie is, and how this can ultimately lead to conflict. Wolff does much the same in "Bullet to the Brain" by describing Anders's explosive temper and his profession within the first two sentences of his story. Because of this technique, we know exactly who Anders is, what he does, and what his fatal flaw is, all within a split second. Both authors manage to say so little about their characters that they've already told us everything before the plot even gets its wheels turning.

Bloom does something similar to this in her piece, "Silver Water", except it's a bit more slow-going. Her first description of rose lies in the first two paragraphs. The portrait is initially lighthearted; we see her strong bond with her sister, the narrator, her beauty and her popularity with her peers, and her phenomenal talent for singing. Then, Bloom contrasts this by introducing Rose's mental health issues and referencing her first psychotic episode. This immediately causes tension not only within Rose, but in the plot itself. Ultimately, this technique provides a uniquely melancholy portrait for an audience that has already been given multiple reasons to believe she deserves to be happy. 

So, though each of these techniques successfully introduces each character and their fatal flaw, the real magic lies in the fact that each of these authors were capable of continuously supporting the characters' voices without changing their personalities or drive. Connie remains shallow, Anders keeps being cynical, and Rose is still plagued by her own mind throughout each story before it's too late. These are all people we are convinced exist in our world because of this. It isn't until the ends of these stories that we even see how expertly these figures were conceived, for their creators effectively and ceaselessly provide us with reasons to believe that they are more than just words on a page.