Welcome to another blog hop. Today’s topic is:

How do you avoid giving readers TMI (too much information)about a character? How do you decide what to share about a story’s characters?

My preference is not to give too much information at all, and let readers work character traits out for themselves. I eventually based this on two things; my own reading preferences and also feedback I had from an agent at the start of my writing career. I was all for putting every minute detail down on the page, but thanks to an agent who asked for the manuscript of ‘Mind Games‘, I learned that it’s best to be sparing so that readers can use their imaginations and form their own mental pictures of my characters.

I’m now of the opinion that readers enjoy coming to their own conclusions as to what a character looks like or what personality traits they have, but I do add a soupçon of information here and there to give the bare bones. Less is more, so they say, coupled with actions, which can say so much about a character too.

I have also learned not to give too much background information all in one go, and instead of an info dump add bits and pieces of background throughout the story as I go along. It’s a kindness to readers, lol!

Let’s see if other blog-hoppers agree with me… click the blue button below to find out:

Rules:

  1. Link your blog to this hop.
  2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
  3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
  4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
  5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef