Hey, everyone, it’s Writing Wednesday! Today, I’m actually responding to a great blog post by R² Writes that really made me think.

Check out her blog, it’s great. For the purpose of this post, I’ll go ahead and provide my own example.

When we describe someone, real or fictional, we bring them into the room before they’ve actually arrived. In doing this, we establish a set of expectations with our audience. Let me give you an example from my own life.

I have this friend, let’s call him Galad. Well, Galad has a crazy sense of humor. I’ve described him as crazy, hilarious, outrageous, and generally insane with a knack for humor. So, here’s a little story to accompany my claim. One night, my friends (including Galad) and I were joking around and drinking at a mutual friend’s house. Well, mutual friend’s fiance says, “I’m going to invite over some of my girlfriends. Is that okay?” Now, I don’t think anyone was going to object but Galad took things a step further. He slowly nodded his head, jumped from his seat, and scream “yeah.” Then he proceeded to rip the front of his t-shirt like a wrestler rallying the crowd. Oh, I should probably add “impulsive” to my description of Galad, because it was a decent shirt.

So, if I said that I wanted to introduce you to Galad, I think you would have some firm expectations. Okay, fast forward about four months. A Christmas party is taking place at the same mutual friend’s house. This time, it’s more of an office party for mutual friend’s fiance. Well, one of her co-workers, we’ll call him Billy Joe Strokes, happens to be a good friend of mine. Now, over the years, I’ve supplied Billy Joe Strokes with a lot of these outrageous stories/descriptions. When I told him that Galad was coming, his face lit up. He would finally meet the legend from so many outrageous tales. On top of that, he would probably witness one himself. Unfortunately, Billy Joe Strokes was destined to be disappointed. We were all attending a Christmas party. Furthermore, it was an office party with people Galad doesn’t really know. To put it simply, Galad wasn’t in his natural habitat. Oh, and drinking would probably be casual at most.

After the party, Billy Joe Strokes looked at me and said, “that was the guy?” Yeah, it was him. It was the real him. Every time I see Galad, he’s not swinging from a chandelier or ripping open his shirt. The man would have a clothing bill a mile long. In that moment, I realized that I hadn’t really done Galad justice with my descriptions. When he’s not being the life of the party, he’s pretty quiet. Galad is intelligent and he’s incredibly observant. I’ve had a lot of great conversations with this guy about serious topics. However, when I describe him to another friend, I highlight his outrageous characteristics.  In turn, Billy Joe Strokes was destined to be disappointed.

What does this have to do with writing? Everything. If your characters are heavily intertwined, they probably talk about one another. If they don’t talk about one another, main characters may reference minor characters that show up periodically. A great example of this is Gregor Clegane in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. If you’ve read the series, you know that he’s referenced to as “the mountain that rides.” It’s quite a nickname and it sets up the reader’s expectations. When Gregor enters a scene, his stature and reputation bring a certain weight and tone to the situation. A situation will seem more dangerous if Gregor is on the opposing side. The reason it works in Martin’s series is because he backs up these reader expectations with events. If characters throughout the novels referred to Gregor as the strongest man alive, a terror, and a mountain, only to have him die in the first fight the reader sees, the characters don’t seem credible. Instead, Gregor is given victories in war. The reader sees Gregor’s strength at a tournament. Other characters may reference Gregor and keep his reputation alive, but the reader has seen that the reputation is deserved. Now, in the case of Billy Joe Strokes, it didn’t matter that Galad didn’t live up to the expectations I established. He’ll meet Galad again, or maybe he won’t, but the situation won’t make of break our relationship. In a novel, however, a situation like that could break the reader’s expectations and their willingness to keep reading.

Have you ever read a synopsis of a character? Or maybe had a friend describe a character from a novel to you? Were you ever disappointed when you actually opened the book and turned the pages? When writing a short description of a book, sometimes a publisher will choose to highlight amazing qualities of the protagonist. However, if protagonist is fully fleshed out, there’s probably a lot more to them. That’s a good thing, it’s a great thing, except for the part where you’ve been handed a set of expectations that might not line up with the character right away. In a story, audience expectations are everything and you rarely want to set up expectations your reader won’t actually experience.