BEGINNERS
Fine tuning
Adrian Magson urges you to pay attention to even the most seemingly irrelevant details
Adrian Magson
H
ave you ever come t o the end of a book as a reader and wondered what happened to character Z? I know I have, and even if I’ve enjoyed the stor y it leaves me with a nagging sense of puzzlement – especially if Z, while not a major character in the story, has occupied what I feel was an important space, to the extent that I’d come to look forward to his or her reappearance.
As writers it’s easy to forget minor details of some characters because we grade them subconsciously; they’re not the front-runners so they have a limited use before being phased out, there for a while, then gone without so much as a by your leave.
Readers, however, can get hooked on a particular character (let’s stick with Z) beyond our expectations, their interest not quite so fleeting.