I love taking portraits, and my favorite photographs are ones that give us a glimpse of the subject. I’ll often focus on a single feature of a subject–their feet, their hands, their eyes. Combining these different shots into a collage tells a story. To me, it’s more interesting than showing all the details of the subject in one single snapshot.
When you think about it, we write our characters in the same way. It wouldn’t be interesting to expose every single thing about them at once. As a reader, I’d be bored if everything about a character was in focus at the beginning of the story. Sometimes we need to blur parts of our characters and their backgrounds. Sometimes sprinkling in clues about characters propels the story forward and leaves readers wanting to know more.
I’ve just been giving some deep thought to this very idea ready to write my brand new Chapter 1 on a new WiP! And you are so right. This is a nice visual comparison, I’ll think of it while I’m writing.
Thanks, Ruth!