29. The Turnspike Emails: Halloween

Posted on by
2

The practice of intercepting diabolical correspondence was made famous by C.S. Lewis, who published under the title The Screwtape Letters a collection of missives from the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood. The publication (by humans) of diabolical correspondence actually has its roots in earlier centuries; an example can be found in Letters from Hell, a series of epistles from a damned soul, collected and published by Valdemar Adolph Thisted in the nineteenth century. The following letter—or email, to be precise—purports to be from the demon Turnspike to his colleague Goreflak. Due to the sensitive nature of the material in this email, TMTF cannot release further information concerning the method by which it was obtained.*

My dear Goreflak,

Your ignorance is appalling. When I read your last email I could not help but cringe at your evaluation of the holiday the humans call Halloween. It is not an occasion for supernatural activity, as you seem to think—at least not typically. You young devils are all the same, eager for sensational witchcraft and spectacular sinfulness, when our most effective work is much subtler.

We seldom use human-possession or dark magic anymore. Have you failed to see the problem of manifesting our power in supernatural ways? Imagine for a moment that you are an atheist in America. What would you think if you witnessed a table lift itself in the air and spin around, or a demon-possessed person speaking in a tongue? It would be dashed hard to remain an atheist!

We were able to get away with sensational displays of power in antiquity because pagans readily acknowledged the existence of the supernatural. But in these days, when faith of any kind is becoming less common, to commit ourselves to any sort of overt supernatural activity is to give ourselves away.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that we have forgotten Halloween. By no means! My dear devil, Halloween is one of our great triumphs.

First, we have made the humans numb to the very idea of the darker side of the supernatural. They dress up as witches and go begging for candy; they make ghosts out of tissue paper; they bake cookies in the shape of vampires. Every kind of ghoul and devil, from the foulest phantom of their imaginations to the evilest demon of our own kind, is made innocent, even cute, by the holiday of Halloween.

Second, we have managed to eclipse All Saints’ Day. This wretched holiday was before your time, my dear devil, so you are probably unfamiliar with it. All Saints’ Day was a celebration of the Enemy’s most valuable servants, those vile men and women known vulgarly as saints, whose lives were abhorrent to Our Father Below. Year after year the Enemy’s people celebrated dangerous fools like Paul and Augustine and Patrick, until we could no longer allow it. We began to exaggerate Halloween, the day before All Saints’ Day, in an effort to draw attention from the Enemy’s saints to the specters of our own kind. We were utterly successful. The saints of All Saints’ Day are largely forgotten, while the monsters and demons of Halloween are celebrated year after year.

Third, and finally, Halloween has become a celebration of consumerism and commercialism: two behaviors Our Father encourages among the humans. Millions of dollars are spent on candy and decorations and all the multifarious paraphernalia associated with the holiday. Halloween has also become an occasion for horror movies, Our Father’s contribution to the medium the humans call filmmaking. Some of the films released around Halloween are quite delicious. Nothing amuses me quite like watching humans be ripped apart in the Saw films.

You asked in your last email whether there were anything inherently evil in Halloween. The answer, I regret to inform you, is no. Many humans celebrate the holiday—costumes, candy, decorations and all—and manage to enjoy precisely those things we dislike: innocent fun, loving fellowship and benevolent generosity. Halloween is, however, a holiday more easily twisted to our purposes than, let us say, Christmas. (We are making excellent progress with Christmas, but I will save my thoughts upon the subject for another email.) Do not assume Halloween automatically corrupts human beings, my dear devil. It is up to you to make sure it does.

On an unrelated note, I am very glad the Head of our department has finally authorized use of the Internet for correspondence between demons. Emails are so much more convenient than parchment and blood.

I trust you are making good progress with your Patient, and expect a full report as soon as possible.

Your affectionate colleague,

Turnspike

—

*For the record: This email is completely fictitious, as are The Screwtape Letters and Letters from Hell. Demons do not really send emails; at least, not of that we know.

28. The Bend in the Road

Posted on by
Reply

I really like Anne of Green Gables. Although I don’t usually enjoy sentimental stories about little girls growing up, there’s something about the book that strikes a chord with me. It could be that Anne Shirley (whose first name must never be spelled without the e) and her friend Matthew Cuthbert are delightful characters. It could be that Anne of Green Gables paints a beautiful picture of a simpler time, a time without Facebook or cell phones, when people took time to talk to each other and read books for the fun of it.

Whatever the reason, Anne of Green Gables is a favorite of mine.

One of my favorite moments in the book comes in one of the final chapters. Anne’s future plans, which had seemed so certain, are suddenly thrown into serious question. Rather than give up in despair, Anne decides to regard her misfortune as an adventure: “My future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does.”

My own plans for Life After College were pretty straightforward until a few months ago. I was going to apply for a job at my old high school in Ecuador, teach English and write novels until retiring and settling in California or Florida. Everything was neatly planned, and I didn’t doubt for a moment that things would work out precisely as I wanted them to.

Then my application to the high school was turned down. My future plans were no longer crystal clear, unless that crystal happened to be an especially foggy variety of quartz. I was discouraged for a little while, but it finally occurred to me that not knowing exactly what the future holds is kind of exciting. Terrifying, yes, but also kind of exciting.

I’ve been student teaching for the last eleven weeks, struggling to survive grading, lesson planning, sleep deprivation, faculty meetings, miscellaneous paperwork and the actual business of standing in front of students and teaching them things. It was like walking through thick fog: it was hard to see far behind or ahead, to think about the past or speculate about the future. Day by day all I could see was the road right in front of me.

Yesterday was my last day of student teaching. I’ve a few weeks of seminars and paperwork and whatnot, but I’m almost done with college. It was a little strange to emerge from the fog of student teaching and realize there’s still a long road ahead of me. Like Anne Shirley’s road, it isn’t straight. There’s a bend in it, and I haven’t the slightest idea of what’s waiting for me beyond it.

But I’m not worried. The Lord has led me this far, and I know he will continue to lead me to wherever he wants me to be. As the old hymn says, ’tis grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.

I just hope there are coffee shops along the way.

—

A note for those who know me personally and are wondering what my immediate plans are: I will be leaving Bethel College toward the end of November and staying with my parents and younger brother in Uruguay. I intend to search for a teaching position in South America, work seriously on a couple of novels, improve my Spanish, drink lots of coffee and spend time with my beloved family.

27. Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve become acquainted with a nice old custodian who works at the school at which I’m student teaching. It was quite a surprise to run into him a week or two ago and discover that his beard had turned a shocking shade of neon pink.

He told me he colored his beard because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and he wanted to show support. He hasn’t been the only person at the school to sport pink hair this month. A number of students have added pink highlights or extensions to their hair, and one of my MEC students colored his Mohawk pink.

It’s been touching to see the support for the fight against breast cancer. It’s also been a little jading. Dyeing hair pink or wearing I ♥ Boobies bracelets doesn’t do much to help cancer victims—at least not directly. Rocking the bracelets and pink hair does raise awareness of the problem, and awareness of the problem brings us a little closer to solving it.

Since I’m only a few days away from finishing student teaching—and consequently busy and exhausted—I’m going to wrap up this post with a short cartoon from JKR over at Fredthemonkey.com.

(For the record, Fred is no relation to any of my monkeys.)

The cartoon, aptly titled The Important Things, presents its protagonist with several dilemmas. How can he scrounge up the money for a new Nintendo DS game? (The game he mentions is awesome, by the way.) Can he get his true love to go on a date with him? And could there possibly be more important things than buying a new video game?

Enjoy the cartoon here!

26. A Lesson from My Students

Posted on by
Reply

My monkeys and I now have a Twitter account. I suppose it was only a matter of time. Is it possible to tweet using typewriters?

I’m just a week away from finishing student teaching. I still have a few weeks of paperwork and seminars and whatnot, but seven days from this moment I’ll have finished my work in the classroom. The last ten weeks have been stressful, rewarding, exhausting and interesting.

Especially interesting has been my time with the MEC students, kids whom the school considers at-risk—in danger of dropping out of classes due to misbehavior or failing grades. I felt rather apprehensive about working with at-risk kids, but some of them turned out to be pretty awesome. Granted, others turned out not to be awesome at all. Most of them fell somewhere in between, alternating between diligence and laziness, respect and disrespect, cooperation and insubordination.

Friday was my last day in the MEC classroom; in the week to come I’ll be phasing out of my other classes. I was reflecting upon my time with the MEC students, and it occurred to me that working with at-risk students presented two major frustrations.

First was when the MEC students refused to accept the consequences of their actions. They would break a rule half a dozen times, ignoring all warnings, and whine about the unfairness of it all when they finally received the penalty for their misbehavior.

Second was when the MEC students complained about school: it was boring to read a short story, stupid to learn vocabulary instead of playing games on the computer, impossible to sit and work quietly for forty-five minutes. No matter how often we tried to explain that school is not pointless, that they need a high school diploma to qualify for most jobs, that they can’t spend the rest of their lives living with their parents and playing video games—in short, that school is actually meant to help them—they wouldn’t listen.

It would be pretty easy to judge the MEC students, except for one little point. It occurred to me a day or two ago that I do the exact same thing.

If I have a bad day, I tend to feel put upon. I wonder grumpily why God lets unpleasant things happen to me. What I forget is that many of those unpleasant things are the consequences of my own mistakes, and many more of those unpleasant things are actually helping me in the long run. Yes, I might feel tired and unfocused all day, but it’s because I was up so late the night before watching trailers on YouTube. True, I might be totally worn out by a rough day of student teaching, but it’s teaching me to handle the responsibilities of being an English teacher.

Not all bad things are the result of my own mistakes, but some are. Not all bad things are part of the painful process by which God makes me a better person, but some are. Instead of grumbling and groaning and griping, I need to endure patiently.

That’s a lesson from my at-risk students, and a lesson I hope they can learn too.

25. Beards

Posted on by
3

I recently attended a production of “The Hobbit” by the Bethel College Theatre Department. It was a fine performance, despite the fact that most of the dwarves were played by women. Not enough actors tried out, so all but three of the dwarves were actresses in beards. Gandalf also had a beard. Almost everyone in the production had a beard. As much as I enjoyed “The Hobbit,” it was a painful reminder of a grave personal shortcoming: my lamentable inability to grow facial hair.

Oh, you may laugh. You may scoff at my woes and call them absurd. (You’d be absolutely right, but that’s not the point.) I wish I could grow a beard. Granted, facial hair hasn’t always been a good thing. Beards and mustaches have been the distinguishing marks of men whose ideas we hold in contempt or suspicion. Take Hitler and that silly excuse for a ’stache. Take Marx or Nietzsche or any of the other Dead European Thinkers With Strange Ideas And Facial Hair. Beards and mustaches clearly do not a virtuous man make.

All the same, I wish I could grow a beard.

Virtuous men sometimes have beards. Jesus had a beard. What, you don’t believe me? I have it on good authority. In a passage most commentators interpret as a prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ, Isaiah clearly indicated that God’s Servant would have facial hair: “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting” (Is. 50:6). Brethren, if we cannot trust Isaiah on the matter of the Servant’s beard, how can we trust him on any other matter?

(For the record, Jesus is the Son of God whether he had a beard or not.)

I suppose I should reserve my theological speculations for more important matters, such as the degree to which our salvation is predestined or whether people with spiky hair are holier than people without spiky hair.

No-Shave November is coming soon. I’m tempted to stop shaving my lack of facial hair and see what happens, but I’ll probably decide not to participate. I’ll leave No-Shave November to the pros. Perhaps some day I’ll be able to join them. We’ll see.

24. Cleaning Out Your Bible

Posted on by
1

Today’s post was written by my friend Robby Rasbaugh, renowned at Bethel College for his awesome hair and love for people. Check out his blog for profound and humorous insights into life at Bethel College, IN!

I fondly remember my pilgrimage to Israel a few summers ago with Bethel College, IN. I got the rare opportunity to climb sacred mountains, swim in the Sea of Galilee, walk the same trails that Jesus walked, and eat an authentic Israeli falafel, which I highly recommend (the falafel as well as the Israel experience).

Throughout the expedition, our group encountered a few live archeology sites. You could see the archaeologists hard at work, carefully excavating the dirt, examining the terrain, and measuring and documenting everything. A lot of historic artifacts, left intact for thousands of years and untouched by human hands, were finally discovered and used to learn more about ancient civilization.

If I wanted to, I could turn this into a beautifully woven sermon illustration about how if you dig deep enough into God’s Word, you’ll discover hidden treasures of deep insight and unfathomable knowledge. I could go on about how through careful study and examination of the Scriptures, you can unearth nuggets of profound truth for your spiritual life. But that’s a post for another day. I’m talking about cleaning out your Bible. Because over time, the average Christian’s Bible accumulates a certain amount of junk, transforming it into a holy time capsule littered with hidden artifacts from your spiritual past.

Here are the top three things Bible veterans are most likely to find hiding in their Bibles when they do choose to do a little excavation.

Ancient Church Bulletins

For some reason, you felt compelled on a certain obscure Sunday three years ago to stick the bulletin in the pocket of your Bible cover. There really was no significance tied to that Sunday. It was just like any other Sunday bulletin where you only sketched in half of the sermon fill-in-the-blanks before giving up, but did a good job at filling in all the os and bs and other bubble letters. Even with all the clues in the ancient bulletin, there’s not a chance in Sheol that you’ll be able to remember what your pastor spoke about that Sunday. Yet it is probably safe to assume that your church praise team did “Mighty to Save” for worship that day, considering that song was all the rage back in 2008. [Sniff] Sorry, I just had a moment of nostalgia.

Jesus Bookmarks

Maybe it features the Ten Commandments chiseled on stone tablets and embellished with lightning bolts. Maybe it has a Christian acronym that was totally rad in the 90s, like W.W.J.D. or F.R.O.G. Maybe it’s in the shape of a cross with an inspirational verse and dark clouds eclipsing brilliant rays of sunshine. No matter what it looks like, the question remains: How did this elusive Jesus bookmark stay hidden in your Bible for so long? It probably got buried in the Minor Prophets years ago, deep in the neglected part of your Bible somewhere near Habakkuk (which is a great book by the way).

Money

Am I the only one who does this? Do other Christians ever hide money in their Bibles with the intention of forgetting it’s there and finding it later? In the past, I know I’ve surreptitiously tucked a few bucks in my Bible, secretly wishing that God would multiply them when I wasn’t looking; that my money would grow thirty, sixty or a hundredfold what was sown, and that I would discover it in a season of need and praise God from whom all blessings flow.

What about you? What do you find when you clean out your Bible? Let us know in the comments!

23. TMTF Reviews: Living Poor

Posted on by
Reply

About forty-five years ago, a Peace Corps volunteer was deployed to a remote South American village. For those who don’t know, the Peace Corps is a program run by the US government in which volunteers travel to impoverished countries to provide technical assistance. Moritz Thomsen, the author of Living Poor, wound up in a tiny village called Río Verde on the coast of Ecuador. He stayed four years, teaching about agriculture and learning about human nature.

My parents have been nagging me to read Living Poor for years. My grandfather and some of my uncles were personally acquainted with Thomsen and some of the people he describes in the book. A phrase from the book, the sadness of the rats, is used by my family to refer to loneliness or melancholy. Although I prefer fiction to nonfiction as a rule, I decided I should read Living Poor to oblige my family and figure out what exactly the sadness of the rats is supposed to mean.

Living Poor is an excellent book. Having spent much of my life in Ecuador I’m probably biased, but there’s no denying the book is superbly written. Quoth Mark Covert, “Moritz Thomsen could well be the finest American writer you’ve never heard of.” The tone of Living Poor alternates between melancholy and cynical humor. The author is at his best when describing his failures. One of my favorite lines in the book recounts his failure to cultivate lettuce in the tropical climate: “The lettuce appeared very tentatively, took one horrified look at the Ecuadorian sun blazing in the sky, and promptly died from shock.”

The book gives vivid descriptions of places, but the best descriptions are of people. The author manages to convey a sense of the lives of the people of Río Verde—the resigned weariness and quiet desperation, the superstitious blend of religion and folklore, the myriad affections and squabbles and jealousies of village life. It’s a touching picture of people in poverty, a picture that could be applied to villages across the world.

Despite the jabs of humor, the prevailing tone of Living Poor is one of cynical resignation. The author’s initial optimism and idealism fade in the face of poverty and misfortune and the poor, ignorant, stubborn villagers he must contend with day after day.

Living Poor is definitely worth reading, particularly by anyone remotely interested in poverty or third-world culture. It’s the sort of book that makes the reader think and laugh and cry. The style is great, but—as its title suggests—the book’s greatest strength is the vivid impression it conveys of what living poor is like.

Oh, one more thing.

the sadness of the rats: (n. phrase) an expression coined by Jorge, a resident of Río Verde, to describe the melancholy that afflicted Moritz Thomsen as he lay in his house at night with only rats for company

22. Autumn

Posted on by
9

People talk about how much they love the autumn season, with its pumpkins and colored leaves and frosty mornings. I stare at them with horrified incredulity. Everything dies in autumn. The trees lose their beautiful leaves and become skeletons. The temperature plunges from pleasantly warm to icy cold. There are many things I’ll never understand in this life—the precise theological nature of the Trinity, the popularity of the Twilight novels, trigonometry—and why people like autumn is one of them.

When I first came to Indiana, I knew autumn was coming. I expected the leaves to turn bright colors and fall from the trees. What I didn’t expect was for all green to vanish, leaving behind murky browns and grays.

“I love autumn,” said someone during my first semester of college.

It seemed like a good time to share my observations about the season. “Everything is dying,” I pointed out.

“That’s normal.”

“You clearly don’t understand,” I replied, speaking very slowly. “Everything is dying. The grass and the trees. Dying. There’s frost every morning. It’s really, really cold. And people put up hideous Halloween decorations.”

“It’s autumn, Adam. It happens every year.”

“And you like autumn?”

He nodded, and I was left to shake my head and wonder.

Autumn isn’t all bad. It’s fun to see carved pumpkins on front porches. The sudden ubiquity of pumpkin pie is wonderful. Autumn is the season of Thanksgiving, and the Christmas season draws steadily nearer. I’m willing to concede that autumn has its blessings. I just don’t like the cold, or the tawdry Halloween decorations, or the tendency of beautiful green things to die.

Are you an autumn person? If so, maybe you can bring me a little closer to unraveling the inexplicable mystery of why people actually like the autumn season.

21. The Legend of Zelda

Posted on by
2

There’s no way on Earth I can fit my appreciation for The Legend of Zelda in a single post. It requires an effort of heroic proportions, but I’m going to try.

The Legend of Zelda is a series of video games in which a young hero named Link rescues Princess Zelda from the wicked sorcerer Ganon. The basic plot of most games is simple—Link rescues Zelda and defeats Ganon—but each game embellishes it with beautiful settings, delightful characters and unexpected twists. A few Zelda games reject the classic Link-rescues-Zelda formula for something entirely different, shipwrecking Link on an island or forcing him to relive three days over and over in order to save a town from a nihilistic imp. There are numerous incarnations of Link and Zelda throughout the series, but Ganon is always the same character—like Sauron and Voldemort, he’s one of those villains who refuse to die.

Link isn’t a typical adventurer. First of all, he wears a green tunic, a stocking cap and occasionally a pair of white tights: definitely not standard garments for a mighty hero.

While he uses some of the usual tools and weapons of the adventurer—sword, shield, bow, arrows and so on—he also uses equipment that’s frankly rather strange: boomerang, bug-catching net, bombs, empty bottles, musical instruments and chickens. Well, to be precise, he uses cuccos, the Zelda equivalent of chickens, which can be used to glide through the air after jumping from a ledge.

(By the way: If you ever happen to play a Zelda game, don’t attack the cuccos. Trust me on this one. Bad things happen to players who attack cuccos.)

Link is usually accompanied by a companion: a talkative fairy, a cowardly sea captain, a magical sailboat, a shadow imp or Princess Zelda herself. These companions are helpful for the most part, though some players (myself included) have tried in vain for years to kill Navi, Link’s fairy companion in Ocarina of Time, who shrieks “Hey!” and “Listen!” and “Hello!” and “Watch out!” with irritating frequency.

Ocarina of Time, by the way, is the greatest video game ever. It received almost universally perfect scores upon its release about thirteen years ago. Review compiler websites rank it as the highest-reviewed game ever. It tops pretty much every list ever compiled of the best video games ever made. In fact, the Zelda series is probably the most highly-acclaimed video game series of all time.

There are too many good things about the Zelda series to fit into a short post, so I’ll highlight just a few more.

Although Link is a silent protagonist without much personality, the supporting cast and minor characters are typically eccentric, likable and highly memorable. A few of them are also kind of creepy. Mostly this guy.

The gameplay of the series is a balanced blend of exploration, combat and puzzles, with a few minigames thrown in for good measure. The games usually feature important treasures for Link to collect, all of which must be gathered to complete the game. Each treasure lies in the heart of a dungeon full of puzzles, traps, locked doors, keys and monsters. At the end of each dungeon lurks a difficult and terrifying enemy, the boss, for Link to conquer in order to claim the dungeon’s treasure. In between dungeons Link is free to roam the land, interacting with people, exploring, earning money, completing optional quests and barging into private homes to break clay pots.

The music of the Zelda series is beautiful. Music plays in integral role in most of the games; Link often uses magical instruments to progress in his quest. (In Ocarina of Time, the eponymous instrument is a woodwind possessing considerable magical power.)

The Legend of Zelda is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year. This is also the year Skyward Sword, the latest Zelda game, is released.

It comes out on November 20 for the Nintendo Wii. To say I’m excited for its release is a staggering understatement. My younger brother is also awaiting it eagerly. We’ll be sharing the same copy of the game in December, so I’m not sure how we’re going to work out who gets to play it first. My brother owns several machetes and swords, so I might borrow my old man’s cavalry saber and fight my brother for the right to play Skyward Sword first. We’ll see.

My final thoughts about the Zelda series? Play it. If you like video games at all, I can pretty much guarantee you won’t regret it.

20. About Writing: Characterization

Posted on by
4

There’s a common idea that a good story is the description of a series of events. I disagree. I believe a good story is the depiction of the effect of a series of events upon the characters involved. We connect emotionally with characters, not plotlines.

The quest to destroy the Ring in The Lord of the Rings wouldn’t be nearly so thrilling if we weren’t rooting for Sam and Frodo. We wouldn’t care much about the strange events in A Christmas Carol if they didn’t work together to redeem old Scrooge. The Twilight novels would be even worse if some readers didn’t become emotionally invested in Bella and that sparkly excuse for a vampire.

What makes characters interesting, unique and memorable? What makes some characters likable and others detestable? How can a single author create dozens of characters that aren’t all the same?

Here are a few thoughts on good characterization.

Different characters should have different ways of speaking

Every major character should speak differently. A self-important character might speak in long, windy sentences packed with large words. A reserved character might use short, simple sentences. Officious, dignified characters tend to use fewer contractions than casual, easygoing characters.

Some characters have an accent that can be rendered phonetically through spelling. Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for example, exclaims “Dunno, Missis—I spects cause I’s so wicked!” instead of the more prosaic “I don’t know, Miss—I suspect because I’m so wicked!” Some characters tend to use a particular phrase or set of words. For example, the eponymous protagonist of The Great Gatsby addresses almost every man he meets as old sport.

Although every character’s speech should be unique, be careful not to overdo it. Too many dialogue gimmicks are distracting to the reader. A character’s way of speaking must be natural as well as unique.

Excessive physical description should be avoided

Too much physical description is often a sign of poor writing. The reader doesn’t need to know every detail of a character’s appearance. It’s almost always best to give an impression of a character, noting the most striking features, instead of a meticulous description. Honestly, how often do we notice or remember a person’s appearance upon meeting her for the first time? We might notice her ironic smile or twitchy hands, but probably not her exact height and eye color.

In my experience, it’s best to give just few memorable details about a character’s appearance—giving the reader a general picture of the character—and move on with the story.

Different characters should have different mannerisms

Sherlock Holmes has a lot of memorable habits that define his character. He plays the violin. He smokes a pipe. He occasionally doses himself with cocaine or morphine. He has odd housekeeping habits, such as conducting chemical experiments and decorating walls with bullet holes.

His peculiar mannerisms all point to a particular kind of character: a gifted man with few opportunities to use his gifts. Since he considers most investigations beneath his ability, he compensates by using his gifts for miscellaneous pursuits (such as violin and chemistry) and distracting himself with drugs. His mannerisms aren’t random; they indicate a very specific type of character.

Mannerisms—whether an obsession with coffee, a fear of spiders or a habit of eating dessert first—make characters memorable and reveal a lot about them.

Characters should change

Well, most characters should change. Every now and then there will be someone like Aslan or Tom Sawyer whose character is built upon unchanging constancy. However, like real people, most characters are influenced by the events around them. If someone survives a gunfight or breaks up with a fiancée, I guarantee he will be changed by the incident. Fictional characters are no different.

Real people change and grow; so should fictional characters.

Clothes should reveal something about a character

There’s a reason Hamlet wears black. Jay Gatsby wouldn’t be quite the same without his elegant shirts. And can anyone imagine Gandalf without a tall, pointed hat?

Clothes don’t have to reveal something about a character—some characters, like real people, wear whatever clothes are handy—but something can often be learned about a character by the way she chooses to dress.

What have I missed? What’s your advice for good characterization? Let us know in the comments!