readingwithavengeance: Introducing a character is hard. You have to figure out how to make...

readingwithavengeance:

Introducing a character is hard. You have to figure out how to make the reader interested in them right away, how to present their sparkling personality
just right without info dumping, how to casually work their name in a conversation when no one would reasonably have cause to say it…

Yeah, well, I’m here to make it harder. Here are some character intro pet peeves.

The vigilante intro
. Wherein the character performs some heroic act (or relatively heroic) in order to show off their good heart or something, after which point the entire
incident is completely dropped and no one ever speaks of it again. Depending on the details, this can go from irritating to downright dangerous, because
stopping a bully/mugger/whatever once and then never calling authorities or following up, etc, doesn’t do jack diddly.


The ‘it’s just a mask’ intro
. Wherein the character will behave one way, but it’ll turn out to just be a social front which is then never used again, and it only exists in
order to set up conflict between two characters. (I don’t care if it is a facade, if it’s one you’re dedicated to, that means habits. Habits don’t
disappear overnight.)


The ‘woe is my life’ intro
. Thoroughly possible that this is just me, but I hate being slapped in the face with how bad a character’s life is right from the start. I’m going to need
a little neutral ground before shit starts hitting the fan.


The ‘trying way too hard to set up contrast’ intro
. So your jerk is a jerk, and over the course of the book they turn into…well, at the least, less of a jerk. Cool! Great! Bring it on! Ooo, but not all
at the start. Please, please, please do not, knowing that they get less jerky, try to front-load all of their bad traits at once. Come on too
strong, and their transformation seems less authentic. You do not need to reach vile extremes in order to have contrast.

What are some of your pet peeves?