Characters Inside The Stories
Second part of major components of the story is characters.
The reader should be able to identify with and care about the characters in the sense that the characters seem real to the reader. The characters must do something, and what they do must seem reasonable for them to have done it.
Characters should be introduced early in the story. The more often a character is mentioned or appears, the more significance the reader will attach to the character. Also, the main character should be introduced before setting, so that the setting can be introduced from the point of view of the character.
The nature of characters can be brought out through minimal description and the actions, thoughts, and dialogue of the characters. The writer should allow the reader to make judgments about the characters; the writer should avoid making the judgments for the reader. The feelings of the character should be demonstrated rather than told by the narrator.
Yet, there are some very good stories in which much of the narration is about a character’s feelings and thoughts or in which the narration goes into great detail and analysis of a character’s feelings and thoughts at some point. So one rule about writing is that there are no rules, or maybe: If it works, it works.