Never really got into writing exercises outside of writing class and seminar work, but Peter Taylor’s amazing skill at character has inspired me to attempt to study, learn and practice what he does so well.
In most of the stories in his short story anthology The Old Forest, the primary theme is human nature. What he gives us through mainly first person pov–though I’ve just finished the first story in third person–is a description of a character through the eyes of the narrator that is an obvious opinion, and one that is questionable at best, downright biased or wrong at its extreme.
In other words, when he has the reader reading the words of the narrator, we see the narrator’s personality rather than the personality traits of the person the narrator is speaking about. We see a trend of the narrator ‘fooling’ himself into thinking he is giving a good description, when what it is is a perception affected by the narrator’s own prejudices.
It’s an exquisite and likely difficult way of writing characterization, and yet one well worth learning to manage.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology