Sneak in details about your characters by choosing what they notice

The details you notice in an unfamiliar setting (boy, those seem like distant memories, don’t they?) are likely to be different than what your sibling, spouse, or another person pick up on.

So your characters should follow suit, says longtime editor Dave King — what they perceive will illustrate something important about themselves to your readers, without your having to hammer home a personality trait.

For examples of how authors have successfully chosen which details their characters notice, check out King’s post on Writer Unboxed.

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• 6 techniques for improving your deep third-person POV 

• How to efficiently make a scene feel real to your readers