Character can be built from accumulated telling consumer details
Evidence
It is possible to make a photofit for Gulfman. He is thirty to thirty-five, lower middle class and embarrassingly aspirant. His education is redbrick/polytechnic. He believes himself to be shrewd, likes to say that he is a cynic. He reads Wilbur Smith and the free magazine that comes with his new Gold Card. Jewelry is worn—sometimes a Credit Suisse token on a chain. He despises the arts—he might go to the amateur Gilbert and Sullivan, if there is someone in it he knows. He likes to talk about camcorders, compact discs, kit-cars and tax shelters. His wife—very often his second wife—is deeply interested in nail polish. Her ambition is to open a nursery school. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 184
Categorization
- SEED: A writing exercise template: build a character portrait purely from brand names, purchases, and petty tastes rather than inner psychology.
- XREF: Connects to Mantel’s reported technique of close observational detail and to the ‘paint a picture of a person’ goal. — connects to: Character is sketched through specific physical details and social pressures — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 81; Significant details either reveal character or advance plot development. — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide…, 98; Realist detail works by metonymy to create worlds through association (+1 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 184
Broader Connections
- Convincing character change is subtle, not abrupt or total
#qualifies(0.50) — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition, 306