"Characterization"

char·ac·ter·i·za·tion  [kar-ik-ter-uh-zey-shuhn, -truh-zey-]

noun

1. portrayal; description: the actor's characterization of a politician.

2. the act of characterizing.

3. the creation and convincing representation of fictitious characters.

This post is about author-reader trust. It goes both ways, and you trust each other to behave and to not behave.

Let's start with the author. We have to trust the readers to not behave. We can't just say "BALROG" and expect the readers to go "Wow, great big monster, I'm scared for the hero!" just by referencing a Balrog. We need characterization. We need to set a land away from troubles, we need to make characters, give them faults, and admire them for "trying more than their successes". 

But that trust goes further. We use characterization because we can't expect our readers to react and feel these emotions just willy nilly, we need to build them up to it. But that's the problem. If the reader isn't putting themselves into the one-word-balrog, why will they put themselves into the trouble-less shire? That's reader trust. That they engage you there. You start entry level, so they can climb in easily, and then build them up to caring. But it's the reader's step to make, not ours, and we have to trust that they'll make that step. If they won't? They're not going to read it anyways, probably.

But then we've got them. They're reading along, putting as much of themselves into our characters as we are. And that's a pretty special thing, a relationship only an author and reader can share. It demands trust, from both sides. The reader trusts that we won't give them some flat hero who has no faults, whose attempts equal their successes. Such a character evokes as much empathy as a piece of cardboard. They trust that these characters and this world is consistent and real. That these characters, imbued with a special concoction of reader and author actually feel the events going around them, are afraid of their potential failures like both reader and author are.

We make a potion, authors and readers. The author puts the base ingredients into a character. All the mundane stuff, the dry if you will, while the reader puts in the wet ingredients. Together you mix it up through the events of the novel and the result is something that should come alive. Just don't forget the time it takes to stir and mix. For every Balrog there is of course an entire Shire.