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MiracleMan

How far to go with character descriptions?

We came across this review of issue 7 of the Miracleman series that we found quite compelling:

Overall, the primary content of this issue is still quite excellent. Once again Cream is a confounding influence and the art does see a decline in quality, but the story is still very engaging and I’m honestly intrigued to see how Moran gets himself out of this mess. You see, Gargunza used the term “Abraxas” to turn Miracleman back into Moran. The word keeps him in his human state for an hour. He and Cream are then given a head start to run away from Miracledog before he is sicced on them. Cream hands Moran a gun before running off to be decapitated by Miracledog. The issue ends on a very human and very scared Moran confronted by the beast. I have no idea how he can save himself but I’m excited to find out. » (Michael Brown, “Marvel’s Miracleman # 7: Enter Chuck Austen,” comicbook.com, June 6, 2014)

There is a fine line to walk between giving a full character profile and maintaining an aura of mystery that leaves some interpretation to the reader. It’s a very fine line. Personally, we don’t like to over-explain the psychological choices of our characters, but we don’t want to neglect concrete actions either. The line is even harder to identify since we don’t always know where certain actions will lead. For example, at the start, Fabien didn’t want to sleep. But later, we saw that his former teammates were appearing in his nightmares. Then he started hearing voices. These events were layered one on top of the other without advance planning. However, they culminated in the story “Psychological Warfare.” While authors may be surprised by the twists and turns they themselves create, they should not leave the reader struggling to keep up.

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