Simple possessions and everyday objects can be used to illuminate the interior lives of characters.

For a time, it was fashionable when interviewing celebrities and other public figures to ask them to share a more intimate side of themselves by revealing the contents of their purse or pockets. This trend later expanded to in-home interviews where the viewing audience was shown the contents of bedroom closets, refrigerators, and kitchen pantries. What these private spaces hold and are used for tell so much about someone’s preferences, personal aesthetics, and values. The closet with 24 pairs of shoes belongs to a very different person than the closet with 24 black t-shirts. You could walk through each public-facing room of a person’s house, and you still might not learn as much about them as you would by looking through their closets and junk drawers. The same thing applies to characters in a story. Using this simple principle as a starting point, consider the following scenarios as good mechanisms for seeing what’s in someone’s pockets, and as ways to introduce interesting aspects of your character through the things they carry around with them.

  • They are robbed at gunpoint, and asked to empty their pockets.
  • They are passed out cold, and their one-night-stand snoops through their pockets.
  • They watch intently as the people in front of them in the security line empty their pockets into the grey, plastic bins.
  • They forget to empty their pockets before dropping their clothes off at the dry cleaners.
  • Items fall out of their pockets and onto the floor as they fumble around looking for change.
  • They are stranded in the middle of the woods, and go through their pockets to assess what they have to work with.
  • They have been pulled over by the police, and the cop is going through their pockets.

In a similar vein, consider building a character by using just three or four items to represent them. For example, imagine these items being the contents of your character’s pockets:

  • Chewing gum, money, knife, thumb drive
  • Lighter, polished stone, rubber band, used tissues
  • Dog snacks, keys, phone number from last night
  • Rosary beads, chapstick, matches, loose change
  • Wheat-back penny, library card, bottle cap
  • Plastic food wrappers, $100 bill, handwritten directions
  • Two cell phones, two sets of keys, one bullet

Copyright 2023 Kesel Wilson (entirely, 100% human-created)

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