Look within to understand character

To advise a young writer to look within his own being is popular counsel, yet when he does look he is likely to be confused by the complexities of that inner life. Self-analysis comes by practice in self-awareness. Ques¬tion yourself thus : What am I now thinking? What train of ideas led up to my present thoughts? What motives influenced my last important act? Were they simple or complex? Did they involve a conscious strug¬gle? What considerations really formed the decision? Or was the decision an unconscious one? And did I awaken to find it ready-made ? How did I feel after the decision was reached?

Questions such as these will light up the chambers, yes, the caverns, of your inner self, and uncover the springs of feeling and of motive in other lives too. You must know the workings of your own mind before you can read the characters about you. In practising character-study, remember that many persons are worth observing who may not be worth delineating. Skill in reading faces, inferring motive from conduct, associating habit with essential character, comes with practice, and you can practise on all comers. No one ever wrote good stories whose habit it was to see people only in the mass. What is it, precisely and intimately what is it, that makes two people different? Press home that question when next you have a chance to observe your fellows, remembering always that the inner man forms the outer, and that each must have its share of study.