My granddaughter took my phone Christmas Eve and went around taking pictures. She took pictures from different angles, some from above the person and others from below, and some photos only had a small portion of the person.

As I was looking through the pictures, I began to think about how we see people and how as writers we develop and share our characters.

Some stories or scenes might show a small portion of the character, like the coworker we only know from the office. If you only know a person or character in one setting, then your perspective of that person is limited and even skewed by that environment. Few of us are exactly the same at work as we are at home. There are certain rules we feel compelled to adopt that might stifle our personality, beliefs and certain behaviors.

When you know a person or show a character in different situations from other characters’ points of view, you can get a better understanding of who they are.

Our secondary characters play the role of giving our readers another glimpse into the main character’s’ personality, beliefs and a better understanding of who they are.

You can also hold information back by not giving us the perspective from the one character who has all the details.