Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How can I establish the nature of a person/group without action?

Referring to history, as noted in other answers, is a good way. You don't have to depict the action to have it come up -- in conversation, when a character reads about something online, when a det...

posted 7y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T07:32:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32096
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T07:32:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
Referring to history, as noted in other answers, is a good way. You don't have to _depict_ the action to have it come up -- in conversation, when a character reads about something online, when a detective turns up disturbing evidence, etc.

You can also convey a lot by _other character's reactions_ to the character. If every woman in the room instinctively cringes and backs away when your harassing lech enters the room, that's a signal. If police, soldiers, or security guards reach for their weapons when your serial killer (who got off on a technicality) appears, that's signal. If your protagonists see someone being forcibly removed from a school with authorities shouting "we've _told_ you _over and over_ to stay away from our kids!", that's signal.

None of this is giant-neon-sign-pointing-to-the-bad-guy levels of signal, but it's still signal, and it shouldn't take too much to get your point across. How much depends on how closely you're sticking to the tropes of your genre.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-12-20T20:49:11Z (almost 7 years ago)
Original score: 3