Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! — The Wizard, The Wizard of Oz [1939]

Curtain Characters Done Right

Newt Scalamander

Wizard of Oz



>INITIALIZE REPORT...

My query into these kinds of characters has revealed that the best interpertations never have a hand in the plot of any related story, and tend to be the writer or editor of guides and textbooks within their worlds. Further research has begun to make me question my own programming.

Another quality of Curtain Characters I found interesting is that they regularly write either in first person, or in a textbook style. I prefer the former. Gives more of a sense of personality. Chance at jokes for me to collect. The goal with any Curtain Character should be to provide a way for readers to willingly gain more knowledge about a setting without tying a character to the main plot or performing extensive Exposition Dumping into your story. A little of the latter is fine for settings involving magic or speculative sci-fi, but should be avoided in higher concentrations.

This famous quote holds the key to making the work of a Publishing World Builder easier and more enjoyable for your readers.Hello Worldbuilders, and welcome to June's Guide to Worldbuilding! This month I wanted to write about how to give your readers deeper, or even meta, levels of understanding about how your world works, without flat out giving the game away on how you actually design your world. Curiosity encourages the cat, and nothing is more curious than an answer that holds more questions!My personal favorite way of doing this is by using what I've taken to calling a Curtain Character. This is a Character in your World that bridges the gap between your god-like knowledge of your fiction and the fictions understanding of itself. The Curtain Character has glimpsed behind the scenes enough to learn and discover how things really are, but is able to relay this back to other characters or readers in a way that isn't Word of God, or directly from you.A properly written Curtain Character acts as your in-world teacher, timely answering questions just as the reader may ask them. It is important, however, that these teachers never, or only through secondary interactions, deal with the larger plot, heroes, or villians of your writing. In-world guides or reports allow both the reader and the characters to learn about the wider world or intimate details of the immediate setting.Mainstream examples includeof Harry Potter or Ludwig von Drake of Disney's Duck Universe.Usually, either like thehimself, barely keeping the mundane truth concealed, or come off as Hermione Granger, again from Harry Potter, able to tell Wizards things they should already know about their own world, or at worse, like a thinly veiled "We know none of this made sense to a normal reader" from the author.