When Absent Characters Loom Large

Tobias Carroll
4 min readMar 15, 2020

Sometimes, the most important character in a novel isn’t the one who appears on the greatest number of pages. Sometimes a reader can be most emotionally affected by a character who doesn’t appear on the page at all. Neither of these describes the vast majority of novels; most traditional narratives generally put their most compelling characters front and center. Creating a character whose presence is felt without necessarily…

--

--

Tobias Carroll

Writer of things. Managing editor, Vol.1 Brooklyn. Author of the collection TRANSITORY and the novel REEL.