I'm writing a short story (Hopefully two pages) about a Airship captain in a storm. He is the only character, save for his pet, and you never see his face, its covered entirley with goggles and a scarf. He doesn't even talk! I've said stuff like 'The Captain felt the wind pound against him', but I think thats as far as it goes due to relating with him and seeing his pov. I've never directly said his thoughts. My aim is just to show him as a mysterious character who the readers want to know more about, and I'm wondering weither it will backfire and make me seem like a bad writer. Any tips?
First of all, stop worrying about what you'll seem like. Just write. Secondly, what do you want the reader to get from the story? If you're only giving yourself 2 pages to work with, then you don't have much time to tell the reader very much, and broad strokes are the rule. Setting the character up to be mysterious, making the reader want to know more about him, sounds to me like you're setting up the reader for a frustrating experience. If you tell us a little more about what you're trying to do, we might be able to offer some advice.
The devil is in the details. Mannerisms tell us volumes about a person. I can't quite remember how much human communication is nonverbal, but I do know that it's a healthy chunk if not a majority. Give the captain small quirks in how he behaves and reacts and the reader will get to know him without ever hearing a word from his mouth.
Tension should also help, too, I think, to draw the reader in. This might be slightly irrelevant, but this reminds me of the cartoon series Samurai Jack, which had many episodes where there was basically no to maybe a couple lines of dialogue - and very little sound for that matter; those episodes basically relied on either imagery, camera tricks, and action/tension to craft the story for that episode, and oftentimes it was really effective, even moreso than if there was actually dialogue.
if you post the entire story, you'll seriously hamper its chances of being published... which is why members are advised to post only brief excerpts of works they intend to submit for publication...
Not book published, I'm only 14!!!! But it can still make me look like a bad writer. Even showing it to my friends/teachers.
It's two pages long. I highly doubt the probability of something that's two pages being published. *Goes to the Writing Workshop to critique* I don't think you have too much of a worry. If you want him to be mysterious, then make him mysterious. You don't really need to answer to anybody. It's all about how you want it to be, and how it comes out.
It's all in the behavior and how he reacts to the environment around him. For instance... "As the wind slapped against his face, (name) reached out a hand into the darkness. Never had he found flying at night so fun" Bad example but you know what I mean?
