Delineate Characters by Dilemma

One way to show your characters (rather than tell readers about them) is by their dilemmas. I'm not referring to the crisis of your story, but rather to the obstacles they wrestle with to reach the climax of the tale. For example:

• When I was a youngish mother, I told others, "I'm too old for AFDC and too young for Social Security." This minor joke revealed financial concerns.

• A similar dilemma that many middle-class families face is being too well-off for their children to qualify for assistance and enrichment programs in schools and too poor to afford private schooling.

• Currently, I struggle with issues like failing eyesight, hearing, and I forget the others. I visit the optometrist who tells me I need a minor adjustment in my corrective lenses, but when she shows me the improvement a new prescription would make -- I see no difference! I joke that it's good our vision goes at the same time we quit caring about dust in the corners!

Adjust your characters' dilemmas to fit age, gender, geographic location, society, the era in which they live, etc. Revealing what your characters worry about can not only delineate them, but also establish scenes, settings and a tone for your work. Dilemmas are usually either/or situations in which both solutions to a problem are less than satisfactory.