Obscured by such complexities, other barely realized characters pop in and out of the narrative like targets in a video game.

"Trying to realize characters, trying to realize a world, which, after all, exists in the writing."

There are several compactly realized minor characters, caught in a sentence or two; Johnson's gift for quick, glancing portraiture is evident.

Dakota and Treacle may not be fully realized characters, but they aren't meant to be.

It is dramatic in method, with vividly realized characters who gossip and chat over games of piquet or at the theatre.

She overcame that tendency by creating fully realized characters in "Gas Food Lodging," her 1992 film about a working-class woman raising two daughters.

Coetzee was criticized for not creating fully realized black characters in "Disgrace," if not for outright racism.

It's a gripping book, with brilliantly realised characters and sense of place, great comic interludes, but above all else deeply humane and sympathetic, like the man.

Actors can realize characters, but they don't often write their own material.