“It’s true that the basic way we know the personality of others is by their behavior, but we are often aware of a discrepancy between our own horrid actions and our own nice selves, and we can sometimes extend this realization to make a similar distinction between the behavior and the self of another, particularly when we know him well.  If it’s true that depth-of-characterization in fiction is analogous to degree-of-acquaintance in life, then it would be similarly true that the deeper the characterization achieved, then the less clear we’d be about a character’s motivation in a story.”

— Rust Hills, Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular

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