What part of a character enters the room first? What is a reader’s very first impression? Consider this sentence from Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures: “His eyebrows were so bushy they would, Christopher thought, enter a room several seconds before the rest of him.” A single sentence characterizes the point-of-view character (Christopher) and the character they are meeting.
Sometimes, the first part of a character to enter a room is their reputation (see Voldemort and everything that is said and is not said about him). In contrast, consider Darth Vader’s arrival in Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope. Visually, Vader is very different than the environment around him. The music suggests a reputation, possibly, but his actions after he arrives show viewers who he is.
Consider the value of being premeditated about this; you might decide whether a character has a reputation that precedes them (and what the presentation of the reputation might reveal about the character who makes it) or if a character’s actions almost as soon as they arrive reveal them.
Writing Fiction 