You already read people without them spelling everything out. On an Irish bus you have seen it: someone puts a bag on the empty seat, hood up, eyes on their phone. Nobody needs a speech to know that seat is taken.
Writers use the same cues on the page. Today you will practise on a short scene, then annotate a full one for at least six character or relationship cues. That six-cue annotation is the piece you save to your Communication Portfolio.
Writers rarely announce a character. They leave cues. A character cue is any detail that shows who someone is, what they want, or how they feel about someone else. Some cues show identity (who someone is, how they protect themselves). Others show relationship (how two people stand with each other).
There are six kinds of cue, and you will use these same six for the rest of the lesson.
| Cue | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Speech | What they choose to say out loud | "Fair play, you were class in the match" |
| Silence | What they leave out, delay, or refuse to answer | Talking about anything except the debs |
| Action | What someone does, not what they say | Slamming the locker shut and walking off |
| Reaction | How the other person responds, or fails to | Looking at the floor when a name is mentioned |
| Subtext | What sits under the words | "Fine" when the pause shows it is not |
| Identity | Who they are, or how they protect themselves | Cracking a joke whenever things get serious |
Worked example (from the scene you will annotate later): "She does not move the bag. He waits." What does the bag tell you about her, and what does his waiting tell you about the two of them?
Read this short scene in the chipper. It is about half a page.
The first two questions quote a moment and ask what kind of cue it is. Choose from the same six you have just met. The last two are your own reading of the scene.
Nothing from this step goes in your portfolio. It is here to get your eye in before the one that counts.
Outside the chipper: two cues
You’re marking at least six character cues in the scene below.
When you’re done, copy your work box into your Communication Portfolio folder as m1_l7_character_cues_AB, with your own initials in place of AB.
The scene is longer than the chipper one you just read, and this time the work counts. Make sure one of your six cues shows identity (who someone is, or how they protect themselves), not only how the two of them get on.
Then write your six strongest cues in the work box below: quote, kind of cue, what it reveals, plus one sentence on the relationship overall. The work box is your Portfolio artefact.
Six cues in a short scene
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