Pulse-checking character-driven writing As someone who writes humorous fiction with a lot of dialog, something I watch out for is the creation of narrators and MCs (main characters) whose only purpose is to engage in a hot potato game of repartee. In fiction that involves snappy dialog and clever observations, our characters must be more than eardrums; they must be emotionally affected by what is said and done around them. To achieve this, I do a paragraph-by-paragraph pulse check for my main characters. Here is how you do that.