Major characters in Picturing Will include Will himself, Jody, Will's mother, Mel, Will's stepfather, Jody's friend Mary Vickers, an unhappily married yet kind woman whose husband drinks too much and sleeps with his socks on, her son Waggoner, Haverford, Mel's old friend, whose punny nickname "Haveabud" better describes him and is used in favor of the formal name throughout the book, Wayne, Will's natural father, Jody's first husband, who has had one wife prior to Jody, and Corky, Wayne's third wife. Will has two friends, his best friend Waggoner, Mary Vicker's child, and Spencer, Haveabud's ex-lover's ex-wife's child whom Haveabud molests.

Wayne's friends and Corky's friends, Wayne's bed partners, and Jody's employers, make up a cast of minor characters who also further the book's themes.

Bright, imaginative, and sensitive, Will is a fully realized character in himself, and also the character whose growth measures the other characters.

In...