Hi everyone, this week I'm over at Writers Helping Writers, talking about how to make complex characters by giving them contradictions. Here is a preview:
You’ve likely seen countless posts and resources related to creating great characters, but almost all of them seem to be lacking in one aspect I’ve found to be perhaps the most powerful: giving your characters contradictions.
Some might read this and say, “Huh? Isn’t that inconsistent characterization? Or undefined characterization?”
The contradictions I’m talking about aren’t continuity errors or mistakes. They can relate to internal conflicts, but they are not internal conflicts. If you don’t like the term “contradiction,” many of the things I’m about to talk about also work as “contrasts.”
When writers are given methods to create characters, the approaches often include giving the character strengths and weaknesses, likeable attributes, a unique appearance, and a nice backstory, or a secret or fear. These are all wonderful and useful things. But how do you make your character more complex? More interesting?
The answer lies in giving them some sort of contradiction. Let’s look at some examples of characters and the contradiction or contrasts surrounding them.
Read the rest Writers Helping Writers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
I love comments :)