I think I've posted more about reading and TV than actual writing, which is rather sad. So here's something about writing!
I've been thinking a lot about
character development. Probably because I've started a new
book, so naturally I'm creating new characters to fill the world. But
as I talked over some Tex-Mex Egg Rolls with my boyfriend about the
motivations and personalities of some of my characters, it
eventually turned into a discussion of why we love certain characters
over others, or, why some characters feel more developed (real) than
others.
For a long time as a writer I always
gravitated towards this concept that a character, in order to be
fully developed, needs good and bad traits. But I think that's
misleading. It's not that a characters needs good and bad traits,
it's that a character's traits need to be fully embraced. This is an idea I'm much better at rambling about out loud than on the page, oddly enough, but let's see if I can explain:
It's not that a character is both lazy
and loyal. Those two characteristics are not the character. It's that
those two characteristics can be words used to describe the
actions/thoughts/etc. of the character. And both traits are rounded
in their own ways – lazy is often thought of as a bad trait, and
loyalty a good trait, but both traits have their own spectrum of
“good and bad.”
A loyal person can be someone who
always sticks up for a friend. But they can also be someone who too stubborn to recognize that being loyal doesn't mean mindlessly
following and agreeing with everything that a friend
says/does/believes, etc. Good and bad, and much more. Good and bad
are just a part of the full spectrum.
I feel like a lot of writers (and I've
done this as well), feel like traits need to be divided. A “good”
character gets the “good” half of loyalty, while a “bad
character” gets the “bad” half of loyalty. And it's when
writers do that, that a character falls flat.
Let me see if I can show some examples,
both literary and not, to help expand on my thoughts.
JK Rowling's Ron Weasley is a character
who is both lazy and loyal. He's also short-tempered and funny,
impulsive and caring, envious and strategic, and more. These traits
are not who he is. He is a person with the whole spectrum of those
traits feeding his personality and making him logically react certain
ways in a situation.
When Draco Malfoy calls Hermione
Granger a Mudblood, his impulsiveness, loyalty, short-temperedness,
and caring all made him immediately jump into fight mode.
Just because Ron's loyal, doesn't mean
that he always sticks by the decisions his friends make.
4th Year, and during the
7th book's Horcrux hunt being some big examples.
And just because he left his friends
during those moments doesn't mean, at those times, he wasn't a
“loyal” person.
Sorry if that was a spoiler.
His impulsiveness made it so he
sometimes never thought before acting, and made him quick to jump
into fights, but it also fed into his strategic thinking and made him
passionate. Being impulsive will lead you to doing “good” and
“bad” things.
It's really all how we writers look at
our characters, I think. We, more than anyone else, should be looking
at them as if the traits are describing a person vs. defining them.
Eiichiro Oda, the creator of the anime
One Piece, is probably the greatest person I have ever seen at
creating characters that always feel more than just the traits you
could describe them as.
His character Luffy is rude, short-tempered,
and violent. But the same traits that make him that also make him
passionate and inspiring. The Straw Hats pirates, and Luffy
especially, ALWAYS inspire me, and they're always growing as
characters, taking those initial defining traits and naturally
developing as they experience new events that test them as both
individual people and a crew.
And no Straw Hat has developed more
than Usopp.
Self-defined as a liar, coward, and weak fighter (obvious
self-confidence and worth issues feed into these thoughts), Usopp can't see
what we the audience (and the other Straw Hats) already know. Usopp
may be cowardly, but that only means he runs from danger long enough
to work out a plan. And while he may be scared, he never lets that
part of himself get in the way of his devotion to his friends. He may
be weak, but only physically – Usopp's genius and inventions and
long-range sniper abilities has time and again saved the crew. He may
be a liar, but it means that he is a great story-teller who often
inspires his crew during tough moments. He's not one half of
anything, he's everything these traits could make a person, and more.
And as they've experienced one harrowing fight after another, Usopp's
traits have evolved naturally as he's grown as a person, and the
greatest hurdle he needed to overcome – his low self-worth –
culminated in one of the most tear-jerking confrontations and
character growth moments in the show.
And that's saying a lot, considering
how chock-full of moments like that One Piece is.
If you ever find yourself saying,
“My character is too perfect, I need
to give them faults,”
Then I don't think you've created a
character with traits – you've shoved traits together in an attempt
to make a character, and most likely you've cut those traits in half.
'Don't cut traits in half,'
is my new mantra.
If I've got a character I would
describe as stubborn, I'm going to look at that trait from every
angle when my character is making a decision, or saying a line, or
deciding what they think about another person. And then I'll probably
watch One Piece, or read a well-loved book, to remind myself that a
character is so much more than a line of adjectives.
What do you think is the best way of developing a character? Did my rambling about traits make sense? Let me know in the comments!
