King David. Slayer of giants. Hero to many. Kingdom builder. Writer of heartfelt psalms. Follower after God.
Adulterer. Schemer. Murderer.
What gives?
How could someone be so good and so bad?
This writing prompt is about creating believable characters, those that are a realistic mix of positive and negative traits.
Characterization: 3 examples
Enter Dr. Jekyll, mild-mannered scientist by day and monster by night. His story is based on a real man Robert Louis Stevenson heard about.
Then there’s the Count of Monte Cristo, a wronged man bent on revenge yet who is kind to those who were his friends before his imprisonment. His tale is reportedly based on the true crime story of an innocent shoemaker Pierre Picaud.
And let’s not forget Jean Valjean of Les Misérables, a man who takes in an orphan, does good to whomever he can, and eventually becomes a civic leader—all while hiding the secret that he’s an escaped convict.
It would be easy to wonder how these evils can exist side by side with such goodness until we remember that we humans are capable of great good and great evil. Which brings us to the point of this writing prompt . . .
Strategies for characterization
Characters in stories are not all good or all evil. A hero needs a flaw so readers can empathize with him (understand him and be on his side). His enemy the antagonist needs something positive to humanize him. Otherwise, we’re creating two-dimensional stereotypes that become characters we cannot believe in and do not care about. Characterization takes some finesse and some attention to real-life humans.
While it is popular in today’s fiction to create antagonists we eventually feel sorry for, that’s not what I’m talking about here. If your hero is flawed, try giving the antagonist the same flaw; let the hero deal with it honorably, though he may stumble, and make the antagonist deal with it in a negative way. For instance, in Rodman Philbrick’s The Last Book in the Universe, the protagonist Spaz is a lonely outcast who wants to belong to a family, and he takes positive steps to do that. His enemies, too, want to belong to something, so they create gangs and terrorize the neighborhoods. The longing is good, but both sides deal with it in different ways.
(Note: While it is sometimes beneficial to the story to create an antagonist people feel sorry for, it is this author’s opinion that if all the antagonists were just good people gone astray and were not really that bad after all, we’ve watered down the important concept of good versus evil.)
Now it’s your turn: Create a good protagonist. Give your character positive attributes and one negative attribute, habit, or failing so he seems more human and so readers can empathize with him or her.
Or create an antagonist (the bad guy, if you will) and make him as wicked as you like. But then give him one positive attribute, talent, or habit—something believable. It won’t make the guy more likeable; it will only make him more believable or three-dimensional.
Put your guy (or gal) into a scene. Make him do something to show the positive and negative attributes.
