if i had a dollar for every time i’ve heard a student here utter the words, “did someone say draco malfoy?” i wouldn’t even bother applying for scholarships. i kept telling myself it was just a meme, but my strong intuition pushed me to seek other answers. i procrastinated searching for aforementioned answers, but found them anyways – in a call with a long distance friend.
hunter and i talked for three hours, just catching up to see what each other was up to. the guy who introduced us is a mutual friend, and not always… the most pleasant of characters to work with. while being loyal and kind, he has his flaws as everyone does, like being standoffish and generally intimidating. i digress.
the most clarity came from our talks of toxicity in real life (our mutual friend) and how that applies to written characters, giving them a certain type of depth that you can’t find with a flawless character. you can’t empathize with someone who doesn’t have problems, and you can’t justify impulsive decisions if everything someone does is closely calculated.
someone is more likely to empathize with a character they know as broken – the heartbreaker who didn’t receive love from his mother, the manipulator who was abandoned her entire life, or the pessimist who has never had anyone to rely on to take care of them. these things may not be directly outlined, but they’re important parts of a character’s development to enrich a story.
characters are people, and they have a purpose, just as we do. flaws and all.
Yes, Kit!! This entire blog is so spot on. It serves as a great reminder that characters always need to be written with intention, and it does a wonderful job of encouraging writers to establish them as full, complex people, instead of treating them as simple, two-dimensional characters. Wonderful work!