Not every role will play a crucial part in your story, but every role will define this person in some way. Ruler, Rich Man, Gentleman, Leader, Businessman, Father, Husband, Gutter Rat, Illegitimate Child, Poor Trash I came up with the following list for the antagonist in my work-in-progress Wayfarer: Take a moment to list all your character’s roles, then rank them in the order in which he identifies with them most strongly. Raskolnikov is also a friend and a philosopher.
Bourne is also an assassin, an ex-soldier, and an occasional protector. Emma is also a devoted daughter, beneficent noble lady, and loyal friend. No person can be defined by any single role. But if that’s all they were, we would have promptly forgotten them after closing the covers on their stories. These are their primary roles and functions within their stories. When we think of characters, we tend to simplify them to their main attribute or role. Emma Woodhouse is a matchmaker. Creating Complex Characters in Their Roles In Martin Brest’s Meet Joe Black, Death wants to end his loneliness by living as a human, while on another level he is compelled to continue his duty as the Grim Reaper. In real life, this ability of ours is often frustrating, but it’s always an opportunity for learning more about ourselves and the world in which we live. Be super-model skinny and also eat ice cream before bed every night? You bet!
How much better when he wants and believes in two totally different–and, even better, exclusive–things? We all do this. It is these two beliefs, at war within the character, that creates the catalyst for fascinating themes and character studies.Ī character who wants one thing, pursues it with single-minded focus, and achieves it is boring. Remember when we were studying character arcs, and we talked about how any character change must revolve around two completely opposite beliefs: the Truth and the Lie (as represented by t he Thing the Character Needs and the Thing the Character Wants). We sometimes use “complex” synonymously with “complicated.” But what complex really means is “made up of many working parts.” Complex characters are those who have more than one facet. Creating Complex Characters in Their Beliefs and Motives We can get so caught up in creating a hero or a loner or an orphan or an idealist that we forget what makes any person interesting is the surprising contrasts, the seeming contradictions–the place in our lives where our virtues collide and coexist with our faults. Boring personalities? No more!įor all its grand simplicity, dichotomous complexity in our characters can actually be surprisingly easy to overlook. That one word is the solution to all your character problems. Complex characters are complex for one reason: dichotomy. The most ironic thing about complex characters in fiction is that the essence of what makes them so wonderfully complicated is actually incredibly simple.