About Out Of Character

Post 2065:

Writing characters can be rewarding. Sometimes you get to know them so well, it’s crazy. Feels like you know exactly what they’d do in every possible situation. This is good, but I try to be careful. If I can predict a character’s reaction, once every so often I’ll make them do something they wouldn’t.

It may be a writing challenge, but I believe it to be a worthy one. People in the real world don’t always behave, that’s to say, act in character. People screw up, make mistakes, overachieve, underwhelm, everything in between. That's what humans are. Reasonable beings who don't always live according to reason.

So challenge yourself to do some out-of-character writing. Maybe it’ll work for the story, maybe it won’t. Either way, it’s unpredictable, and that’s what stories should be.

Life is nuts. When people act irrational or abandon their character, things can spiral. On the page, we get to pull back the throttle, make it make sense while keeping things just unstable enough.

The point is to be interesting. Purposeful and interesting.

One thing, be careful you don’t add quirks for the heck of it. That’s usually a bush-league move. A straight-laced character with his one quirk—it may seem cute, but it comes off hacky more often than not. Just as a character should have reasons for the way they are, they should have reasons why they aren’t being the way they are.

Writing is fun. It’s also hard, if you want to make good characters. I’d say know the players in your work, but let them surprise you, even aggravate you.

Making up stories is a crazy game. Rational people doing irrational stuff. Cheers and see you after.