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lgbtlunaverse:

sanguinarysanguinity:

Expanding a thought from a conversation this morning:

In general, I think “Is X out-of-character?” is not a terribly useful question for a writer. It shuts down possibility, and interesting directions you could take a character.

A better question, I believe, is “What would it take for Character to do X?” What extremity would she find herself in, where X starts to look like a good idea? What loyalties or fears leave him with X as his only option? THAT’S where a potentially interesting story lies.

In practice, I find that you can often justify much more from a character than you initially dreamed you could: some of my best stories come from “What might drive Character to do [thing he would never do]?” As long as you make it clear to the reader what the hell pushed your character to this point, you’ve got the seed of a compelling story on your hands.

this connects to some REALLY good writing advice i remember from @batshaped

twitter screenshot from user @batshaped "imo the idea of “consistent character” can trap writers in logic jail. human beings are often self-contradictory & complicated. for example "loyal" people are not comprised of code that prevents them from taking any action that could be conceived of by anyone anywhere as disloyal"ALT
"instead of getting hung up on that, think of an interesting way the character personally decided the "contradictory" action Was Loyal Actually or a reason for them to break with that established trait, and suddenly they're way more interesting than if you colored within the lines"ALT

Characters are contradictory, just like people are. What would it take for them to do the thing they’ve told themselves they’d never do, and how would they try to justify it?