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Complementary Character Traits

Anonymous said:

I know you are not back for a few days. But I’ll just leave this here. Could you please write up a list of character traits that compliment each other? Like for romantic relationships? Thank you.

Hey Nony! Before I start, thanks so much for your patience with me. I was out for about a week longer than I initially said and I really appreciate it.

So these are definitely a bit of a challenge to come up with someimtes; it’s hard to figure out which ones would go well together without creating too much conflict between your characters.

The dictionary defines complementary as “combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize the qualities of each other or another”, so that’s how I’m interpreting this. The qualities on the left side of the list were taken from The Positive Trait Thesarus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi (but that doesn’t mean that those on the right are definitively positive or negative).

You’ll find some tips for incorporating these qualities into your characters beneath the cut. But without further ado! Behold, the big ol’ list of complementary character traits:

Adaptable vs. Rigid

Affectionate vs. Withdrawn

Alert vs. Oblivious

Ambitious vs. Unmotivated

Appreciative vs. Ungrateful

Bold vs. Timid

Calm vs. Energetic

Cautious vs. Reckless

Centered vs. Scatterbrained

Charming vs. Antisocial

Cooperative vs. Independent

Creative vs. Unimaginative

Curious vs. Indifferent

Decisive vs. Indecisive

Diplomatic vs. Rude

Discreet vs. Inattentive

Easygoing vs. Strict

Efficient vs. Sluggish

Empathetic vs. Callous

Extroverted vs. Introverted

Flirtatious vs. Modest

Friendly vs. Antisocial

Funny vs. Serious

Generous vs. Stingy

Gentle vs. Rough

Honest vs. Dishonest

Honorable vs. Cowardly

Humble vs. Proud

Idealistic vs. Realistic

Industrious vs. Lazy

Innocent vs. Dirty-minded

Just vs. Partial

Kind vs. Cold

Loyal vs. Unreliable

Mature vs. Immature

Meticulous vs. Careless

Obedient vs. Rebellious

Optimistic vs. Pessimistic

Organized vs. Messy

Passionate vs. Indifferent

Perceptive vs. Ignorant

Philosophical vs. Shallow

Private vs. Sociable

Proactive vs. Stagnant

Professional vs. Inept

Protective vs. Negligent

Quirky vs. Conventional

Responsible vs. Irresponsible

Sensible vs. Foolish

Sentimental vs. Pragmatic

Sophisticated vs. Unrefined

Spiritual vs. Irreverent

Spontaneous vs. Deliberate

Spunky vs. Apathetic

Thrifty vs. Extravagant

Traditional vs. Modern

Trusting vs. Wary

Uninhibited vs. Careful

Whimsical vs. Serious

Wholesome vs. Indecent

Wise vs. Unaware

Choosing Traits

So, that’s a pretty long list of traits to choose from. As you’ve probably guessed, though, there are any more to choose from; what’s above is just a fraction of all the possibilities. But if there are so many, how do we know which ones to choose?

If you’re just starting off, choose two or three pairs to work with. Create your characters and develop these traits, building off the ways that would separate them. Then, find some traits that they would have in common, traits that would actually give them a reason to stay together. Maybe Character A is more perceptive while Character B is a bit more on the ignorant side, but they’re both extremely creative and loyal. In this case the reasons for these characters to stay together outweighs their differences, so that would be a good goal to start with.

A general guideline that’s worked well in the past for me has been to choose differences that you know can be balanced out by shared traits. I don’t want the characters in my pairing to have six complementary traits and only two shared ones; that could create a lot of conflict and would make the relationship more work than necessary. You want them to complement each other, but don’t overdo it.

Creating “Complementary Characters”

Well, my first response is this: You shouldn’t create a character based off of the traits of another. If you do this, there’s an extremely high chance that your readers will be able to tell. Another thing you’ll probably want to avoid is adding these traits into a character you’ve already created. If that character has already been rounded off, throwing more traits into the mix might mess with the balance.

Instead, I would advise choosing your traits and developing a character around them. If we’re using the character example from above, I know that I want A to be perceptive, creative, and loyal. These aren’t the only three traits they might have, but those are the three I want to start with. The same goes for B; they’re a little ignorant, really creative, and loyal, but those aren’t their only three traits. I find it easiest to start with things like these and develop the characters more from there, letting things evolve naturally to create the characters I want.

Something to Remember: These traits don’t all follow the same path, based on the character’s entire personality. Keep this in mind; chance are it’ll help you vary your characters’ personalities during development to really make them stand out.

Something to Remember 2.0: The above list and tips don’t apply only to romantic relationships! Complementary traits will play a huge role in (probably) every single one of your character’s releationships!

cogesque-deactivated20210410

Working on pacing is literally the worst thing.

It’s so hard to find the will to fix something that has all the right content and all the right words, but somehow still reads wrong.

cogesque-deactivated20210410

For anyone else who might struggle with pacing in some parts of their story, the solution that’s worked for me without fail is:

Print out the section and read through it with the kind of open mind you’d have if you’re opening up a book from your favorite author.

Make note of the places that feel awkward (usually, these places are far fewer and far between than you might think!).

Rewrite the whole thing, giving special attention to those places.

Usually, one round of this does it for me, but if you give it another as-if-it’s-written-by-your-favorite-author read-through and it still falls flat, rinse and repeat!

heywriters

Alternate technique if the above doesn’t work for you is to paste the section into a text reader. The emotionless reading of my work has really helped me weed out weird wording and needless sentences, as well as point out places where conjunctions are required.

Most importantly, it responds to punctuation better than the average person reading it out loud would. If a sentence is missing/misusing punctuation, I now know to fix it. Punctuation has a huge influence on pacing.

sakura-haruka

seravph

girls learn to watch themselves in third person so they can constantly fix their laugh and smile and hair and dancing and speech in hopes they can transform into a different person that someone will love and girls fear that if anyone sees them in their most candid self then they will be deemed unlovable and I’m so exhausted from practicing my smile in the mirror but girls also know that the ability to be loved is synonymous with their worth

mockiato-deactivated20200315

It’s always a little unsettling when you catch yourself doing it in a moment—realize you’re seeing yourself from a position detached from yourself, observing yourself to see if you’re performing correctly. And then you realize what you’re doing and there’s almost a sense of vertigo

inkskinned

Pssst. Two things that really helped me (and still help me!) write good dialogue are the following exercises:

1. Go someplace public and listen to a conversation. Is it weird and creepy. Yes. For about 3 minutes just listen and try to type what they're saying as they say it. I have very good typing and this is still very challenging. It's not important that you get the specifics right, what you're actually doing is hearing the rhythm of how people actually talk - how they interrupt or show that they're listening or how they follow the thread of the conversation.

2. Find a YouTube video or other clear audio of someone talking in an unscripted way. (While it might be fun to do this on a podcast, choose a podcast where people are speaking unscripted or untrained for maximum effect, as podcast people are not "the average person", unless u want to learn how podcast people speak). Now listen and transcribe it. This is an accuracy test and also helpful for any people who need the transcript. Make sure you keep or notate any nonverbal halts or noises, any false starts, etc. Get it as accurate as you can.

Now, I'm ADHD. I have auditory processing problems. Both of these helped me anyway because what they're doing is building a bridge between "I know how people talk" and "I know how to write how people talk." In the first assignment, every time I do it, I realize how often people hop from topic to topic, how often they interrupt each other, how often people fall silent. The second helps recognize - we have no idea how often we or others trip on words, because our brain edits that stuff out in post. People in the real life don't have endless funny quips, they mishear stuff, they shift topics, they repeat themselves, they take pauses. Having to type it forces us to actually pay attention to the specifics so our brains don't edit out all the stuff that makes dialogue sound natural. It was also, as someone who is shy, helpful to realize I'm not the only person who says "what?" Only to process what they said 2 seconds later.

Okay good luck love u bye

nationinthedesert-deactivated20

people who write gorgeous metaphors and make comparisons

and i’m like

“he walked forward and got there.”

kedreeva

if you keep walking forward, you’ll get there too.

lizard-is-writing

How to Plot a Complex Novel in One Day

Now first, I have to say, that the plot you’re able to come up with in one day is not going to be without its flaws, but coming up with it all at once, the entire story unfolds right in front of you and makes you want to keep going with it. So, where to begin?

What is your premise and basic plot? Pick your plot. I recommend just pulling one from this list. No plots are “original” so making yours interesting and complicated will easily distract from that fact, that and interesting characters. Characters will be something for you to work on another day, because this is plotting day. You’ll want the main plot to be fairly straight forward, because a confusing main plot will doom you if you want subplots.

Decide who the characters will be. They don’t have to have names at this point. You don’t even need to know who they are other than why they have to be in the story. The more characters there are the more complicated the plot will be. If you intend to have more than one subplot, then you’ll want more characters. Multiple interconnected subplots will give the illusion that the story is very complicated and will give the reader a lot of different things to look at at all times. It also gives you the chance to develop many side characters. The plot I worked out yesterday had 13 characters, all were necessary. Decide their “roles” don’t bother with much else. This seems shallow, but this is plot. Plot is shallow.

Now, decide what drives each character. Why specifically are they in this story? You can make this up. You don’t even know these characters yet. Just so long as everyone has their own motivations, you’re in the clear.

What aren’t these characters giving away right off the bat? Give them a secret! It doesn’t have to be something that they are actively lying about or trying to hide, just find something that perhaps ties them into the plot or subplot. This is a moment to dig into subplot. This does not need to be at all connected to their drive to be present in the story. Decide who is in love with who, what did this person do in the 70’s that’s coming back to bite them today, and what continues to haunt what-his-face to this very day. This is where you start to see the characters take shape. Don’t worry much about who they are or what they look like, just focus on what they’re doing to the story.

What is going to change these characters? Now this will take some thinking. Everyone wants at least a few of the characters to come out changed by the end of the story, so think, how will they be different as a result of the plot/subplot? It might not be plot that changes them, but if you have a lot of characters, a few changes that are worked into the bones of the plot might help you.

Now list out the major events of the novel with subplot in chronological order. This will be your timeline. Especially list the historical things that you want to exist in backstory. List everything you can think of. Think about where the story is going. At this point, you likely haven’t focused too much on the main plot, yeah, it’s there, but now really focus on the rising actions, how this main plot builds its conflict, then the climactic moment. Make sure you get all of that in there. This might take a few hours.

Decide where to start writing. This part will take a LOT of thinking. It’s hard! But now that you’ve got the timeline, pick an interesting point to begin at. Something with action. Something relevant. Preferably not at the beginning of your timeline - you want to have huge reveals later on where these important things that happened prior are exposed. This is the point where you think about what information should come out when. This will be a revision of your last list, except instead of being chronological, it exists to build tension.

Once you’ve gotten the second list done, you’ve got a plot. Does it need work? Probably. But with that said, at this point you probably have no idea who half your characters are. Save that for tomorrow, that too will be a lot of work.

Disclaimer for this post.

kaylewiswrites

It’s Thursday again, and today I pose more a challenge then a question: Share with me one line (or small collection of lines; we’re not rigid rule followers here) that just made you go, “Oh hell yeah, I am a writer.” It can be from nano, it can be from your current WIP, it can be from a project you worked on 12 years ago. Go ahead an paste that little nugget with as much or as little context as you choose!

If you want to participate, all you gotta do is send an ask, a reblog, or a comment with your line.

I tag everything with ‘writeblr conversations’ in case people don’t want to see me reblog the same post over and over again, or in case you want to check out other people’s answers, which are always awesome! I also have a tag list for those of you who want to join in ever week! Let me know if you’d like to join/be removed: @elybydarkness@tjswritingstuff @gettingitwrite@gooseandcaboose @julesruleswrites @dawnhorizons @kd-holloman @reininginthefirewriting @writingonesdreams @brb-writing @celstefani @kirstenmcwriter @no-negativity-writes @bardicfool @nemowritesstuff @wortfinder @katekyo-bitch-reborn @weareallfallengods

kirstenmcwriter

This was my first line for Nano:

“The girl was dead, but only the forest would be completely certain of it. The search party that rummaged through the brush below would never know for sure. ”

#I'm like moderately proud #mcrambles #nano 2019