Lois Moss posted about contrast in this post, which I like so much that I'm going to expand upon it here because I think it's an important aspect of storytelling.
What Lois essentially says is that contrast increases depth. Characters who are completely good are flat, as are characters who are completely evil. The same can be said of characters who are neither good nor evil. Without contrasting traits, characters lack depth. A flawed hero is more compelling than an invulnerable, unflappable superhero, and a villain who also has real human weaknesses and needs is more compelling than a purely black-hearted monster.
Why is this? I think it's because good and evil which arise out of each other (for example, a heroic act by someone who is afraid or petty or not truly likeable, or an act of treachery by a person acting out of fear or love or some other need) are more clearly visible, standing out just as a lighted surface is brighter when seen against shadows. "Good and evil" is of course an oversimplification, a generalization, and you could as easily stay "strengths and weaknesses" or any other pair of opposing/contrasting forces. Contrast heightens intensity.
This same concept holds for plot. If it's all one sort of action at the same pace, it becomes the status quo, eventually exhausting or inuring the reader and turning into a static background. Moments of quiet make the action scenes speak more loudly, and vice versa. This isn't limited to action/rest in terms of pacing; you should also think about the contrast of mood in your story, of emotional intensity. Is there variety in all your story elements? Variety is contrast. Contrast heightens intensity.
Contrast=depth=conflict=drama.
Drama is the essence of storytelling. If your hero is a spotless "white hat" and your villain is a heartless "black hat" and your plot never varies in its pacing, you don't have drama, you have melodrama. Melodrama is to be avoided. Just take my word on it. Certainly in melodrama you're contrasting one flat character against another, but that doesn't hold reader interest. Nor am I necessarily arguing in favor of moral ambiguity; I'm just saying that flat characters/stories are flat because they lack depth, and that to add depth you should consider adding contrasting elements to your characters/stories.
Give your protagonists weaknesses. Give your antagonist human feelings and needs (remember that your story isn't just your protagonist's story; it's your antagonist's as well). Give your subordinate characters needs and depth. Vary mood and pacing for contrast and effect. Your story will be more engaging, more interesting and more rewarding for your reader.
Great post, Scott. I get bored with the Ultra-Handsome Rugged Male who meets the Super Beautiful Intelligent Female as they solve the Complex Mystery (or weave through the Compelling Thriller). And guess what? They hook up! Wasn't that a surprise?
ReplyDeleteContrast helps to dilute or remove predictability.
My word of caution is that you make your characters likable, despite their flaws (or perhaps even because of them), but be careful not to let the flaws take over. When they are too exaggerated they can distance the reader from the positive attributes, increasing the "yeah, right" factor substantially.
Whenever I think of a flat villain, I think of Sauron. Readers accepted him, but perhaps only because there were other, more rounded, evil forces beneath him.
ReplyDeleteGood post! I love reading--and writing--the redeemable antagonist. The one that we hate right away but can't manage to hang onto that feeling entirely because he or she commits random acts of kindness or has sporadic fights with his/her conscience. And visa versa with the protagonist.
ReplyDeleteJustus:I think Tolkien did that on purpose. Lots of reasons why that I'm too tired to explain or think of right now, but Sauron really is the only flat main character in the entire piece. And he works, I think, because as you say, there were other more rounded evil forces beneath him. It's difficult to make these kind of flat characters work. I have one in my current WIP. It's not working yet, but I'm still trying.
ReplyDeleteContrast=depth=conflict=drama
ReplyDeleteGood point!
Scott:Great post. And thanks to Lois for providing a great post for inspiration!
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily think Melodrama is always bad. It's strong, basic appeal to an audience can serve a great purpose of outlining the strong forces between good and evil.
Melodrama seems to entertain more than focus on a realm of ideas, as drama does, but I've noticed in my studies that there are some dramas that have more melodramatic tendencies. Perhaps this is why they're so popular - the entertainment value. The Matrix. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Wiley and the Hairy Man, and The Lord of The Rings. I get these examples from a professor of mine who studies plot structures and principles.
The Odyssey seems to be one of the more obvious famous Melodramas out there. But they seem to be getting less and less as time goes by, and I think that is because of the point you and Lois make here - CONTRAST. Readers often want more depth than a melodrama hands over.
Our heros and villains, especially, become very cartoonish if we don't give them any depth. That's the ultimate in Melodrama. It does have it's place as Michelle says, but I think literary writers today have to be careful so that it doesn't take over their work. It makes it seem simplistic or maybe for children like Saturday Morning Cartoons.
ReplyDeleteScott, I think you bring up a bunch of great points here. I'm usually drawn to these contrasting characters myself, and only recently have I begun to play with flat characters. It has been a very interesting journey. In my book, I tried to make one antagonist relatively flat. I'm not one to believe that a person can be entirely evil, so this pushed the project away from the realm of reality for me. Reader's response were generally positive. I think they liked having a simple foothold for the story--one flat character--among the many complicated ones. Maybe that's why Sauron worked?
ReplyDeleteI also really like what Michelle had to say. I do think melodrama works sometimes, more for entertainment. Again, I used to despise melodrama, but now I try to accept it and invest in it when I see it. I've even kept a few melodramatic scenes in my book. I won't say they're my favorite, but they provide some "easiness" in the story, some clear-cut material among the ambiguity. The majority of my readers like it, and one doesn't at all.
I was inspired to include some flat characters as a result of reading The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. His focus in that book--I would argue--is not on character. As a result, some of the players are relatively flat, though not completely. It became more epic to me to think of good versus evil instead of one person versus another. And, to set up the contract, like you said, the mother in the story, who makes a very small appearance in the book, ends up holding a lot of weight in the story because she is more complex.
Michelle and Davin: I think that myths (The Odyssey, escapist entertainment (The Matrix) and allegory/metaphor (The Road or Lord of the Rings) all trade successfully on melodrama. The Matrix is melodrama with pretensions of depth, and it worked for me. But while flat characters can be effective, there still has to be some contrast in the storytelling, I think. I think Sauron was more a force of nature, like a volcano or a hurricane or a virus, than a real character. Certainly I have a villain in my own book who's pretty much straight from Central Casting, though I try to at least give him some behavioral quirks.
ReplyDeleteRick: I don't necessarily think that protagonists have to be likable; I think readers need to be able to identify with them, which is different. Protagonists just have to be compelling.
"I think Sauron was more a force of nature, like a volcano or a hurricane or a virus, than a real character."
ReplyDeleteHe's like a volcano on top of volcano, since Frodo "throws" the ring into lava. Right?
Justus: Sauron is like a garbage disposal inside a vacuum cleaner. Or something. Really, I think Sauron is more like an event on the horizon than a real character. Saruman and Gollum, Denethor and the Lord of the Nazgul (Uh-oh, Bailey reveals himself to be a Tolkein geek!) are actual characters.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see that a lot of the "bad guys" in Tolkein aren't evil so much as weak or greedy, and become pawns of the evil forces in the background. Gollum/Smeagol is an excellent example of an internally-conflicted character with lots of contrasting traits, and it's pretty masterfully done, the way he and Frodo form a matching pair as the story progresses.
This gets at my concept of "pairs in opposition" in literature, where you have characters in similar situations who are foils for each other. Compare, for example, the role of Sam in re Frodo with the role of Grima Wormtongue as friend of Theoden of Rohan. Blah blah blah.
When do I know everything? This writing stuff takes time, huh?
ReplyDeleteCindy: Redeemable antagonists are very compelling, and I think a lot of the dramatic punch in those stories comes when they aren't redeemed. ("Oh, that's a shame. He could have...but he didn't.")
ReplyDeleteShorty: Thanks! I wish I'd thought of it.
Lois: I think melodrama works best in morality plays and light entertainment, but for readers who want character-driven stories, you must have contrast and depth or you have no real characters. Thanks for the inspiration. Notice how I just reworded your post and padded for length to make myself look smart!
"Padded for length" belongs between your first and last name.
ReplyDeleteShould I have said "your first name and your last name"? Darn, but you get the point!
ReplyDeleteScoot, good point on likable vs. compelling. And the same for antogonists. Do I "like" Hannibal Lector? Not really. Am I fascinated by his character, and the contrast between his genius and insanity? You betcha.
ReplyDeleteSame thing for short versus long sentences and paragraphs. If we over do the short ones, then they lose their impact, especially when we really want something to stand out.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this very insightful post! You guys are top notch! I just love your blog!
Rick: Exactly. "Fly away, little Starling; fly, fly, fly." That's good stuff. Also, Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment isn't such a warm and fuzzy protagonist, but the book well earns its classic status anyway.
ReplyDeleteI love this post! I am actually working on this right now. I have a main character who is too evil...he needs some redeeming qualities. I can' wait to get to work on it.
ReplyDeleteNot all characters can be round though...flat characters are necessary too...sometimes, in many cases, to act as a foil to the protagonist. We don't want people to care about them! They are just bad, or perhaps stereotypical.
Yes, good point, Scott. There still needs to be contrast in the storytelling, of course. In all of the examples I listed, there is an amazing amount of contrast in the storytelling. Otherwise I don't think they would have worked so well.
ReplyDeleteBut like Traci says, not ALL of the characters in our stories should be round. Contrasting flat and round characters is yet another way to bring out those interesting shadows. I think that's the main conclusion most of the comments are coming to here.
What a great discussion! Thanks, Scott. :)
Traci and Michelle: You're right. All of our characters can't be well-rounded and complete, nor do we want them to be. Supporting cast often act as props or commentary on the real action, and we shouldn't bog our readers down in these supporting characters' stories. They should have enough detail to ring true, but not so much that we wonder about them more than we do our main characters. I have characters who only appear in one scene; how much do we need to know about them? Not much.
ReplyDeleteBut if your main characters seem dull and flat, odds are you haven't given them enough contrast. Same with plot, pacing and mood.
I want my characters to have glitches, with complicated personalities. I don't write nor do I read those stories with flat characters. There might be some exceptions to my rule but not many! :)
ReplyDeleteYes Scott...GREAT post and discussion. We all need the token bad guy that we can kill off and everyone says...YES!! Got rid of that churl! Michelle...that's how I felt about Timo! :-) He's such a ICK!!!
ReplyDeleteThe more emotionally invested I am in a character(s), the more I'm engaged by the book. Even if I hate the book and hate the author, I can't put the book down because the characters are so vividly drawn, so real, so compelling. (Thinking Larry McMurtry, here)
ReplyDeleteoh & yes, Hannibal Lector was completely fascinating. wow!
Litgirl, yeah. Timo is... well, he's fun isn't he?
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the post. My experience from other writers has been, if you want your characters to have true life, you must give them true life -- good and evil. The binary opposition is important because it's a part of ourselves, there isn't a human alive who doesn't have both characteristics, and who doesn't use them.
ReplyDeleteBTW this is easier said and typed than successfully completed. :-)