Writing Tip of the Week: Humanizing Characters Through Conflict
When someone is put under pressure and forced to react to conflict or some emergency, you often see a different side of the individual. They may panic, or they might stay level-headed during this time of crisis. They may lash out and become angry or violent, or escape the situation and leave the problem for someone else.
Conflict can reveal a lot about a real person and a fictional character as well. Increasing the pressure, tension, and opposition on your main character can help you craft a stronger narrative as you decide how your hero deals with stressful situations.
It’s easy to avoid conflict and keep to yourself in the real world, but your main character doesn’t have that luxury. In fact, they should be thrown into the deep end of conflict as soon as possible once their goal has been established. They don’t have time to avoid anything; they have a journey to take and a problem to solve.
How they deal with conflict at varying levels can tell the reader or viewer a lot about your main character, and create empathy or sympathy for them, depending on the situation. This is an excellent opportunity to humanize your main character by putting them under pressure and showing the audience how they handle themselves and their opponent.
Do they joke their way out of the situation? Do they use force to end the conflict? Do they run away to avoid getting hurt? Any of these gives us insight into who this person is and creates a more relatable character.
Take two characters from a story you’re working on, put them in a room, and give them something to argue about. How does Character A deal with the conflict? How does Character B? How is the conflict resolved? Did they resolve the initial conflict, or did it escalate into a larger conflict between them?
Exploring how your main character and other characters in the story deal with conflict can make them relatable to an audience and make them more human in dealing with the many problems they encounter in your story.
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
Conflict can reveal a lot about a real person and a fictional character as well. Increasing the pressure, tension, and opposition on your main character can help you craft a stronger narrative as you decide how your hero deals with stressful situations.
It’s easy to avoid conflict and keep to yourself in the real world, but your main character doesn’t have that luxury. In fact, they should be thrown into the deep end of conflict as soon as possible once their goal has been established. They don’t have time to avoid anything; they have a journey to take and a problem to solve.
How they deal with conflict at varying levels can tell the reader or viewer a lot about your main character, and create empathy or sympathy for them, depending on the situation. This is an excellent opportunity to humanize your main character by putting them under pressure and showing the audience how they handle themselves and their opponent.
Do they joke their way out of the situation? Do they use force to end the conflict? Do they run away to avoid getting hurt? Any of these gives us insight into who this person is and creates a more relatable character.
Take two characters from a story you’re working on, put them in a room, and give them something to argue about. How does Character A deal with the conflict? How does Character B? How is the conflict resolved? Did they resolve the initial conflict, or did it escalate into a larger conflict between them?
Exploring how your main character and other characters in the story deal with conflict can make them relatable to an audience and make them more human in dealing with the many problems they encounter in your story.
Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!
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