Writing Morally Ambiguous Characters | Writing Tips

hey guys it's shaylen and i'm here today with another rating video today I'm going to be talking about writing morally ambiguous characters writing morally corrupt women is kind of my thing it's kind of my mission in life so I think I have some things to share because I honestly think a lot of writing morally ambiguous characters comes down to your mindset you need a certain integrity to your vision and you kind of need to allow yourself to not be influenced by certain worries you want to get started by saying there are specific types of morally morally ambiguous characters like morally gray antihero anti-villain these things have specific definitions some of these definitions are even kind of disputed and I'm not gonna get into any of that in this video because to me as a writer it doesn't really matter at all these subtypes are interesting to study as a writer if a character is technically morally great which I don't even know what the current agreed-upon definition of morally gray is or is technically an anti villain or whatever it doesn't change at all how I approach writing the character so I'm gonna use the term morally ambiguous in this video which to me encompasses any character who's not kind of your typical hero I guess or doesn't kind of embody good you think how you want to define that maybe depends a little on you but um the definitions matter less than the techniques I think and if anything a lot of this could apply to like a villain or even a quote-unquote good character you could apply this to just a hero character to maybe make them a little more morally complex if you are interested in these terms though I did do some videos on the read Z Channel on anti heroes on anti villains so I believe those if you want to check them out talking about like those specific character types and actually looking at the tropes definitionally like what they are check out my video on character if you haven't seen it it has a lot of information on creating character flaws and rounded characters pretty much all of that will apply to write a good morally ambiguous character first you need a shield right I've got a character so I'm not gonna talk about like all the fundamentals of character stuff I just want to look at some specifics if you're writing a morally ambiguous character the first thing I want to say is a bit of a principal thing if you want to write moral ambiguity you have to just commit to it I think the biggest mistake that I see writers make is you you have writers who they want to write morally ambiguous characters because maybe they want their stories to be a little edgier they want to make it a little more like modern and not so like kind of classic good versus evil they want to make their stories more mature but at the same time they don't want their characters to be called problem that they don't want anyone to think poorly of their views and they want the hero to be seen as good and the villain to be seen as bad and they want everything the main character does to still be understandable excusable relatable non-problematic loved by the fandom but still be morally ambiguous here's some tough love for you you can't have it all if you want to write a morally ambiguous character you have to commit to the fact that they're morally ambiguous and to be honest I get a little annoyed by people who are like oh my god my character so morally ambiguous but like they're really just heroes who are sarcastic it's just a cynical hero nothing wrong with that character but they're not really a whirly ambiguous character you have to kind of let go of how you want your characters to be perceived and just start thinking about who your characters are and how you want to write them at a certain point I think you have to let go of the notion of likeable and you have to let go but worrying about people liking your characters and I know it's hard because you love your characters but sometimes you gotta let go of this idea that everyone will love them in order to write them from a moral standpoint in the way you want to okay my point here is that these characters are often not morally ambiguous because moral ambiguity is about the characters worldview and not their actions so these types of characters to me sure they could be morally ambiguous the reason I don't think they're often true morally ambiguous characters it's because they have well-intentioned worldviews but they do bad things because they had to it's excused by the plot so they don't really test the reader more lean and yet the character who kills seven bodyguards so they can rescue the secret Andy Millett believes in good they're doing this for good so it's kind of like this false moral ambiguity my point here is my first point which is so important is that moral ambiguities about the characters worldview before it's about their actions if they have a pure good worldview but their actions are bad but excused or forced by the plot that's not really moral ambiguity I think moral ambiguity has to come from worldview because that's where the morals are that's why I think I'm having this rant about how annoyed I am by these characters who wrestle with have cynical and dark and messed-up they are but we never actually see any Inklings of a flawed worldview with em them we never actually see a twisted belief system we actually see a fairly normal belief system an understanding of what's right and wrong just paired with some bad actions so they're just wrestling with their actions but they're not really wrestling with what they believe and I think that it's really important for these things to find root in belief so that's my little preamble rant I'm gonna get in some tips now so the first tip I already wrote down it kind of already addressed its abandon the notion of likable will get to likable again in this video but likable in the sense of nice person I'd like to hang out with them it's dead to us we're not even gonna worry about it step two focus on making them interesting I have always had this mindset is that as long as a character is interesting they can be anything else I would hear like even professors say that like characters have to be sympathetic and I never agreed I don't think the character has to be sympathetic personally I don't feel like I need to sympathize with a character to read them maybe I'm in the minority but I do need to be interested by them I'd actually rather be interested than sympathize with you know a bland person who is sympathetic versus an interesting person who's non sympathetic like I'll take this one any day as a reader this person isn't kind of normal and I don't really get much away like I can sympathize with them but like you know I can sympathize with like any beguine but this this is where the magic happens you want to focus on their complexity and their uniqueness before you worry about likeable in a roundabout way makes a person sympathetic interesting is complex it's human it's intriguing it has a lot of layers and that becomes sympathy to me a lot of the time to build off of that think about it as their flawed needs to be the most interest thing about them we want readers to read on because of the characters flaws not despite of I think with a typical hero you know the flaws are there to make them round it inhuman but we're actually reading on for their strength where's the morally ambiguous character you want to get people to read on because of the characters flaws get them on board with the flaws because the flaws are interesting so a couple tips for writing a good character flaw first of all is that a flaw is an active and evolving trait so it does have external consequences in the plot but it also has internal consequences so how it feeds into a negative character even when that flaw is used successfully by the characters so let's say we have a character who is manipulative there's they successfully manipulate someone that reinforces to them it's okay for me to take things from people if I can for whatever reason makes sense for the character number two is that a flaw is not just a personality trait but a worldview so it's a maladaptive outlook on people the world life themselves it's easier for writers to really oversimplify the character flaw by being like my characters all selfish moving on a flaw I think it's so much more interesting with so much deeper and it becomes I believe this about the world and that informs their actions rather than just a negative personality trait what I mean by that is that it's not just how they are but it's what they believe so for example a character flaw that's rooted in a personality trait would be something like he's mean whereas a character flaw that's rooted in a worldview would be he gains a sense of he gains a sense of power from being demeaning to others this is a worldview this is something that he believes it's something that informs his actions because it's a belief it's not just a personality trait so another example if it was a personality trait could just be she's selfish but we could make it a lot more complex and rude in a world view by the flaw of being she views other people as competition and acts in her own favor because she feels this is how all people act and it's a lot more active there's a lot more to unpack there so this is something you can apply to all characters across the board I think it's a really good way to make a character we're interesting not just a morally ambiguous one but it does really help for righting a morally ambiguous character so let's look a little bit at the notion of sympathy because I already said in this video sympathy doesn't matter but I think that the thing with a morally ambiguous character is that you're not trying to make them sympathetic despite their major flaws you're actually going to end up making them sympathetic because of their flaws we see how their flaws sabotage them and kind of lead them to their own demise and that's a little sad seeing that someone is making themselves sad because they have this maladaptive worldview but they can't change because the belief is so entrenched like that's sad that's sympathetic and it's coming from the flaw itself so I hope I'm making sense in this idea that a complex flaw that's rooted in belief is interesting so we focused on the interesting rather than sympathetic and in turn turned into sympathy so my next tip I want to talk about Baxter usually if you google how to write an anti villain or how to write a villain or whatever the article or whatever we'll talk about backstory but I think the most important thing to remember when writing a morally ambiguous character is not to have a manipulative or prescriptive backstory this is the most common mistake people make although I think I've probably said that four times but I think that a big mistake people make and probably because it's really common in villains I don't think it's a good technique but it's common I think it's kind of cheap writing is to kind of try to explain their flaws away through a sad backstory that's like this is why they are the way they are the idea that people only do or believe bad things because they've gone through trauma is not only untrue but also a little problematic you've gone through something traumatic and then treat other people poorly like that's not an excuse but a lot of writing I think tries to explain away character flaw with sad backstory it can kind of cheapen the characters trauma and just make it feel like a device and not something that's actually being explored now don't get me wrong backstory is important it can really deepen our understanding of a morally ambiguous character we can see how those maladaptive beliefs have evolved as well as how they've impacted them in the past but these very prescriptive backstories that are like traumatic sin happened they are bad now to me are very cheap writing they're manipulative it's weak it's not accurate it's not complex so I'd really shy away from those kinds of backstories not that you can't give a morally ambiguous character sad backstory you totally can but it shouldn't be explained it away kind of thing I'm gonna use an example from a piece of media that I think a lot of you guys have seen Walter White from Breaking Bad in my opinion Walter White is the best written morally ambiguous character in the history of television I say having not seen every TV show but I'm sure someone will argue with me about it in the comments Walter White is a great morally ambiguous character for a lot of reasons and if you want to write morally ambiguous characters you should watch Breaking Bad if you haven't seen it because that show watching is what made me realize that I was interested primarily in writing morally ambiguous characters and it's an absolute master class on how to do it I wanted to talk about why Walter White's backstory in particular is so effective he has a detailed and interesting backstory but it's not prescriptive and that's the key so we can see how this history he has where he was the co-founder of this company and then you know he sold his shares because of creative differences with the other founder and then the company after that went on to great success and you know this person he had started this company with is now very wealthy whereas he's a very unfulfilled person struggling financially working at a job that doesn't fulfill him or you know satisfy him intellectually when he's a very intelligent person we see how this these events have kind of instilled and brought forth a belief system in him does inform his desires and his goals and his choices but it's not saying this happened therefore he's like this there's a detail if you have seen Breaking Bad I think it's in the last season maybe I'm remembering wrong where the company that he had founded them left was Co gray matter and he says that he still checks how much the stocks are worth like every week or something I remember first watching that and I detail hits real hard the reason I think this back story is so brilliant and I won't really say more just because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it it lays all the groundwork for his characters and his characters belief system while still keeping Walt in the driver's seat he has agency and he chooses how he reacts to this situation this happened and how he reacted to it instilled these beliefs and no one else is at fault here except for him he only has himself to blame he didn't have to react the way that he reacted but we can still see because of this series of events how its impacted him and how it impacts his very downwards character arc it's really perfect how the backstory kind of very delicately evolves his flaws while still making everything his decision and it really is more interesting that it's his fault and that he had agency in his own demise that's what's so compelling and I think it's something a lot of writers take away from their characters because they're worried that that will make the character unlikable I think it's really really compelling so let's look at some other tips I'll talk about backstory the next thing that I think is important to remember is that if you're writing a morally ambiguous character they are unreliable it's really hard to avoid if they are a narrator if this is a narrative character we're in their point of view there they're going to be unreliable it's it's kind of hard to avoid if they have this flaws and maladaptive worldview like we've talked about that's gonna inform how they see and how they tell the story because they're gonna they're only seeing the story through their own lens but you can really use that to your benefit the fact that they're unreliable whether it's subtly or heavily is a great way to explore this character and their flaws and think about how they tell the story where their biases are how where they are if their biases where they shift the story where they become uncomfortable with their own actions if they ever do while telling the story thinking about their point of view and utilizing their point of view and it's on liable notes to tell the story effectively is really really important for a character like this so the next thing that I wanted to talk about I think is a bit larger than the story it comes down to how you see your story and not just a technique don't try to justify their bad actions but at the same time don't have the story will really condemn them I have seen this idea floating around it's been flowing around for years and it's so incorrect that a character doing something bad in fiction means that that character has to face adequate consequences for those actions that's just not true to life people do bad things all the time and they get away with it it's not reflective of life I can't believe this was ever a popular notion a character can act badly and not face consequences in the plot and not be condemned by the other characters sometimes is really a knack for when this happens you know your story isn't a morality play your story isn't about teaching what's right and wrong your character's downfall doesn't have to be a lesson for the reader it can be just so preachy for a character to call out your protagonist not all the bad things they did and then the character feels bad recognizes their flaws and faces consequences and apologizes like maybe if that's true to the characters but it's not a requirement and for some reason some people seem to think that it is a requirement in my opinion seeing how the characters actions are harming them internally whether they realize it or not is probably the most powerful form of consequence and is probably inherent you know like going back to Walter why - I will probably continue to use in this as an example because I just think he's like the most well-written example and I assume a lot of you guys have seen Breaking Bad Walter White does face consequences for his actions I'm sure sometimes they're external and sometimes they're not sometimes he gets away with it seeing how he's internally destroying himself more and more and sabotaging himself whether he realizes it or not is the best form of consequence for him to face because really that's what we're looking at with a morally ambiguous character we're looking at who they are in their mind so that can be the most interesting place to have consequences but maybe not maybe your character is just completely remorseless and doesn't feel bad honestly sometimes that's interesting too my point is just don't go out of your way to try to make sure that they get what was coming to them because it can ruin a lot of the credibility you've set up in terms of realism so my next tip is to test your characters you know character flaws are only interesting if they're utilized and I think with a morally ambiguous character it's really important that we do something about them just think about how the character is going to change but what is going to be revealed about the character through their actions so how does what they do in the story reveal their nature or their beliefs or what they want and I think testing the character's limits pushing them pushing their flaws seeing how far they'll go whatever their reaction or the results is can be a really important step to evolving that character and kind of pushing them to that point where they are going to reveal that crucial thing I think if you don't test your character enough with the plot then first of all there you'll just lose a lot of tension and conflict you don't get as much pay off for that moral ambiguity because you don't see it ever put in a position where the character has to make that choice they have to make that call and maybe they have to make the wrong choice or the wrong call or do the wrong thing putting them in those situations is really where we get to see the most interesting aspects about them which is their moral ambiguity and so my final tip for this video is to feel empathy for your character this happens with pretty much all characters but I especially notice it when I'm writing fundamentally unlikable or immoral characters there will come a moment where I'll start to feel really sad for them I remember when I had this moment with the protagonist of honey vinegar Sybil who's quite morally ambiguous I was maybe like two or three chapters into the book and suddenly I felt so sad for her like it wasn't planned but suddenly she felt like such a tragic character to me suddenly I could see this tragedy of who she was and like kind of like the tragedy of her character flaws and I felt so sad for her and I've had this with of characters and for me that's usually a sign I'm on the right track it means I've tapped into something with the character that I feel this sadness for them and this sadness usually doesn't last you know like usually within a couple chapters I kind of get over and I'm like okay you're still a bit of a bastard but it's fine like keep doing you but it's really important I think to feel that empathy for your character having empathy for your character means not judging them for what they do or for who they are you know as much as I make fun of my characters and I love to you know be like oh this idiot when I'm writing them I don't actually judge them at all I don't judge them for what they do I don't judge them for what they believe they're just doing their thing and I'm a witness to it and I want to understand I want to feel for them even if what they do is really bad even if it's not excusable even if it's really messed up as soon as you start to judge them the narrative will start to judge them and it kind of creates this weird cast around the character it makes them hard to relate to because the reader will get the sense that the narrative is judging them and will feel like they should therefore be judging them and then they won't empathize with them they're gonna be like oh well we're here to judge this person we're here to think about how bad they are and if the reader starts feeling that way you will lose all that sympathy that you've worked to build up with how interesting they are on all their flaws and all that complexity it'll be gone and sometimes with a really morally great character sometimes you just need to find that grain of sympathy sometimes there's just one grain of sympathy in an otherwise unlikable person it can be so powerful so that's why you have to make sure you don't judge your character it will shine through in the narrative there are so many different things I'm morally ambiguous character you can accomplish you know like there's like this is a huge range of characters but I do think one specific thing about this type of character can do that's really powerful is when the reader gets to a point where they realize they feel for this person but they think they probably shouldn't like oh man I feel for this person and I maybe relate to them or empathize with them but I shouldn't that's probably a sign that the author has done a good job when you get to that point where you have a bit of inner conflict as the reader it's gonna be hard to do if you feel like the narrative itself is judging the character for being the way that they are so I think that's all I had to say and writing ambiguous carats this is one of my favorite topics I could really talk about this forever so I hope that you guys found this interesting um if I remember a leave a list of some of my favorite books featuring morally ambiguous protagonists in the description thank you guys so much for watching if you have any questions you can always send me an ask on tumblr and I'll see you in another video bye [Music]

Channel: ShaelinWrites

Views: 25,465

Rating: 4.9722362 out of 5

Keywords: writer, writing, author, creative writing, writetube, writetuber, writing advice, how to write a book, how to write a novel, writing vlog, creative writing degree, books, nanowrimo, authortube, writing tip, writing morally ambiguous characters, morally grey characters, writing morally grey characters, anti heroes, anti villains, character flaws, how to write anti heroes, how to write an anti hero, how to write an antagonist, how to write a villain, how to write a character flaw

Id: CMK3b4pfaqM

Length: 22min 38sec (1358 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 03 2020