Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
It is ironic that, regardless of whether you create honest or dishonest characters or both, you do have to be honest about how you create them. What do I mean by that?
I mean you create a character who is fully rounded, where readers can see why they are the way they are, even if they disagree with them, and your characters are not set up as cardboard cutouts. They have to seem real and believable, an honest creation if you like.
But you can have fun with honest and dishonest characters and naturally literature abounds with both kinds.
When it comes to one of my favourite novels, The Lord of the Rings, I would say Sam Gamgee is an honest character, telling the truth no matter what. His opposite is naturally Gollum. Frodo, the hero, wants to believe Gollum can be redeemed but is Sam right to say Gollum cannot be trusted? Incidentally, I would add Gollum honestly believes he is right to try and retrieve the “precious” (ring). He does have some sense he should be its guardian though the Dark Lord Sauron would have something to say about that.
Characters can themselves believe they are honest when their actions and attitudes indicate otherwise. This can be huge fun to write.
And then there are those characters who know full well they are dishonest but don’t care (e.g. Fagin in Oliver Twist). They can also feel they have no choice but to be the way they are. The stories here can explore whether they’re right to take that view or not.
It is also difficult to have any crime story without some dishonesty going on somewhere!
Creating Honest Characters
Do honest characters have to be likeable? Not necessarily.
You can have honest characters who are so blunt they upset everyone around them. With my crime fiction fan hat on, I could see a character like that being a murder victim! Characters like that can also be ripe to be set up for a fall in more humorous stories too especially if you have their bluntness backfire on them.
I think one of the problems with an honest character is you need to ensure they are also not boring. There has to be something interesting about them, and their honesty is part of that, which keeps the reader reading. What you don’t want is a Goody Two Shoes. Readers will switch off.
What is it your character needs to do or become to achieve their objectives by the end of the story? This is always a good thought to keep in mind.
Naturally you can have stories which rely on the honest character uncovering the truth (crime fiction especially).
It is important I think for any character to have their flaws as well as their virtues. It is that which will make them much more believable to a reader.
Another thought is to explore why honesty is so important to your character. There could be some interesting tales to be told there. Certainly if they have a history of always being lied to, for whatever reason, that would be a good driving motive for them to be the opposite to that.
Dishonest Characters
Dishonest characters (aka the bad guys) have all the fun in fiction, yes? Hmm… They also bring problems on themselves they do not need to have. See Gollum for an example of that.
The question to ask yourself is do you really want your dishonest characters to get away with what they are doing? If so, why is that? Could it be your honest character isn’t interesting enough to hold your attention, yet alone anyone else’s? If you don’t want the dishonest characters getting away with it, what will you get your other characters to do to be able to overcome any gains that dishonesty gives your bad guy? Your more honest characters will need to have something going for them.
Again there will be story ideas to have as you explore why your dishonest character became that way. Could you get them to change their ways and have an interesting redemption story? Ebenezer Scrooge, naturally, is a great example of that in A Christmas Carol.
What I Love About Honest and Dishonest Characters
When written well, both types of character will keep me glued to a story. For the honest character, I want to find out how they overcome the disadvantages of being so truthful. Is the bad guy easily going to take advantage of them because of this trait? When the honesty backfires, causes upset, how does the character respond to this? How does the character act and react when their honesty is misunderstood? Plenty of story ideas there, I hope.
As for the dishonest characters, I do love to see them get their comeuppance in due course. I suspect this is why crime fiction will always be such a popular genre. We know justice often isn’t done in life. We know dishonest people can and do get away with it. In fiction, that’s a different matter (usually).
I also like to see, where apt, if such characters can be changed for the better (but this has to be believable. I have no problem with the thought of Scrooge changing because of his run-ins with the ghost, starting with Marley’s one. That does make sense. It would be a bit odd if this kind of visitation didn’t give pause for thought to say the least!).
Good Questions to Ask For Outlining Honest and Dishonest Characters
I don’t outline everything for a character. Neither do I outline everything for a story. I do outline enough to get me started and to have a good idea of where the story and characters are going.
The latter can still surprise me though, which is fine. Because I will know roughly where my story is heading, I can work out whether these surprises will work in context or if they are better than my initial thoughts. Nothing is set in stone here. I often find jotting down some initial thoughts will trigger better ones. It is just part of the process, I find.
But I do find the following questions so useful for helping me to get to know my characters better (and from there what their story will be). Hope you give these a go and you find them useful too.
What do you want and why?
What are you prepared to do to achieve your objective?
What would you never be prepared to do?
What (or whom or both) is getting in your way and how do you intend to overcome all of that?
What (or whom or both) could make you change your mind and why?
Conclusion
Inventing characters (human or otherwise, honest or otherwise and many of mine have been anything but honest, incidentally) has always been my favourite aspect to storytelling. I guess it is because I can get inside the character’s mind for a while and see things as they do. It’s not always a comfortable place to be by the way as I’m sure my colleagues in horror would confirm!
I’ve mentioned before using traits is something I use a lot to create characters. It works. Starting with a big trait and its opposite in honesty and dishonesty is a great way to begin. And, yes, you can have characters who are generally honest but there will be things they won’t be honest about. They will have good reasons for that. Have fun finding out what these are.
I’m sure there could be some cracking stories from that.
Honestly!
Related Posts:-
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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