Applying complex psychology to your characters
How to apply it to your novel. how it helps tell your story. how to make your characters real.
One of the hardest things to do as a writer is understand the complexity of the mind in your writing. There are two words we live in, the straightforward black and white world and the world made up of shades of gray. The black and white would only exist in Hollywood movies and novels.
But in reality, life is more complex than black and white. Everything is a mix of shades of gray. Nothing is straightforward. Nothing we do or say. The tricky part is as a writer is you want to capture the complexity of the shades of gray in your novel. But this is not easy.
In this blog, we will be looking at applying complex psychology to your characters..
APPLYING COMPLEX PSYCHOLOGY TO YOUR CHARACTERS
Table of Contents
The mind is broken up to two sections, the conscious and the subconscious. We have been trying to understand the mind since the dawn of man but is very complex.
When you set out to write always remember the golden rule, no one admits to being dumb and no one admits to being wrong. We feel justified in what we do. As a writer, you want to create characters who always believes they’re right even when it’s clear they’re wrong. You want to create characters who believe they’re smart when they’re clearly dumb. This will create a complexity to your writing. Your characters will always try to justify their actions in their mind and to others.
EVERYONE BELIEVES THEY’RE THE GOOD GUY
Everyone believes they’re the good guys. No one will admit they’re bad. No one wants to admit they’re self-centered. When you create a character set out to make someone who feels they’re “good/right” in what they do. How they’ll try to convince everyone around them they’re right. Don’t write about dumb people who know they’re dumb, write about dumb people who think they’re a genius. People who think they have a high IQ because they have a lot of opinions.
But reveal their character in what they do, so the reader will truly get to know them. Because in life we are who we are by what we do, not by what we say we are. Bad people are bad because they do bad things. If they say they’re “nice” it means nothing, because their actions say otherwise.
NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS
This is what makes the mind complex. Nothing is as it seems. Some bad people smile, some smart people are quiet, sad people like to laugh a lot. The mind is complex. If you make everyone straightforward the novel will come across as plain. If you make your characters complex your novel then because complex and well received.
As a writer, you have a difficult job when it comes to understanding psychology. It’s a handful. You could study psychology for decades and still not know everything. But you want to create complex real characters. You can do this by understanding how the mind works. The more you create real complex people the more readers will be drawn to your writing. They will relate, understand the characters in your book.
THEY DO NOT “LOOK EVIL”
Some of the most dangerous serial killers got away with their crimes because they fit in with society. They did not walk around “looking evil” wearing all black with cold eyes, They would have a smile, they’d laugh. Some were married, had full-time jobs. But yet still killed people as a hobby. How do we explain this? How could they blend in? Your average novel writer would have the serial killer wearing all black “looking evil”, but his is not how you write a novel. Life is more complex. How can someone who is married and have kids kill innocent people?
The most successful books are the ones that dwell into the mind. Not books that describe landscape or settings for pages on end, but invites the reader into the mind of the character and tries to make us understand their psychological makeup by their actions and words.
WE CAN’T HELP BUT FEEL WHAT THEY FEEL
The one writer who understands the importance of psychology is Stephen King. He’s forever using in his novels. His characters are complex; we can’t help but feel what they feel. It’s the little things they do and say that make us believe they’re alive. How they react to a comment, or what happens to them. How their reaction seems real and honest.
For example, when you read a novel from Stephen King and in a scene, a character walks into a dark room, how they react and what they think is the very thing you’d think and do if it happen to you in real life. This attracts us to his books. We can see ourselves in his books. It’s as if the books have come to life in our living room. His character are not flat, they are complex just as we see ourselves as complex.
IT MAKES THE CHARACTERS THREE DIMENSIONAL
He has his character’s thoughts, words, and emotions expressed on the page. We see what they do, but we also understand what they’re thinking and we know what they’re feeling. It makes the characters three-dimensional. Letting us understand their motivations. If they’re afraid he will let us know through the character’s actions. If they’re lying or withholding something we will know through body language. He does a great job at mixing the complexity of thought, emotions, actions, and words.
How a character in your novel reacts to something funny or scary is the same reaction the reader should have. Drawing the reader into the mind of the character, because you can relate to them. As though you were in the novel.
WE THINK IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONSTERS
When we think of Stephen King we think of horror novels. We believe his success comes from writing about monsters. But in reality, he writes about people. This is proven in “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Stand by Me” both are character-driven and both are powerful. They are stories about people. Proving Stephen King’s success is not about scary monsters but it’s about people and how they realistically handle real-life problems.
He starts off with an “idea of a monster”, but quickly creates real complex people to move the story forward. When we read his books it’s not the monster that makes us turn the page, it’s the characters we care about. Wanting to know if they’ll be OK by the end. His characters are real and flawed. They are not superheroes who can survive everything. If they were perfect we’d be bored reading, knowing they’ll be fine. But since they’re human and can make mistakes we don’t know if they’ll always make the best decisions. From this we feel the need to turn the page.
IT’S SOMETHING THE READER CANNOT RELATE TO
Other horror writers will focus on the monster, something your average reader cannot relate to. The characters will be bored and fake. There’s nothing to relate to. You can guess what will happen next, they’ll make the best decisions. Leaving the reader to stop reading. They’ll lack real human traits; they’ll not react to something in an honest way. But Stephen King will have his characters doing what someone really would do when faced with a difficult situation. Leaving the reader relating to the characters as though it’s you in the novel. The more the reader can see themselves in the novel the more they’ll read on.
There seems to be something different about Stephen king we are drawn to him because of his ability to understand the mind. However, when movies are made from his novels the script focuses on the monster. Leaving out the complex characters that made the book a success. And to no one’s surprise, the movie does not do well.
IT LEAVES EVERYONE FEELING DISAPPOINTED
Hollywood cannot learn Stephen King’s secret to success is not the monster; it’s about the people dealing with the monster. But yet countless movies have been made over the decades from his books and time after time the focus is on the monster. Leaving everyone disappointed.
In the movie “Stand by Me” the director Rob Reiner put the focus on the characters and the movie was successful. Again he did the same thing in the movie “Misery” the focus was again on the characters making the movie do well. You’d think other new directors would learn from this.
IT MAKES YOU SEE IT IN A DIFFERENT WAY
Aaron Sorkin says, “What a character does reveals who they are, what a character says reveals how they see themselves.” This is a complex quote but a powerful one. So much is being said. It opens the eyes of a writer. Makes you see things differently. You can’t help but agree with him. But what does this say about the human mind.
As a writer, you have to remember everyone sees themselves differently than how others see them. We live inside our minds twenty-four hours a day. We’re forever daydreaming. We see ourselves doing things that we’ll never actually do. We daydream about climbing the highest mountains, flying. Being a racecar driver, being an athlete. But will these things actually happen? We watch movies and see ourselves as the protagonist saving the day.
ARE WE WHAT WE DO OR SAY?
Are we who we say we are, or are we what we do? If you hurt people but see yourself as kind, does this make you a kind person, or do your actions override the judgment?
This is what attracts us to books. We want to learn about ourselves. We’re looking for answers and by reading about the complexity of characters in novels we can learn about ourselves. We are all seeking truth. Wanting to answer the question of the meaning of life, wondering if the answers are found in novels.
TOUCHING UPON THE COMPLEXITY OF THE MIND
Margaret Mitchel touched upon the complexity of the human mind when writing, “Gone with the Wind”. We see the complexity of Scarlett O’Hara. We have insight into her mind. In what she does and what she says. The reader can understand the two sides. We know her motives. We understand her, you may not like her or have to agree, but we are given insight into her mind.
Margaret Mitchel did not make the story flat. She understood the psychology of the mind and added to all the characters.
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