Character Depth:
I’m going to give one terrible example of character depth. In the horrifying, poorly-written, and cliché-filled movie, the “Kissing Booth”, Our main character, who’s name is Ellie ( or something ), falls in love with her best friend’s older brother. Before the movie really starts, there is a scene where they show her mother dying as Ellie bawls her eyes out. Most people, including me, assumed that her mother’s death would play into the plot later on in the movie, but it didn’t. It wasn’t even relevant. So I then realized, it was a below-average attempt of giving Ellie’s boring, unfunny character some very needed depth.
I watched the whole movie and wanted to chuck my iPad out the window.
To give your character’s depth is something that many writers struggle with. Some advice I can offer you, stems from what Ray Bradbury wrote in the novel Fahrenheit 451.
“The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”
When you draw from life, boring or not, you can find a lot of very human-like depths that you can incorporate into your characters. Ray Bradbury, a master at character depth, taught me to be friends with your characters. Put yourself into that character’s shoes and really understand them, feel their every emotion, think the thoughts they’d think. Add a little bit of yourself in your characters. To me, I’d define depth as a character who I could be friends with. A character that I’d WANT to understand.
Main Points:
- Ray Bradbury is rad
- Draw inspiration from your own life
-Become friends with your characters
-Make characters that people want to understand
-Have empathy for your characters, evil or not.