Think Tank Tuesday: The Dark Side

So I promised that I would start updating the blog more, and hopefully I'll be able to pull through on that by naming days and deciding what I'll do on each. Lo and behold, Think Tank Tuesday. If you think that's great, you should see the other ones I have planned, ahaha.

Oh, and NOTE before I go onto my TTT:

I'm now part of a collaborative blog called Inked, and I'll be posting on there, as well! So head on over there and follow to hear not only from me but from all my other fine writerly ladies who I'm pleased to call friends. Together we can slowly take over the blogosphere one post at a time ;)

Back to TTT.

Think Tank Tuesday (noun) - Tuesday blog posts that refer to writing craft, character development, and the other nitty-gritty wonder-bits of writing that so many people seem to overlook.

Not to be confused with My Thoughts Thursday.

We're talking about the Dark Side today. And not just any old Luke Skywalker 'use the force' dark side. Characters' dark sides - much more interesting. To put it another way, Carl Jung said that "Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." This shadow, which is another term for a character's dark side, is what makes characters so awesome.

Because when they've got shadows, they're just like us. No one can relate to someone who is never selfish or rude or angry or vengeful. Even the kindest and most angelic of us have little shards of dark in our souls. This darkness is what intrigues us about other people, and about characters, too. What a person, fictional or not, does with this darkness tells about them.

Lemme break it down for you.

Let's just build ourselves a nice character. We'll name him Dan. Hi Dan. You're looking swell today. Dan is kind, relatively intelligent, generous, likes long walks on the beach, dipping his toes in the sand, and poking dead things with a stick.

My guess is, you probably got to 'generous' and stopped because you saw that I was just rattling on good traits about him until the end. I tried to get you with the stick thing. But that's not bad. Better to know it's dead than be unpleasantly surprised. But you got bored, right? Dan is no fun just being a good guy. That's why Superman isn't as popular as Batman or Spiderman, because Superman is an all-over do-gooder who really doesn't have many flaws. But Batman is about as close to his shadow as he can get while still being considered a 'good guy', and Spiderman...well he battles his demons, too.

Let's get a little creative with Dan. Good-looking guy, an accountant, brings home bacon for his lovely wife and adorable little two-year-old son Ned. (Why Ned? Why not Ned. Let him make his choices.) But what we neglect to share with the lovely lady and their bouncing offspring is that Ned isn't necessarily always accounting for some good people. He's had a few mafiosos come in, ordering him to clean their money. Dan wasn't into it, but after some well-placed threats regarding his new family, he does as he says. More interesting, right? And that's just the gateway. Before he knows it, Dan's busting kneecaps, has mafia bosses on his speed dial, and can get anywhere in the city without so much as a nod to the right guy. Dan has become someone we're curious about now, right? But how did a well-meaning, moral man end up in the mafia? His dark side. Dan wants to protect his family, and will go to questionable lengths to get it. His dark side is his ability to shirk morals, his 'the ends justify the means' mentality. Keep in mind that this is basic and generally a character's dark side is a bit more involved than that.

Let's try a character we're all familiar with at this point. Hmmm....Katniss. Katniss Everdeen, Girl on Fire. Her dark side is gorgeous. Don't mind me, crazy characterizing nut here. But we see the good in Katniss as we follow her through the books - courageous, protective, logical, intelligent, resilient, survivalist. But she's also got herself a smattering of bad traits - cruel, suspicious, manipulative, quick-tempered, cunning. She is willing to use the parts we consider 'bad' to supplement her goals towards her good parts, even though she admits that she's not a good person. (That's debatable. We'll talk.) But why she makes for such a relatable character is that she's selfish sometimes, she says things she shouldn't that set her back from her goals, she fights, she loses, she gets up and she essentially gives the Capitol the finger and says 'You've taken everything from me, you can't stop me anymore.' Her ability to kill without a second glance is capitalized on.

And then there's her sister. Darling little Primrose Everdeen. Even though you probably should know what happens by now, if not to at least prepare yourself for J. Law's rendition of her in Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2, we can definitely say that Katniss gives all for her sister's safety, to keep protecting her and allowing her to have the childhood and freedom that Katniss didn't get. To (futilely) keep Prim from developing a dark side. But Katniss has no problem using all of her 'dark' traits that she's generally ashamed of in order to help Prim, Peeta, or anyone else she loves. She's not always kind and polite and good-natured. Sometimes, she's downright villainous.

Characters need that, as much as you may hate to make them anything other than perfect or ridiculously evil. Everyone is a mixture of light and dark - in different proportions, obviously, but it's still true. Katniss is loving but cruel. Gale is righteous but dogmatic. Peeta is a persuasive speaker but angers easily.

So I'll wrap this up before this gets too long, but this is what characters need. In the immortal words of Kelly Clarkson, "Everybody's got a dark side/Do you love me, can you love mine?" (answer: Yes. Especially if you have cookies.) People are capable of beautiful and terrible things. Light and dark. Love and cruelty, rebuilding and destruction. Characters that stick with people do that, too. 

Got something to say?

Tell me what you think about my first TTT. Too long, not long enough, have a subject you'd like me to talk about? Hit the comments below.

Complexes and neuroses,

Brie