Rule Of Thumb: Character Blind Spots

Sensible, well intentioned characters are a pain.

I mean they're fun to write, they can add real meat to an idea and can help rope in a wild cast - but they rarely do what you want.

For example, in Arrested Development the writers are always creating intricate reasons to keep Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) from very sensibly leaving his family forever.

We had this exact same problem with one of our main characters - Hedge. He was a logical, boring and pragmatic character in a loopy, cartoon world, and it really made the whole show 'click'.

But every now and again we would need Hedge to be a little loopy. Otherwise he just stayed at home and never did anything interesting (which admittedly was almost always the smartest choice).

The question was: How do you force a character to do something out of character, and still have it in character?

As it turned out, one answer was to find some kind of leverage to exploit.
A 'blind spot,' if you will.

In Arrested Development, Michael has a Blind Spot where his son, George-Michael, is concerned. So let's say Michael is once again about to leave - Not a problem; the writers just have his son mention how important family is. BAM. Michael stays for his son's sake.


Hedge already had a weakness for anything 'boring'. Boring hobbies, boring collections, boring activities - whatever it is, he's a sucker for it.

All we had to do was play that passion as a Character Blind Spot, and suddenly we could get him to do the most ridiculous things - as long as it allowed him to 'find his lucky lederhose' or 'complete his cork tile collection' or even 'get back in time to tape the ads'.

You can see how useful it is. Simply find or create a Blind Spot, and then even the smartest character can become stupid, single-minded... and malleable.

Once we knew the rule, we started seeing it everywhere:

• Think about how reckless the very responsible Marty McFly becomes when someone calls him a chicken.
• And how quickly Jim Hacker compromises his inflexible integrity as soon as a loss of votes is hinted at.
• Or Uchiha Sasuke, who would do anything for revenge.
  

The writers behind these examples are having their cake and eating it - all while adding depth to the character.

For further reading on the topic, this article might be helpful.

Rule Of Thumb: It's Gotta Suck First

My single greatest struggle as a writer is a fear of failure.

For the longest time this fear stopped me from writing what I really wanted to write. I kept lying to myself, believing that as long as I never actually put it to the page then I could never be disappointed in myself. As long as I never tried I couldn't fail.

That's when I learned the most important thing I feel a writer can ever learn. We suck.

Yes, that's my rather unoriginal point. Like all human beings we screw up way more than we ever succeed, and the only thing that's gonna decrease the number of times we screw up (which never stops being a lot) is to learn. If we don't write a pile of crap we'll never write a mountain of gold.

All the most valuable things I've learned as a writer, and I really mean all, was from trying my hardest and utterly failing. It's like poison to the ego, but it was what I needed. Because it was only then that I could see my weaknesses as a writer and work to smooth them out.

Mutt is always watching time-lapse videos of people painting awesome artwork and a few weeks ago he made a really cool observation. The greatest artworks always look terrible at the beginning, but slowly grow into something incredible. The less impressive and forgettable works usually play it safe the whole way through, never daring to chance looking disappointing.

An obvious point, I know, but sometimes it's the things right in front of our faces that we need to be reminded of the most.