“Three-dimensional characters in novels require three dimensional emotions, for in real life no person is entirely one thing.”
-Brandilyn Collins from her book, Getting Into Character.
While there are many ways to color passions, for the sake of brevity, I’m only going to focus on one particular aspect. If you want to learn the rest, you’ll just have to read Brandilyn’s book.
One way to color passions is to set the passion against its opposite. Allow me to explain…
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In this chapter, Brandilyn makes an analogy involving a pearl necklace. What happens if you wear a pearl necklace against a white sweater? Will the necklace stand out? No, of course not. But what happens if you wear the pearl necklace against a black velvet dress? Now we’re talkin’. Suddenly, the pearls in the necklace pop! We notice them. Why? Because we set them against their opposite.
Let’s say we make a character in our story cruel. Maybe it’s an abusive husband who physically and emotionally abuses his wife. We write a scene where he flies into a rage because his wife shrunk his favorite shirt in the wash. Let’s say he’s so angry, he backhands her, kicks her while she’s on the ground, and leaves her crumpled on the floor, weeping. Okay, so we know he’s a cruel guy. What could we do next? There are a lot of possibilities. But let’s imagine this…
After slamming the door and storming out of the house, he finds an abandoned baby bird in a fallen nest near his driveway. Let’s say this husband bends over, coddles the baby bird to his chest, and gently pets its beak. Does this action take away from his cruelty? Actually, quite the opposite. We’ve just taken the pearl necklace and set it against black velvet. His cruelty toward his wife is magnified. This is one way to color passions. Pretty cool, huh?
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Question to ponder: What are your favorite of all time characters? Why? I bet if you look closely, it’s because this character had colorful, three-dimensional passions.