So I think my favorite type of character isn’t strong characters or weak characters, emotional characters or stoic characters. Instead, its a type which manages to embody all of these at once: the brittle character.
See, most characters, they have levels. Annoy them and they’ll get irritated. Keep irritating them, and they might move into anger. Keep annoying them, and they might snap into outright fury. Same with pain. Hurt them, and they’ll wince. Hurt them more and they might shout, or scream. Where they switch between these levels will vary, of course, but they’ll all be there. Brittle characters are different.
Brittle characters don’t get those levels. Because brittle characters are basically just this raw, emotional, completely open character – the soul of the character, you could even say, surrounded by a shell. A hard shell, to be sure, but a thin one. And maybe some characters have a candied shell on the outside, while others have corrugated aluminum or something, but they all have their shells.
And if you hurt a brittle character, they won’t flinch. They won’t react. They’ll just stand there and take it…and take it…and take it…until suddenly they don’t. Until suddenly that shell shatters – maybe you hit a weak point, or maybe it just couldn’t withstand the pain anymore. And you get the pure essence of who the character is, something that is harder to see in less brittle characters because of all the levels protecting that. There’s none of that here. It’s all or nothing.
Brittle characters, people. Sure, you have to break them completely to see what they’re made of, but it’s worth it.
This honestly doesn’t need an addition because, wow, what flawless analysis of why I love brittle characters too.
It’s so freeing to write the reaction of a brittle character because any action from them is a release from this tight ball of raw vulnerability they’ve become. And, to them, that action isn’t something they can weigh—there’s no “should I?” By the time they’re compelled to act, it’s the only thing they can do. The essence of who they are, as OP says.
It’s frickin’ beautiful
On Brittle Characters
Published
Tasertrickslove 