Hey guys, I am having a bit of an issue with one of my characters. Her name is Cynthia April Rose and so far she lead a normal life until her best friend starts spying on her, finding out things that she has never told anyone and I don't know how her reaction would go as her best friend is now using this information to blackmail her. If you could give me hand with this I will be incredibly grateful. Thanks.
How would you react to being betrayed by a best friend? You already know your own answer. Edit: Ha simultaneous posts!
If you've ever been betrayed by someone you've cared about use that emotion and work from there. Or just go with logic - how would you feel? Shocked, angry, disappointed, vengeful, upset? Would you cry, lash out, beg her not to do this? Responses and reactions will all depend on how you want to take the story. Does Cynthia plead with her friend - appealing for sympathy - wanting to salvage the friendship? or does she get angry and defensive, making them instant enemies?
The way you can react to betrayal is completely up to Cynthia. It depends on how she felt toward her friend, what the betrayal was, how she would deal with such a situation (If she is emotional, more calculating, or whatever). Just run with any negative emotion you've had toward something similar and extrapolate it for Cynthia. Just remember to keep the reaction to be hers and not yours forced on her.
Betrayal is deep and complex. First, there shock and sadness that this person who you cared about deeply, and you thought cared deeply about you, intentionally did something to harm you. Secondly, though, there is a layer of self-doubt. How could you have so badly misjudged this person? It destroys what you thought you knew. If this person could betray you, then what do you really and truly know? Who else might do the same? The real harm is in the harm to the person's own self-perception and self-confidence. She has been proven wrong - completely wrong about something she thought was true (the depth of the friendship, knowing the friend). There's an idea of, "how could I have misjudged her so completely?"
My response to betrayal is interesting for me to look back on. I rage, and I seethe and I curse that person's existence. I think about all the horrible things that I could do back to them and how much I hate. I may even exact a little revenge, depending on the situation. I'm not above an eye-for-an-eye. Then, I cut them out of my life. They no longer exist to me. Apology? Go f-yourself. Explanation? Sit on it. They betrayed my trust, they used me, they cared nothing for me, anything they say will always be a lie and they can go move on with their life because I'm done with them being in mine. Needless to say, I don't deal with it well. lol.
It depends on the character. No one else can answer this for you, you just have to know your character well enough to know how she would react. Different people react differently.
That's some serious betrayal. Her besty is a serious frenemy. I would imagine the reaction would be shocked and incredibly inured. I could see thoughts of retaliation and ideations of revenge coming from such a breach.
How the character reacts is the story. There's no wrong answer. Her reaction will help define her character.
I think of all the answers that can come up, this is one of the best. Her reaction will depend on her character. Her character will be defined through the course of the story. I know if it were me I'd start trying to come to terms with my secrets so I can tell the people who matter myself, nullifying my former friend's power over me.
Since you have already gotten your answer a dozen-fold I am not going to comment on that. Instead, I found myself wondering about your assessment that CAR has "lead a normal life until..." Now, perhaps you were only shortcutting the description here for the sake of brevity but, it seems to me, if her friend has some compelling reason to spy on her in the first place, then Cynthia has not actually been leading a 'normal' life but only operating in the guise of living a normal life. If there is some dark secret in her past with which her dubious friend is able to blackmail her then this, in and of itself, seems to bely the contention that she has, heretofore, led a normal life or there would be nothing with which her friend could blackmail her. Yes? So the very subject of the blackmail would have some affect upon how she would respond to an attempt at blackmail. As for me? Were I ever threatened with blackmail I would simply laugh in their face, reveal the 'deep, dark, secret', defusing the blackmailer's time bomb, and cart them off to prison for the attempted blackmail! I am totally shameless, obviously. So now you must consider just what type of ethical character Cynthia Rose is, both on the surface in her public persona and underneath where her secret lies. Someone once told me that every individual is as many people as they know. We tend to be a different person, at least to some extent, with every other individual in our lives. Who we are, how we behave, how we think to a certain extent, is tweaked just a bit by how we interact with those around us. And, too, by how those around us perceive us. So Cynthia Rose has the person she is in private, with herself, that she keeps from the rest of the world. She also has the self that is known to her blackmailer friend. So now we have the Cynthia who has apparently been living a lie, presenting a false front to the world (no breast augmentation jokes, please) while hiding a secret so serious it has the potential to damage her in some way. Now, aside from the fact that this hardly puts her in a position to be self-righteous with her friend, the question then arises, just how serious is this potential blackmail? Is it the height of embarrassment? Is it infidelity to a spouse? Even bigger? Treason? Leading a double life? Murder? All of these things must come into play when considering how she might react to the threat of blackmail. How big the reaction is will be in direct correlation to the severity of the secret. And this, too, must be weighed against Cynthia's innate character - how she perceives her world at this particular time in her life. As you can see, there is much to consider when weighing how a character might respond to ANY stimuli. Get to know your character. Then you can ask HER how she would react to this situation.
I find it impossible to answer that since there is no right or wrong way. People react differently to things that happen to them. And characters are no different. So instead of asking yourself how a character would react, think of all the different ways any human would react. Because that's what characters are, in the end. Humans. (most of the time, anyway) Only in book form. And try to understand how THIS very person would react in a way that is typical for him.
