Inconsistent Characters

I'm not really sure how to make this question relevant to my stories without actually posting the story, but I'll try.

One piece of feedback that I hear on some of my stories is that sometimes my characters are inconsistent. I'm trying to figure out where the line between duality and inconsistency is for other people. I think it's important to note that I generally write contemporary up-market fiction (I hesitate to use the term literary-fiction because it's not prose that drives the stories, but that's irrelevant to this discussion).

I'll give an example for the sake of discussion. I have a story in which a character drunkenly mutilates his face, then creates a(n?) heroic story about it to win the affection of his son. When the mother brings the son by his apartment, she sees his mutilated face and threatens to force supervised visitation. Now, the character doesn't argue with his ex-wife. A critique I've received is that this is inconsistent. If he goes so far as to bash his own face in, wouldn't he argue with his wife? My thought is no, and the fact that he doesn't argue reveals something about his relationship with his ex-wife and the dual nature of alcohol addiction. He knows what he's doing is wrong, knows that he has no basis for argument. All that said, it's entirely possible that the inconsistency is a thing and I'm too close to the story to see that.

I guess I'm wondering the collective thoughts of the forum. Has anyone else heard this about their characters? Isn't a little duality a good thing? My biggest concern about this piece of critique is that no one acts one way all the time in real life. We can change over the course of minutes depending on the situation, people, circumstances. I guess I'm trying to use my fiction to represent reality, and I understand that it's not reality, but it's bothersome to hear that this inconsistency is detracting from my story when I've added it for a reason.

 

Hmm, from what you've described, I'm not seeing a problem. You're absolutely right that realistic characters act "inconsistently." My first thought, before I even finished reading your description of the scenario, was indeed that this has something to do with his relationship with his ex-wife.

So, I'm imagining two possibilities for why you're getting this feedback. One is that you just have a reader who didn't get it. Was it only one person who gave you this particular feedback? If so, and if other readers don't see a problem, then I wouldn't worry about it.

But if this is a recurring theme in the feedback you're getting from different readers, then another possibility is that you aren't providing enough of your character's interior monologue for readers to understand why they're acting the way they are. You don't want to spell everything out, but if your character is involved in a complex situation like the one you describe, we're going to need a peek into his thoughts and feelings in order for his actions to make sense. You could check this by going through the scene and comparing how much is dialogue, description, and action versus how much is interior monologue. If you've got little to none in the last category, that could be the problem.

 

With this specific example, I agree with @Dragon Turtle that I don't see an inconsistency with your character's actions here. That could perhaps be because you have got his character/motivations across to us in your summary, but you haven't through your writing of the story. I don't want to tell you that's exactly it, though, as I haven't read any of your story, but if you're choosing these specific actions for your characters because that's who they are and how they would act to you, then it seems to be a lack of communicating that to your readers.

Agreed. On the whole 'you don't have to spell everything out' thought, I find it helpful to do exactly that first; spell it out. Explain your character's actions in his own thoughts, a monologue, a dialogue, an outline--then cut at it like a mad cliche with an axe. Sprinkle bits and pieces throughout the scene/chapter/book, change the wording, make it more readable and less boring/distracting. Then you have all these (hopefully) beautiful, subtle character motivations and explanations dotted about your manuscript.

Good luck with it!

 

Characters who always do exactly the same thing are bad. Characters who don't have a reason for doing one thing one time and the opposite thing a different time are worse.

What is it about the character that makes them respond one way to one thing but another way to another thing? What do they feel is the difference? Do they notice the difference in their reactions? Does anybody else notice?

 

Yeah, I don't think these statements follow at all. Doing damage to himself (super in line with alcoholism) isn't the same thing as doing damage or even just being a bit snippy with someone else. They can and often enough do go hand-in-hand, but it's by no means a guarantee -- and I think you're right that it reveals character to have him not take this out on his wife. In this specific case it sounds like reader bias to me. This particular reader found this particular beat weird due to their own experiences or assumptions, but that doesn't make it actually weird.

In general, I really like @PennyDreadfully's thought, because it's a method I use too: spelling out your character's motivations for yourself, just to make sure that they're acting consistently on the logic that you know they run on. The reader doesn't have to know that logic -- it's probably more interesting if they don't, right away -- but as long as you do, and you at some point make it clear to the reader, it should be fine. As long as your psychological logic is solid, anyway.

And to some people, certain types of other folks are incomprehensible, and if your character runs on that sort of internal logic, then those readers aren't going to get them -- and I think you're more likely to run up on that problem when writing about alcoholic, addict, mentally ill, etc types of characters. That can make it tricky to get unbiased, helpful critiques, and you just have to rely on your own judgement more.

 

I don't know about the inconsistent characters because I haven't read the story, but there is something glaring about the character. Alcoholics are in denial, so he would make up a story about the injury to deny it happened while drinking. Yes, even with his ex-wife. When an alcoholic is drinking to the point where they're getting injuries, the alcohol has taken over the brain's thought processes and would drive the person to denial in order to keep feeding the addiction. It's even visible on brain scans, which you can probably find by Googling. This is how the addiction medicine specialist (MD, not psychologist) who treated my dad explained it as he showed us scans during one of his hospital stays.

Alcoholism is a medical condition, especially at the stage where an alcoholic is injuring himself while drunk. The character's actions should reflect that rather than show logical thought about the injury. There is no logical thought at that point.

I speak from the personal experience of living this with my father. There were many falls and injuries, and many false explanations due to denial. I've had subsequent experience with friends who needed interventions as well.

 

Thanks for your post.

Denial isn't always total, even in addiction. I think of it more as resignation on his part. He's resigned, and he understands that arguing with his wife is pointless.

As a recovering addict myself, and someone who works in the field, there is nothing that holds true to every addict/addiction. It comes in so many forms and manifestations. It's impossible to say "alcoholics are in denial" as a blanket statement. Even when I was out there in my addiction, I'd have moments of clarity in which I knew and no longer denied that I was going to die with a needle in my arm.

And I guess your response somewhat mimics what the critique said. You see it as an error that his denial does not stretch to every piece of his life. I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out here.

 

That may be true, but as I said, it has not been my experience around alcholism, having participated in many interventions. But more to the point, I don't think that's going to come through in the story, with this character which is the whole point. It seemed glaringly out of place.

edit: Remember, your reader will not have your clinical experience. The subtlety will be lost on them.

 

This, I think, is the crux of my problem. I suppose I just need to remind myself of the whole "can't please everyone" thing and trust that if I get my writing out there, it will find its audience (obviously with a lot of work on my part).

 

I don't know, man. We might have to agree to disagree on this one. I spend every day of my professional life counseling addicts. There are no "always" behaviors. There aren't even any set parameters to define addiction vs bender vs binge vs phase of life that are accepted across the board.

 

You know, reading this, in combination with...

and the other posts, I think the disconnect between my brain and the story is that he doesn't mutilate his face just to tell the story to his son, but it may come across that way. The story he tells his son is a byproduct of the mutilation, a way to explain it to himself and to show his love in the kind of fucked up way a severe alcoholic might. In my head, this character probably doesn't have a concrete reason as to why he does what he does. It's just like this guy who was a patient at my job. He's a high-level engineer (life-time military man), been to my specific place of business for treatment four times in six months. This last time he came in, I was talking to him, and he started to sob. All he said, bellowing in my office was, "help me figure out why I can't stop." It's that notion, that "I don't know why I do the things I do" kind of feeling that I wanted to capture with this story.

I have a serious (probably unfounded) aversion to interior monologue, though, so I'll have to dick around with it until I'm satisfied.

And, I typed all this out more for me than as a response to anyone else. I should probably just copy and paste it into the document so I can remember this when I revise the story, but I'll post it for the sake of discussion.

Thanks everyone! Especially @Shenanigator for forcing me to question myself. That shit is super helpful. (Absolutely no sarcasm intended.)

 

I had the same critiques. I've been getting around it by "telling" thoughts and feelings inside the actions, when the thoughts aren't reflected in the actions, at least for the POV character.

For example:

Someone pounded on the front door. I walked over and opened it. Ex-wife. Guy in the car. I always hated that piece of shit -- the car I mean. She shouldn't be here for the kids until eight. I knew she wouldn't give me any peace. I stepped back from the door, folded my arms. "Glad you could make it."

Edit: I just wrote that as an example really quick. I know it's not perfect, and it's not from a story.

 

It's hard to tell without reading the story, but I have a guess why it might seem inconsistent for some people. The character seems to be impulsive and unreliable (because he got drunk and mutilated his face, and also lied about it), so he's more likely to argue with others, especially with his ex-wife. Also, from his ex-wife's POV, if she knows about his issues with alcohol, she would likely try to argue with him, even if he doesn't want to. They might have good relationships even though they're not together anymore, but when it goes about her child, any woman is mother at first place, and then everything else. So yeah, the character might try his best not to argue, but there is also a second side and the fact that she demanded supervised visits witnesses that she wasn't happy with his behavior for quite a long time. But all these thoughts are based on your short description. This situation might be written in a way that it feels consistent.

 

What usually causes a duality between people in real life either blatant dishonesty or giving into temptation. So with dishonesty, that can include anything from hypocracy to outright lying about true intents. And giving into temptation can mean that there was no original intent to do something bad, but circumstances happen that causes a person to give in. Now this particular set of circumstances doesn't have to be revealed anywhere within the book, but it is something to think about for your own mental note.

First off, I want to say that you do have to take critiques with a grain of salt. Particularly those that come in right in the middle.

This sounds like you have the right idea, but perhaps there was an issue with your execution. And that's not the execution of the scene itself that was necessarily wrong, but everything that was leading up to the scene wasn't giving hints that something like this could happen eventually. This is often an action of a person who is more than suffering more from just lapse of judgment due to intoxication. This is more of a person who might be suffering from psychosis that drinking would escalate, which is the general detachment from the outside world. And contrary to popular belief, people with forms of psychosis, their delusions aren't just spontaneous. It's a rather creative process for them to come up with their delusions.

So my question is this. Does this character show any signs throughout the book where he has some kind of detachment to the outside world? It doesn't have to be an "in your face" sort of clues, but often a pattern of strange behavior followed by realization and regret? For example, let's say he gets drunk and comes up with this idea that by gluing bouncy balls to his television, he can better hear it (or whatever), followed later by a "What was thinking?" moment. So you're immediately indicating that there is more than just drinking, but there's also an underlining issue of mental illness.

 

I think when people are saying you have an inconsistent character it means that character is doing things or acting out of character. Yes, you are correct that people have many sides to them. Your job, as the writer, is the show all the those sides in a way that makes your character seem whole and not inconsistent. If readers are surprised by something a character does, it should still make sense that this is something this character would do. I think it's great when characters have layers to them. I think you probably need to drop more personality on the page so readers know this character and can find his actions believable. And it's true like you say that people can change, but for the most part I think we are creatures of habit.

 

But have you shown this to the reader? Is there enough in the book to suggest how this character knows he's done wrong and he has no basis for an argument? Or, do you just expect the reader to guess this from the way your character acts in this situation?