So I saw Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin recently and wanted to write a fantasy story where the protagonist lacks common sense in life-or-death situations. However, I still want him to be likeable, memorable, and his decisions at least understandable. I often see dumb decisions complained about a lot because writers often use them as an flimsy to move the plot forward. How do I write a stupid person without them becoming so stupid they sever any connection with the reader?
Will your MC rise to the occasion and eventually become good at solving the problem the plot presents? If not, they it gets a whole lot trickier. When I saw your post it made me remember the film North by Northwest, by Hitchcock. Is that what you're looking for?
I don't remember North by Northwest very well, but Hitchcock films sound like a good example of what I'm looking for. I do plan on him getting somewhat smarter as the book goes on, but I also want to avoid having him swing back and forth between being an idiot and suddenly growing some smarts out of nowhere when the book feels like it.
Depends on what you mean by "common sense". A hero who jumps in the fire to save somebody doesn't have common sense either. Nor does the captain of the Titanic who sank with the ship.
I think you could make someone like that very relatable - a lot of us if we were suddenly put into the situations we read about in novels wouldn't really know what to do. I would be doomed against a chess master! I think as long as you show enough of their thoughts that the audience can understand why they make their decisions and their internal logic it can work. And of course having enough other positive traits to make up for it.
I think that showing some awareness of the fact that it was a dumb decision goes a long way to making it more readable. "Let's split up, we can cover more ground that way," I'd said. Two minutes later I was facing down a trio of angry sheep, wishing Bob and his shears weren't on the other side of the petting zoo...
I'm thinking of Don Quixote and Baron Munchausen, where they don't believe they're inept or stupid, and they outright refuse to "accept reality" like everyone else. But their insane antics give them purpose, and even allow them to save the day, much to the shock and confusion of their doubters and skeptics. They can be charming, endearing, sympathetic, inspiring, and eccentric while denying that what the rest of us see is stupidity, or even insanity.
My suggestiong is to watch a movie called ‘Tucker and Dale Vs Evil’ and pay attention to how they get into and out of their predicaments. The movie isn’t SF/F, but is a classic case of the inept coming out a winner. (Not to mention funny as hell)
Maybe make a character that is just really naive, but has a good heart. This has nothing to do with books, however, I think Po from Kung Fu Panda is a good example. He's not very bright at first, but he's also very likable/relatable. Write a character that makes mistakes in realistic ways rather than forcing them. People like it when you can make a character that they can relate too, even if that character is really clumsy sometimes.
The best I can recommend is watching some of the old Pink Panther films with Peter Sellers. Or maybe Son of the Pink Panther. Total donk, but still lovable and totally got the job done.
Oh my goodness! I love those movies! My favorite one is The Pink Panther Strikes Again. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. Good example.
You watch a marathon of Dragonball and write a character based on Goku! ...or if you want the more 'authentic' approach, you read through Journey to the West.
Thank you all for the suggestions! However, one of the tricky things about this protagonist is that I plan on taking him fairly seriously and making the tone somewhat dark. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel that the story shouldn't ever make fun of his decisions (There's some subtle humor in Blue Ruin when Dwight tries to bash the trigger lock off a revolver and instead smashes the gun to pieces), but at least some of his decision should have dire consequences.
I think humour can be very, very dark. For example, Finnish film called The Art of Negative Thinking was about a bunch of disabled and/or mentally ill people on a weekend retreat, where they basically realise their therapy doesn't work and life is still shit and all hell breaks loose. In this, there was a quadriplegic woman - we find out she became this way while rock-climbing because her husband let go of the rope and caused her fall. She attempts to commit suicide by trying to jump off the terrace. Only, she's in an electric wheelchair and the wheels won't go over the little bump installed on the edge of the terrace. She tries multiple times, each time getting stuck. The joke is, of course, she can't even kill herself. Or you may be interested in a British comedy on terrorism called Four Lions. I don't remember much about the film, but I remember this scene of one of the terrorists dressed up as a sheep. He's running through an area while his fellow terrorist friends watch on, laughing at him. At some point, the sheep guy runs over a mine and explodes before their eyes, and the laughter stops. I don't remember enough about the film to tell you much - but I remember it used humour to contrast the darkness of what's going on very, very well - and the fact that you wanted to laugh made the whole thing darker.
Thinking of the people I know whom I believe lack 'common sense,' the trait they have in common is an inability to see (or unwillingness to look at) what might go wrong, or what might not work. In other words, they have tunnel vision. They see problem—solution, but don't take the time to understand that every problem has more than one solution ...and some solutions are better than others. And some situations aren't as simple as they seem at first. A friend of my husband's is notorious for lacking common sense. This actually happened. He's sitting in front of his camp stove, lifts the pot of coffee off it, sees his cup sitting on the opposite side of the stove ...and yep, you guessed it. He grabs the cup by reaching directly across the lit stove ...and severely burns his arm. His solution to getting his cup worked, as far as getting the cup goes, but there were better ways to do it. He just didn't consider any of them. Troubleshooting, at some level, often makes the difference between common sense and foolishness.
"Thinking ahead to what might go wrong so you can circumvent the problem" - often referred to by incipient airheads as 'negativity.'
You mean your glass is half empty and that you might fall down a well whilst walking the dog, and that a fat dog is actually [a] more cuddly and close at hand resolution?
I'm not quite sure where this example sits on the common sense spectrum but yes, in general, that's what troubleshooting is.
Well in North By Northwest Roger Thornhill wasn't per se stupid or inept -- he seriously didn't know what was going on. He was mistaken for someone else. The trouble with making a character inept is that you don't want your character to do something convenient to the scenario but because that's his character so you have to show he's inept before the plot kicks in. If he's out of his element you'll have to balance that with some common sense. In movies I can't stand when characters show zero fear and bounce back into their idiocy without a hiccup. Even stupid people know they're not that well equipped to get through a dangerous situation and usually glom onto someone smarter or mimic them. Having them carry on like an idiot for me wouldn't be believable unless you're doing comedy. Like Roger Thornhill he adapts and utilizes his own skills and he learns.
Not so much stupid as preoccupied perhaps? Personally, I can draw correct conclusion from the smallest of data sets and then miss the elephant standing in my bathroom.
Jackie Chan movies. I saw an interview with him once where he explained that Bruce Lee had to be the best as a character, so Jackie (the character) had to be a screwup who won in spite of himself. He is the rightful heir to Buster Keaton and The Stooges.
If it isn't a comedy, then this ineptitude will most easily fall into the category of conflict, as in something the MC must overcome to achieve his goals. Out of curiosity, what will this ineptitude add to the story. Why is it relevant? Is it necessary?
I love Hitchcock films. I've seen most of them, even a number his early silent films, but my least favorite part of his and older films in general is the fact that characters act in counterintuitive ways, both logically and emotionally. Have you read any Christopher Moore? He writes satire, and most of his books are hilarious, so he's not exactly what you're looking for either, but he has a way of explaining the decision-making process of an inept protagonist that makes any horrible decision seem perfectly natural and relatable. Chuck Palahniuk does a lot of this sort of thing too, but we don't always like the main character very much. I think you could combine the darkness of Hitchcock and the illogical behavior of his characters with the backstory and internal processes in Christopher Moore's writing to create a fairly unique amalgam, sort of an Inspector Clouseau in a film noir sort of thing. That still sounds ridiculous, but you get the picture. Think "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." If you've never seen it, watch it.
