Apr 02, 2024
To:GoneSoSoon
I fully agree that such processes are "normal" for human beings. However, the manner, degree, frequency, and subjects to which they are attached are inherent to each individual - age, experience, maturity, simple tastes or emotions are all influencing factors. How "inconsistent" or "consistent" your characters appear will depend in part on how you've portrayed them throughout the story.
Underlying such processes/changes is always a more or less implicit/meaningful thread that will make the whole thing consistent in the eyes of the reader.
Applied to your work, it's precisely this "common thread" that keeps your characters coherent. In other words, it makes them consistent in their "inconsistency," in that there is a common thread behind each of their thinking and motivations that the reader can graps to understand why they can sometimes be so different.
This "common thread", this basis, can be clearly explained (e.g. the influencing factors: Omen's or Agreste's past, Kitsch's aspirations) or more abstract like your characters' different worldviews or different concepts (being a Leviathan/self-love/mask/commitment etc...).
Generally speaking, what makes a character consistent is that they follow their "own" line of conduct. However, the latter is not immutable, nor is their state of mind, so they may sometimes show inconsistency in order to change or simply to try new things. But isn't that human nature to adopt such behaviors? It will always be possible to relate your characters' thinking or motivations to this question's answer.
More generally, I think that as long as you manage to tie such processes to one or more threads or some kind of reason, your characters will always be consistent, and their inconsistency will always be justified, even if the latter seems "too much" because it will be for the sake of something. And so far, you've always managed to do that. Let me give you 2/3 examples :
- Omen: his main thread is "putting out grief" - to do so he will adopt several "antagonistic" purposes, which will even end up contradicting his other threads (e.g. empty doll), but does this make him inconsistent? No. Why? Because there's another thread, the butterfly's one, which justifies the fact that he's always reaching out to others, even though he wants to isolate himself. The fact that he's attached to Aelem doesn't contradict the one that he wants to be an empty doll, because Omen is first and foremost a human being (and you've highlighted some spontaneous emotions throughout the story, so the reader implicitly understands that he's not that empty, or that he's starting to get attached to her).
- Aelem on the fact that she refuses to isolate herself: running away with Omen may seem incoherent, insofar as the purpose he has given her partly encompasses everything she longed for. Nevertheless, there's a thread running through her story from the beginning: "normalcy," and for someone who's been forced to live as a vagrant, there is nothing more 'normal' than wanting to live surrounded, in society. What makes her choice a consistent one is that she has stuck to her "line of conduct". It doesn't necessarily mean she's right, or that such a choice is necessarily the right one, but it's consistent with the character you've presented from the beginning of the story.
- Agreste: The choice he was about to make at the end of YHHM was not inconsistent regarding the meaning of his common thread.
On that note, what also contributes to a good reading experience is that your characters make REALISTIC choices, and not necessarily good ones right away (e.g., when Agreste first spoke to Lihal) - which again, I think, makes your characters consistent with your desire to "humanize" them as much as possible ( after all it's part of being human to make mistakes and bad decisions). More generally, it's good to see your characters in trouble, and not having everything handed to them on a platter because of their "role" in the story.
Finally, what keeps your characters consistent is simply the fact that you take the time to introduce one "concept" or "thread" before introducing another. This gives the reader plenty of time to come to grips with what's at stake. In addition, since these concepts echo each other, it again helps the reader to connect the various decisions and thoughts to make them consistent, or to better understand the "inconsistencies".
Generally speaking, "inconsistency" is definitely something interesting to read. It makes your characters more human, and adds a little more unexpectedness to them and the story. In another way, it encourages reading by making one wonder about how an "inconsistency" can influence the rest of the plot.
Beyond that, how interesting an inconsistency will be depends to a large extent on two things: the way you present it in your story, and the state of mind of the reader.
From what I've read and what you've explained, you're more inclined to develop your characters' worldviews and dwell on the "psychological" effects of events on them. As a result, your characters are more likely to be inconsistent than if you were content to write very generic, "superficial" ones. In other words, the more in-depth you go with their development, the more likely they are to experience inconsistency. Knowing your state of mind, it's a good thing, if not essential, to have inconsistencies.
The way you present the inconsistencies will have a lot to do with not making the reader feel like elements are coming out of nowhere or unwarranted in the middle of the story.
As for whether or not inconsistency is interesting to the reader, unfortunately, it's mostly a matter of taste. Some people prefer stories that get straight to the point, without too much psychological development and more rational choices for the characters rather than choices guided by their emotions, while others like more development, more "inconsistencies".
It will always be "too much" for one or "not enough" for another, so as long as it's "enough" for you, that's all that matters.
In all objectivity, and as far as I can remember, I don't think I ever had the impression that your characters were "too" inconsistent in their thinking and motivations. On the contrary, this inconsistency has been part of their evolution or development - and I even think that so far you've found a balance (through worldbuilding, the importance you give to different facets of the characters at different moments in the story, the lessons they learn from their mistakes, etc.) that allows you to avoid doing "too much".On the other hand, the fact that "inconsistencies" don't just fit into the scheme of "I have a problem => the inconsistency is the solution to my problem => everything's for the best" can make them even more interesting to the reader, in that they are somehow "unexpected".
To give you a few examples of inconsistencies:
- If Omen's father becomes a blameless father overnight and comes to Omen in tears, apologizing without further explanation
- people accepting Aelem overnight without explanation
the dragon gives Aelem his name for no reason in the next chapter
- Omen marries Aelem (at this point in the story), completely happy and fulfilled, whereas he was undecided 2 days before. In this case, I doubt that the "getting over his grief" thread will be enough to justify such behavior, at least not the way you've presented it + knowing how important every commitment, every name is to him ; unless you introduce another thread or find another explanation - but then you'll have to figure out how to introduce such a point without distorting what you've written so far.
- The only purpose that counts for Omen is to spend the rest of his life alongside Aelem, and the others are completely elided until the end.
- If you're portraying a very indecisive character, it would be inconsistent to see him make a clear decision unless you've dropped a few hints here and there before finally getting to the heart of the matter later.
To sum up:
- The common thread is definitely what makes your characters hold up to this consistency while being "inconsistent". It can be diverse and varied, but it's essential if the reader is to understand what you're getting at. I don't think it's necessarily about revealing everything at once, it's just about giving the right amount of informations, which you do well.
- You have to find a balance between the inconsistencies and their benefits for character development on the one hand, and how the story will "support" them on the other, what elements will respond to this or that problem, or how this or that concept will be introduced. Once that question is answered, the next step is to find the right time to introduce one concept rather than another, or if you want to integrate two, how would that be relevant, or would it be too much? Is this the right time in the story? Such a process is immediately apparent as one read and I think you're doing well
- Some characters will tend to be more inconsistents than others, but such a difference is not a problem, as it will be interesting for the reader to see how such opposite profiles work together.
- All means are good to make your story interesting to the reader, but the most important thing is that it remains interesting to you.
- Just as there are plenty of motivations or thoughts for characters to adopt, there are an infinite number of reasons why they might make such changes, and I think what's interesting for the reader isn't necessarily why your characters have changed their state of mind, but rather why they've adopted this state of mind and not another.
I hope these points are relevant enough to help you a little. Will keep this matter in mind for the future just in case :)
I'm happy my comments are making you feel better in your own life in one way or another, they're here for that too. I hope everything will be okay for you
