Let me tell you a little story, it's a story about a young boy named Billy. Billy was a young child, and more than anything in the world, he always loved his coffee with raspberry ice cream. Nothing more, nothing less, it's what he always ate: raspberry ice cream with coffee. He also loved to do the laundry, and clean his parent's house.
Now, I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with this, or if I just wanted to introduce to one of the worst (yet strangely interesting) characters I could think of. The truth is, this character is a great example of how NOT to express comprehensibility which, if you read the title, is exactly what we're talking about!
To give you a quick recap, we have gone over one concept: Personality. In which I stated "A good personality needs to start with a stereotype to reel in the audience. Then it needs to have appropriate, yet consistent reactions to each situation, and especially similar ones." To restate the eight aspects I believe are in well-written characters, they are: personality, comprehensibility, uniqueness, connections, versatility, motivation, and ambition.
With that, let's get onto...
Comprehensibility
Comprehensibility is the ability to comprehend or understand something, in this case, a character. So when you think of understanding a character, what do you think of? If you're like most people, you probably think about a character that makes sense, one that doesn't do something completely weird or unrelated, like the character up above. I mean really, a little boy that only eats coffee and raspberry ice cream. That makes no sense, right?
Well, actually, maybe it does. What if this boy has some weird fantastical condition where the only things he can eat are those two things. If done right, that could actually be an interesting character! Maybe the story is about having to deal with this while simultaneously trying to find who did this to him. I'd pay to read that.
"Well then Mr. Winter, then what would an incomprehensible character be?" I'm so glad you asked. See, to give an illustration would be nearly impossible, because the only way to describe it is through an huge story.
The basics is this: a comprehensible character is one that no matter what they do, it makes sense. You can't have a little boy act like a boy for three-fourths of the story and then act like a teenager for the rest of it when no reason is given as to why. It just wouldn't make sense.
Now, the key word here is reason. Notice how I said "when no reason is given", that's because, technically, if done well, you can have a character do anything, as long as there is a reason for it. If you want a boy who suddenly acts like a teenager, have that be because he was brainwashed or he switched bodies or something.
As with everything, there is an exception to this rule. That's when the character is being used as a "plot device" or side characters are "furniture". To say it plainly, you can't have a main character just to be a main character, and you can't have side characters for the sake of side characters. It's a pretty simple idea, but too frequently I see writers using characters only to "check the box".
To sum it up: for a character to have comprehensibility, there must be a rhyme and a reason for everything that they do, whether it be written down or not. But never only use characters just for the sake of having that character.
One of the best ways to avoid the "check the box" syndrome is to give each character uniqueness. Which is what we will talk about next week, so come back then to check it out!
