Writing blog: Characters and Exaggeration

Have you ever been watching/reading something and thought to yourself, “This character is way too exaggerated?”

It happens.

It’s also true, especially in certain genres. Sitcoms. Kid shows. Comedies. Hot-blooded shounen manga. The list goes on.

There’s a reason for that.

See, you only have one chance to make a first impression, and this goes double for fictional characters. People are super heartless to fictional characters, so you need to give them a reason to care right away, or else they won’t bother. 

With people, you usually get to know what they’re about over a long period of time, but fiction doesn’t get that benefit. You need to catch your audience right away, and exaggerated traits and/or personalities tend to make a bigger impact. In fact, because people other than you have already used the same archetypes, it becomes even easier to deliver an impression to the audience. 

Angry guy. Womanizing best friend. Cold Rival. Funny guy.

Arrogant Young Master.

If you tell the audience a character belongs to a certain archetype, they’ll understand right away. They have already seen plenty of similar characters and know what traits to ascribe to them without you needing to do much. You then just need to build off that first impression. 

This is also why catchphrases are a thing. 

Sure, it’s easy to roll our eyes at a catchphrase, but they serve a purpose. A catchphrase takes one aspect of a character and boils it down to a single repeatable phrase that will remind you of that aspect of the character every time you hear it. 

One of my biggest worries when writing Ave Xia Rem Y was that Liu Jin was too subdued to make an impact on the audience. As the story advances, Liu Jin is supposed to gradually become more expressive and let go little by little. I guess you can say his lack of emoting is an exaggerated quality in its own right, just not one that attracts the audience all that much. Either way, it was a pretty big risk on my part. 

This is also why Xiao Fang is so energetic. I needed someone with at least that much energy to bounce off Liu Jin or risk boring the reader.

As you can imagine, it brings a smile to my face when someone tells me they like Liu Jin.

AN: I had a different post planned for today, but I realized it contained spoilers, so I'm going to wait for the right time to post it.