Arguing the Despicable
When you’re writing your Great American Novel, you’ll invariably come across a character who is absolutely despicable. Perhaps he’s a serial killer or a terrorist. Perhaps he’s a bad father who beats his wife and kids. Or maybe he’s just the guy in the other cubicle who is always picking his nose and wiping it on the wall. Either way, it’s up to you, the writer, to make this character as believable as possible. Very few people are despicable simply because they choose to be despicable. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “I’m going to be a total jerk today! Let’s get started!” If there’s anything that most despicable people have in common, it’s that they justify their actions. They have a REASON for acting the way they do. As an author, you must examine that reasoning. If you don’t, then you’ll end up with flat, 2-dimensional villains that nobody really cares to read about. You need to learn to see through the eyes of the despicable. This exercise will help you do that.
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Select a topic you feel very passionately about. Something that either really upsets you or really makes you ecstatic. In order for this exercise to be effective, this has to be a topic that you’re very emotionally invested in. This should be a topic that you feel SO RIGHT about that you can’t even IMAGINE how anybody else could rationally feel any different.
Now I want you to write as much as you can about that topic from the point of view of someone who vehemently disagrees with you. And the real challenge here is to make your argument sound reasonable. People who disagree with you don’t do so just because they like being jerks. They have reasons for it, and in this exercise you’re going to explore those reasons. As you’re writing, strive to make them sound like logical, reasonable people. Try to convince the reader (even though there won’t be a reader this time around) that this opposing point of view is the way to go. It will be tempting just to make this opposing view seem ignorant and poorly thought out, but resist that temptation.
Only when you’ve put yourself in the place of each of your characters will you create characters that are interesting, 3-dimensional, and believable.
ENJOY!!