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Outlines a three-step plan to keep readers on board with your character even when he is headed down the wrong path.
Historical and speculative novelist K.M. Weiland offers tips and essays about the writing life to help other writers understand the ins and outs of the craft and the psychology behind the inspiration.
Intro music by Kevin MacLeod: [ Ссылка ]
Video Transcript: Bad decisions are usually par for the course in most character arcs. If the character always the makes the right decision, he's probably really Mary Poppins in disguise—and thus doesn't have any need to change over the course of the story. Sooner or later, you can bank on it, your protagonist is going to make a humdinger or two of a bad decision. And that's a good thing.
But there's a major pitfall to be aware of here. If you fail to set up this bad decision in just the right way, you could end up with a mob of very mad readers on your hands. If readers aren't in sync with your character's decision, they may end up feeling that he's an idiot who's missing the obvious writing on the wall. And if they feel that way, then they'll also probably feel that you are manipulating your character's perception of events just so you can push your plot in the desired direction.
How do you balance the necessity of your character's making this bad decision with the equally important necessity of keeping readers happy with your character's choices? What you have to do is make certain that you've put a nice, big, red check in a couple of important boxes. 1. You have to allow readers to understand your character's motivations. When he makes this bad decision, he has to believe with all his heart that, at the very least, it's the lesser of two evils. 2. You have to establish credible logic. Your character has to weigh all the facts and come to his decision in a way that makes sense without making him look unduly stupid. 3. You have to try your darnedest to get your readers to actually agree, on some small level, with your character's bad decision. You want them to be so empathetic of this decision that they could see themselves making it if they had been placed in the same circumstances.
