How can I write a Broken Bird without Wangst?

It's for a forum RPG on this site,so I can only really control my character and not anything else. She is supposed to be A Broken Bird with a dark and troubles past. She has acted a bit like a jerk to show a little bit of that. Though I fear she has been sociopathic and unlikeable, instead of "troubled."

I want to make clear she is troubled, but I don't want her to cry and mope around or worse Wangst. But I'm not sure how I would accomplish this.

I would live to request some advice.

edited 26th Oct '16 10:18:53 PM by FallenLegend

I'm not really bothered by angst, so I may not be the best authority, but even people deep in misery have brief flashes of happiness. Of course, if she she seems alright one moment and then goes back to her usual state, the other roleplayers may think you're Yanking The Dogs Chain.

I have a character like this in my writing, and I suffered a similar problem with him. If it's any help, I'll tell you what I did. So, my main character is a Broken Bird who is a little bit angsty some of the time, but not without reason. He's not sociopathic, though he borders on Unscrupulous Hero at times. He's basically a Failure Hero, and is cursed with the inability to feel joy or positive emotion. He might also be a good RPG character, given that I actually wrote him based on a D&D character of mine.

All right, so what did I do? Simple, really. One of his defining traits is being a Determined Defeatist. He is so accustomed to failure and suffering that he's become almost numb to it, expecting it but nonetheless fighting onward. He has an overwhelmingly negative view of the world and is dripping with cynicism.

So why is he like this? His reasoning evolves, gradually becoming less selfish as he grows more attached to the group. At first, he stays alive and continues fighting despite knowing he won't succeed because he wants to punish himself for the failures of his past. He blames himself for everything. Over time, he loses the self-punishment, continuing his quest because he thinks there are people in the world who cannot be saved and that it's his duty to kill them; his grief has turned to anger. His third, and most selfless motivation, is when he's reached acceptance of his condition. Having come to terms with his condition, he fights because every second he spends holding back the darkness is one in which other people don't need to experience the same suffering he has.

The difference between the three motivations I presented for a Determined Defeatist are as follows; the first is the most cynical and self-loathing. The second is about revenge and fury. The third is the secret optimist, someone who believes in human goodness and happiness even if they don't believe they can ever achieve it. Any of them work, or a mixture of all of them.

But back to the earlier traits. This character is the largest Determinator in my story, sometimes to almost Knight Templar levels. He believes in a Crapsack World of the highest order. But he never actually gives up. That's what I'd recommend to you; the Determined Defeatist. They could be someone who's officially had it with failure, or someone who expects it and continues regardless. If they don't cry or mope, it's because they're the kind of person who uses those emotions as a source of strength and conviction, even while they poison them from the inside. Maybe they find humour in how lost and hopeless they are, internally biting back small tears because they know that everything they say is true. They might seem an enigma to the party; the most cynical and depressed member is also the most dedicated. It will be clear that there was something that made them so cynical, and also clear that they're not the kind of person to lie on the floor and cry.

Again, feel free to take or leave everything I've said.

People who have suffered significant trauma are often erratic, hostile, etc... which is to say they often *are* unlikeable, or at least come across that way to people who don't understand their situation and how it's affected them to produce their current state.

Have you seen the Jessica Jones Netflix series? They do a fantastic job of presenting a character who is, deep down, incorruptibly heroic... but not at all nice.

Oh, sure, she'll risk a fate worse than death if it means she might be able to protect someone she's only just met from the same, but she's self-destructive and cruel and you wouldn't want her as a friend, classmate, neighbor, or anything like that. She's not sassy, or always coming out with grade-A snark, or "rough around the edges." She's genuinely unpleasant to be around.

She's gone through some pretty horrible things to make her so unlikable, which renders the whole thing tragic, but most of the people she interacts with don't know about that, so they just don't like her.

So what I'm saying here is, depending on how seriously you want to it played, people not liking the character is part of the equation. One way or another "broken" people are often rejected by others. Trauma really does produce anger and fear and sadness and weeping and so on.

The key is communicating with your co-authors, (or at least some of them) making it clear to them what's happening with this character, why she's the way she is, and getting at least one or two of them in on (and agreeable) to the plan of how you'd like the character to develop, interact with others, and contribute to the story.

Your format (RP/collaborative story) probably doesn't lend itself to a lot of sitting around thinking about emotions, so don't let the character be paralyzed by this pain/trauma. You may have to sacrifice a degree of realism, there.

Perhaps try a lot of internal narration, revealing what the character is thinking, showing that it is perhaps not quite rational by most people's standards (but perhaps is rational from the perspective of someone with her particular experiences) then have them act on those thoughts in a way other characters can react to.