How To Write Characters With Gray Areas?

I'm not sure if there's already a topic on this or not, and my search came up empty. If there is, feel free to delete it or merge it with an already existing thread. Recently I received some feedback from some people reading one of my stories, and they tell me that my good characters seem too nice and my evil characters are too evil. They want me to have more gray areas, and I get where they're coming from. I've been trying to rectify this as of late, but it doesn't seem like I'm doing very well on that front. So my question is: How can I write morally gray characters to the point of avoiding Black-and-White Morality? What gray areas should I give my characters? This can be a good discussion for everyone having this problem, so feel free to talk as much as you like about this. If anyone has any good advice, can show me some examples, or knows any articles or websites detailing how to go about this, it'd be very much appreciated!

Although, for the record, I do plan on keeping some characters as completely evil for reasons that'll be more clear in-story. I'm wondering about a more general sense.

Edited by TwilightPegasus on Sep 26th 2019 at 2:08:04 PM

The first step is to not think of your characters as heroes, or villains- they are people, first and foremost. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and has their own life outside of what they do for someone else. Understand why all of your characters do what they do, and balance everyone with some redeeming qualities, and some flaws.

Let's take the villains, first. Maybe they're actually really friendly and really are fun to hang out with in spite of the bad stuff they do, or they have a genuinely awesome sense of humor that makes them fun for readers to watch. Maybe they're friends with their Dragon or inner circle, and their idea of a fun Friday night is sharing a case of beer with them and trading stories and jokes. Maybe they have a normal hobby or three that's not based in doing something evil, like art/music appreciation or creation (and not 'evil' art/music), or cooking, or folding origami to liven up their bad guy compound. It's also more believable in general for an antagonist to be 'evil' only in specific areas. Like, sure, maybe they're a powerful mobster ruling the city's underbelly with an iron fist, but they understand the value of an educated populace and lobby for the city schools, and they're always polite when they patronize their favorite local cafes and shops. All of this can also make a villain even scarier than if they were a Complete Monster because their 'normal' moments drive home just how much they're like anyone else out there, and the fact that evil is never beyond us.

As for the heroes, one way would be for them to take their ideals too far, and have them be brought up short when faced with the reality of a gray area, like they nearly kill a monster who is genuinely trying to go straight just because they're a monster, or they take away autonomy from someone living in the thick of a problem to do what THEY think is right. On a smaller scale, there could be personality flaws that serve as genuine impediments when trying to hero and which aren't simply brushed away, such as impatience, arrogance, or just plain being a dick. Maybe they had to do something maladaptive to survive that instilled some not-great habits in them, and now they lie or steal compulsively, or don't trust anybody. Maybe they have a particular sore spot regarding their past that they're snappish about and that makes them shut down, and now they have to confront it.

Edited by CrystalGlacia on Sep 27th 2019 at 11:29:21 AM

That's all great advice.

If you struggle seeing the villains as anything other than evil scum, try writing a piece from their POV and get into their mindset. Once you know how they think and feel and act behind closed doors, it'll be a lot easier to give them some sympathetic or likeable qualities.

That's fair. Thanks!

Continuing on the gray area thing, what are some examples of someone acting or talking condescending to someone? I'm trying to write some characters as being such, both a hero and a villain, but I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. In one story I'm outlining, I have an autistic character gently telling a teacher about her issues just to get her in the know, and the teacher dismisses her as just having an attitude or being full of herself very condescendingly. How do I convey the teacher's condescension? What can I have her say? Or anyone like this, for that matter. I also plan on having a good guy learn about the character's issues, and is well meaning but ultimately really clueless and tends to condescend her, under the mistaken impression that all autistics either can't do anything for themselves or are just Rain Men. Any examples? I find I do better with example quotes than just generic answers.

Go to YouTube and search for vlogs by autistic people. Do an internet search for some autistic person's "top five dumbest" list they hear from neurotypical people. Ask one if you can hang out with them for a day to do research on your story (and respect them if they say "no"). These methods will all work better than asking for specific sentences that might be said in this context. You'd be able to appreciate the context of those sentences and the reaction of the character more than if we gave you lines to imitate. Write What You Know doesn't just mean writing from your personal experiences, it also means you should seek out knowledge to include in your work.

Another approach is to make both conflicting factions have their reasons to fight each other, not just good versus evil. Both sides have their own assholes and nice people. Sometimes, they try to kill each other because of their higher-ups' orders. But sometimes, it's more personal: it can be an attempt to protect their friends or to avenge their loves. And sometimes, you can straight up push the conflict into an unending Cycle of Revenge. For this approach, stories where warfare is portrayed as a hellish conflict for both sides can be a great inspiration, especially when both sides are almost no different to each other.

Try not to make your characters too altruistic or too mindlessly evil: make them more human, give each character their own personality, who they like and who they don't like, why they partake in an adventure or a battle and what their personal goals are, and when they are willing to kill to protect their friends or to take revenge. Let your heroes cross the line more often, be it for the greater good, out of a personal grudge, or simply wanting to make sure that no one would be alive to avenge the dead, if not slowly becoming evil in the process. For villains, they might be some genuinely nice people simply getting dragged into the conflict with the heroes because the heroes have killed their friends and family, or they want to protect their own friends, their masters or their country. Occasionally, they are evil simply because the heroes pushed them to become evil in the first place or because they are too dangerous to exist and have to be killed by the heroes.

If you can make sure that the major conflicting factions are objectively neither good nor evil, just warring factions, and both sides have their own assholes and nice people, then congrats, you finally have given your characters gray areas.

I think there's an important distinction between writing gray characters and writing "heroes" and "villains" with flaws/redeemable qualities. Either way, writing "nuance" is about decision points. Most people won't really feel a character's drinking problem until it costs the character something or leads to a problem for the character or someone they love. It's even more impactful if the character promised someone important to them that they wouldn't go drinking that night before being invited to drink "just one glass."

When finding flaws for heroes, you can also take a look at their virtues. For example, do they have an overly-developed sense of justice? Anger tends to go along with that. Are they cheerful all the time? Maybe they're oblivious. Maybe they think that as long as they act "happy" things will work out. What might happen to them under stress? Not all "flaws" are vices; flaws can be vulnerabilities.

If you have multiple heroes, they'll hopefully have different personalities. Is messiness a flaw? To a neat-freak it is, and vice-versa. Maybe a messy person and a tidy person can tolerate each other under normal circumstances, but under stress they start yelling, refusing to work together, going separate ways, until things calm down and they apologize. Or with schisms over more important things, they never work together again and their cut ties becomes a problem for the heroes long-term.

For villains, sometimes all you need is a bit of affability. Take Xykon from Order of the Stick — complete monster, but you gotta love him because he's funny and charismatically threatening. It helps that he has a flaw too: he's not an evil mastermind — he's not unintelligent, but he's not perfect.

Of course, if you want a real redeeming quality, you can't beat having a person that the villain cares about. The person they care about can be a "good" person (or just a bystander) or a fellow villain (romantic partners tend to be good here, but friends and family will do to). The important thing is that they are a person that they are loyal to — at least under most circumstances; they should show loyalty at least once in the story, even if they ultimately sacrifice their loved-one for their personal goals (or maybe if they have to choose between their "goal" and their loved-one, they choose the loved-one and that's how it ends. This doesn't work for all plots, but for things like MacGuffin chases, it works.)

Again you can look at the villain's virtues. Are they seeking revenge for a legitimate wrong? Do they want power because they want freedom (from anyone, or perhaps even death)? Or do they want to do good things for their people but they're in an "us vs. them" mentality or believe the people they're fighting are corrupt or that political reform is moving too slowly (or has gone too far)? Do resources seem to be just too limited to go around?

It's all in the motivation. Imagine the limits of your characters' desires and ideals and the situations they might all conflict — with themselves, each other, and the world.