I’ve talked about creating compelling characters, I’ve talked about creating complex characters, about character dynamics, character arcs, and everything else to develop solid characters in your story.
Today it’s time to hit you with the secret sauce.
The one technique that’s going to make your characters land in such an effective way, readers are gonna squirm in their seats if even the thought of said character dying bubbles up.
The secret element, that applies to anyone and everyone and makes readers obsess over your characters, is none other than our friend… Morality.
Before we get into the specifics, let me quickly explain why this truth is universal…
In short, we all want to be deserving of success and happiness. Fiction at any given moment is a litmus configuration test of self-judgement, an assessment of who we are and who we can be. The most powerful fiction actually integrates this final self-imposed judgement call into ourselves permanently.
This is why the concept of a character arc is so critical and effective in fiction. A character arc is basically, a compressed trial, that concludes at the end of its story with its own little judgement. It’s the main focal point that the reader lives vicariously through, framing their own self-assessment.
In a story, the reader gets to see the whole shape of the arc and trial. We view the start, struggle and conclusion through omniscient eyes, giving us a crystal clear, complete picture.
But in real life we rarely get to see much of the whole shape, nevermind the full story.
In our so called lives, we’re always in the middle of our own arcs, unable to know which act we’re in, unable to know if the hard thing we’re going through at the moment is the crisis that changes us or just background noise. Unable to know how life would have turned out if we made that other decision or did that other thing. And most of all, unable to know how it ultimately plays out for us.
In the end, it’s all about our universal human struggle to become (or fail to become) a better version of ourselves.
And here’s what the other writing blogs and books won’t tell you…
Morality is the measure by which we judge.
Every moment, every character, goes into OUR self judgement test. It’s the mirror we use to look directly at ourselves. And how much or how little we relate to a character gets directly tied to their morality of their decisions and actions.
Now, remember, I said this is the secret sauce. It’s not the dish itself.
If you develop a shitty character, and throw the secret sauce on them, you have shit on a stick covered with yummy sauce.
That’s not going to get you far.
But if you develop a solid character, even a half-way decent character. This secret sauce is going to keep readers turning pages. They may even fall in love with them.
Morality Cheat List
Honesty: Telling the truth and not deceiving others, including not deceiving yourself about your own motives.
Fairness/Justice: Treating people equitably and giving them what they’re due, without playing favorites in ways that violate their legitimate claims.
Compassion/Care: Being genuinely responsive to others’ suffering and wellbeing, not just in principle but in how you actually show up for specific people.
Courage: Doing the right thing even when it’s costly, unpopular, or frightening.
Integrity: Living consistently with your stated values so that who you are in private matches who you are in public.
Humility: Recognizing that your perspective is limited and staying open to being wrong rather than assuming you’ve already figured it out.
Loyalty: Honoring your commitments and standing by the people you’ve bound yourself to, even when it’s inconvenient.
Self-control: Governing your impulses and appetites rather than letting them dictate your actions at others’ expense.
Respect: Treating people protagonists in their own stories, with their own purpose and dignity, not as instruments for your goals.
Gratitude and reciprocity: Recognizing what others have given you and responding in kind rather than simply taking.
Generosity: Giving your time, attention, or resources beyond what’s owed or expected, freely and without keeping score.
Responsibility/Accountability: Owning the consequences of your choices and actions rather than deflecting blame or making excuses.
Empathy: The ability to feel and understand what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, not just your own.
Forgiveness: Releasing the hold that someone else’s wrong against you has on your interior life, without necessarily excusing what they did.
Benevolence: The quality of being well meaning, not causing unjust harm.
Altruism: The selfless concern for the well-being of others.
The above list is a pretty extensive showcase of moral virtues that represent the best of what it means to be human.
King Arthur and his knights arguably encompass all of these at all times… This is essentially, who they are.
for the rest of us mortals, we usually adopt one or two consistently into a personal moral compass… or hit on any of them occasionally as we encounter them.
To spread the sauce over your characters, find the ones that work for your character’s personality, background, etc, and have them implement one or more instances of them during a high emotional moment, or important decision or action that holds significant consequences.
The Key is Pressure
You characters don’t have to fall back on these with every decision and action. In fact, they definitely shouldn’t do that.
Morality sprinkled on your characters is a potent flavor. If you expose their morality at every turn the character will come across with a Paladin Complex, “too good.” A benchmark so clearly out of grasp for everyone buy a saint, it feels artificial and weakens a readers ability to relate.
While you can still use it heavy handed if your character warrants it, again King Arthur, Superman, Captain America, etc. all you actually need is a pinch here and there. The most influential moments to capture it in narrative, are the moments your character falls under the greatest pressure. We spend our entire lives putting on masks and building a persona, but when the pressure comes on, our true nature more often than not, gets revealed.
When a character gives a glimpse of who they truly are, then acts in a conflicting way in most other instances, this instantly creates a compelling character. It is the core of a internally conflicted, struggling character. Exactly who each and everyone of is.
Even if the character is a shitty person (not a shitty character), the reader will suddenly relate to them, because we’ve all done shitty things at some point in our lives. In the blink of an eye, the reader’s focus doesn’t land on the character’s shittiness, but on the one virtue from this list they just expressed (or failed to express).
And the beauty is, it doesn’t matter if the character succeeds or fails, either in their arc, or just as a showcase of the virtue itself throughout the story. Because the connection between reader and character has already been made.
And we learn the lesson… judge ourselves against the character, whether their change is heroic, or not changing is heroic, or whether change is tragic, or not changing is tragic.
Any way it falls, we get to contrast and compare our own self against it.
In the end, characters we can’t make this contrast and comparison to, are characters we really don’t pay much attention to.
Villains with Morals?
Absolutely.
When the villain isn’t “true evil”… which frankly speaking, even in fantasy/sci-fi or superhero fiction, is going to be most of the time.
True Evil has no morality.
The minute you assign even one moral decision, action, or mindset to evil, it no longer becomes pure evil… but something else. Maybe just a really flawed person, a fallen/tragic figure, or even ultimately a sympathetic villain, whatever they are, they ain’t pure evil.
And while we can admire a great pure evil villain, even respect how pure evil functions in a story, nobody actually judges themselves by that standard. No person aspires to be irredeemable. Nobody actually wants to be Sauron, or Anton Chigurh (the killer with the pneumatic cow gun in No Country for Old Men). When we live vicariously through fictional characters, we always connect with characters who try, flawed, afraid, selfish, but putting out an effort no matter how small or how skewed.
That’s the bar we hold ourselves to.
And it’s exactly why we can sometimes connect more to a greatly executed villain with a broken or skewed moral compass, than the protagonist of a story. Not out of a secret desire to do mass murder or crazy evil things, but as an internal warning system. Our self judgement assessing us saying, “hey, put into the same situations as the Joker, you might not actually be much different.”
Seeing what we might be capable of at a fundamental level, acknowledging the horrific consequences if we ever actually indulged in that behavior and the sheer curiosity of what the actions and consequences look like.
This last bit being a good segue into:
Side with the Angels, Empathize with the Devil
I was going to break down some specific techniques to establish empathy with characters…
it’s certainly related, but on second thought, I think I’ll save that for a separate article.
I want to keep the concept of character morality front and center here. Whether you’re showcasing a hero protagonist staying consistent and true to who he is, an anti-hero or anti-villain deep in the struggle, or a wicked villain with a broken, but predictable moral compass. Morality truly is the secret sauce that gets readers to obsess over your characters. ▪
About the Author —
If you enjoy this article, please share the direct link on your social media.
Newcomer or veteran writer, if you’re working on a project that needs commercial success, Nick urges to you read this intro article.
Nick Macari is a full-time freelance story consultant, developmental editor and writer, working primarily in the independent gaming and comic markets. His first published comic appeared on shelves via Diamond in the late 90’s. Today you can find his comic work on comixology, Amazon, and in select stores around the U.S.