Add Tension and Believability with Contradiction
Build honesty with what your characters don’t say
I don’t like to be embarrassed. But I often think extremely embarrassing things, from my real feelings about people (good or bad), to something I’m still fixated on years later, to how little attention I was paying to the important thing you were trying to tell me.
Most people are like this, in the end. We have reputations to protect or build, ends we hope to justify, people we want to impress. This means it’s rare to find someone who says exactly what they’re thinking — and why we reject it in fiction when characters do the same.
People Are Contradictions
If you have all day, I could tell you the ways I know my personality contradicts itself. I prefer to keep things organized, and struggle to organize. I overthink everything and can turn anything from where I want to be in 10 years to my friendships into data points ripe for analysis, but get absolutely caught up in my feelings and let them tint everything I see. I’m a lazy parent who’s thus taught her kids life skills early so I don’t have to do them.
People are contradictions. Most people are unaware of all the ways they don’t add up, if quick to point it out about others in a fight. (I’m looking at you Maureen, as you call Joanne a snob, yet over-attentive, and I pretend to not be called out.)
That means, if we want to design characters, they need to be contradictions, too. Not just in the ways their personality plays out, but in the difference between what they say and what they think.
After all, no one wants to be embarrassed, and most people run from vulnerability, right?
People Are Driven by Fear and Reward
I’d like to think that humanity is more complex than other animals, that we are at least partially rational beings. But at the end of the day, there is no small part of us that is still driven by Pavlov’s bell, running toward rewards and avoiding fear.
Cosette Dawna Rae, when discussing internet addiction, talks about how people can fall away from rationality when worried, and it actually makes us more susceptible to lying:
When people experience overwhelming anxiety (or fear) about letting themselves, or someone else down, one way to escape (flee) the perceived threatening or stressful situation is to lie, escape, or avoid. Once the stress response system is activated, it’s difficult for rational decision making to take place.
She says earlier that when we’re worried about the safety of a relationship, we’re less likely to be vulnerable, instead protecting ourselves and focusing on what we can do to get what we want without getting hurt.
Our characters, especially at the beginning of a story, should approach life from a maladaptive point of view anyway. That’s the reason they need to change. (Sidenote: the work on characters growing through the Enneagram stages of development is great for this.)
The Art of Avoiding What You Mean
Now that we’ve talked a bit about personalities and the psychology of how people decide to act the way they do, let’s look at how this can show up in our fiction, creating subtext and depth that isn’t there without contradiction.
Let’s look at an example. In the scene below, we have a mother (let’s call her Amanda), and her teenage daughter Brynn. Brynn is packing her things and about to head out the door.
Before I get into how to add depth with contradiction, let’s write it out as a screenplay. Then we’ll take this dialogue and approach it first from Brynn’s point of view and then from Amanda’s, so we can see what is and isn’t being said.
Mom: “You’re going out? This late?”
Brynn: “Logan invited me to a movie.”
Mom: “Didn’t you just go out with him yesterday?”
Brynn: “He’s good to me, Mom. Like you’d get that.”
Mom: “Whatever happened to Jake Fairchild? The two of you used to be so close.”
Brynn: “I’m going to be late. I’ll be home by 11.”
Brynn’s Point of View
Brynn had almost made it to the door. Phone in her pocket, purse on her shoulder, keys tight in her hand so they wouldn’t jangle. Check, check, check. The television was still playing in the other room, so her mom probably wasn’t even paying attention.
She creaked open the front door, and a hand pressed down on her shoulder.
“You’re going out? This late?”
Of course her mom caught her. Brynn had told Logan over and over again this would happen. She was losing faith in his constant assurances that things would be all right, but she’d promised him tonight. “Logan invited me to a movie,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear before reaching for the doorknob again.
“Didn’t you just go out with him yesterday?”
It had been ages since her mom paid her this much attention. If only Logan had asked her to go out during This Is Us instead of American Idol. She’d have been none the wiser, and Brynn wouldn’t be prey to anything he decided to do to her if she were late. “He’s good to me, Mom. Like you’d get that.”
Her mother ran a hand through Brynn’s hair like she was seven and not seventeen. The kid she saw wasn’t there anymore. When could she just accept it? “Whatever happened to Jake Fairchild? The two of you used to be so close.”
It took everything in Brynn’s power to suppress the noise that rose in her throat, somewhere between a laugh and a cry. If only her mother knew just how thoroughly she’d messed things up with Jake Fairchild. If only she could forget his stunning golden brown eyes, and his smirk that felt, somehow, like a kiss even from across the room. She straightened her shirt. “I’m going to be late. I’ll be home by 11.”
Amanda’s Point of View
One of these days, Amanda knew she was going to have to confront her daughter about all the sneaking out she thought she got away with. She’d been mindlessly scrolling her phone while some terrible singers tried to audition for American Idol when she heard tonight’s footsteps. Now was as good a time as any, she figured, and strode to the front door, pursing her lips into the best imitation of her own mother she could muster. “You’re going out? This late?”
Brynn’s eyes flitted between the door and her mother, darkening slightly under the low light in the entry. She tucked a hair behind her ear, and Amanda felt Brynn was seven all over again, not the same age she was when Brynn was born. “Logan invited me to a movie.”
Logan was trouble. Amanda knew that much, if only based on the fact Brynn had refused to bring him around for dinner, despite many, many requests. But if her daughter was anything like her — and she was — saying so would only push Brynn further away. “Didn’t you just go out with him yesterday?”
“He’s good to me, Mom. Like you’d get that.” The dig hurt as much as Brynn wanted it to, but once again she couldn’t get over how quickly her baby had grown up.
She reached out to her hair, committed to the action before she even realized what she was doing. It reminded her of how Preston Fairchild had treated her, before Chad. Before Brynn. There was no hope for Amanda, now. There could be for her daughter. “Whatever happened to Jake Fairchild? The two of you used to be so close.”
Brynn held back a laugh, and Amanda immediately regretted bringing it up. One day, she’d tell her the storied history between their family and the Fairchilds. Today, obviously, could not be that day. Brynn straightened her shirt and refused to meet her mother’s eyes. “I’m going to be late. I’ll be home by 11.”
Practical Applications
When you’re writing dialogue, and it feels stilted or obvious between your characters, you can help bring realism by adding contradictions.
- How can this character’s thoughts contradict what they say?
- How can this character’s actions contradict what they say?
- How can the characters say what they think the other needs to hear — or what they think will hurt the worst — instead of the truth?
What other ways can you bring out tension with contradiction?
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