Making a Tragic Character that isn't Cliche

[Daemyn Sterk]

Alright, this is a topic I'd like a little advice on and I think would be fun to discuss. What are the fundamentals to creating a tragic character that isn't cliche? Is that possible when one uses backgrounds including death of family, abuse, and things like that?

I'm currently brainstorming ideas for a character I'd like to play as, a character with a tragic background. I haven't figured out what yet, but I'd like to do my best to prevent it from being cliche. Without going into too much detail, the basis of my character is that he's always pushing himself to be open and outgoing, though struggles with sadness, hesitation, and self-consciousness on the inside. Of course, that's just an idea now which will likely be altered.

Any advice from all of the writers here on what I should avoid when writing a tragic character and be as original as possible?

[Jig]

I can't help too much because I avoid 'tragic' characters for the same reason that you do, but don't get hung up on being 'cliché'. All that means is that you're doing something that's been done before, really, and, yes, tragic characters with bereavement, drug issues, rape, genocide, whatever, have been written before in fiction. No matter what character you right, somebody out there will be able to say "Oh, like character x from artistic work y."

What you really want to do, in my opinion, is to write whatever it is well, whatever the particularly tragedy is. Poor writing, not content, is the aspect of Mary Sues with tragic backstories that elicit my groans. It's not the fact that she walked out of a genocide that makes me go "Ugh, really?": It's a pretty horrific thing to happen to somebody (even Sue) and easy to sympathise with, unless the author jeopardises the reader's sympathy and understanding of the situation. I know 'write it well' isn't the easiest advice to act upon, but it's the best I can do. :P

[Vordak]

Make the tragedy an internal struggle of the character, not just part of his history. Instead of focusing on the tragedy as an occurence, make it an influence, something that makes your character develop the very traits of a tragic personality that you will focus on in your writing. Simply mentioning the fact of a tragedy occuring is far from enough, since only your character's thoughts, emotions and reflections can give it life in the roleplay.

[Kestrel]

Don't make your character 100% victim. Have their own actions and choices cause them tragedy. Insta-different from 99% of the tragic bio's.

[Brovo]

Kestrel said Don't make your character 100% victim. Have their own actions and choices cause them tragedy. Insta-different from 99% of the tragic bio's.

This, really. Nobody's life is complete tragedy. The key to having a tragic backstory is to balance out tragedy with other elements.

There's a general rule of storytelling that goes hand in hand with pacing, where you can emotionally over-saturate someone if you overdo an emotion. Ergo why in horror films, you have the "fake" jump scare, you have comedy or romance or sexual elements to relax the tension in the audience. Because after a certain point you will simply isolate and outlive the emotional overkill. Think about it. After a certain point no matter how happy you feel, you will eventually down-tone back to contentment. No matter how miserable you feel, you will eventually recover, absolutely regardless of outside influence which may speed or slow the process but not stop it. (The exception being of course to mental illness, but it should be noted that even the vast majority of people diagnosed as being clinically depressed or suffering from PTSD have periods of emotional stability and normality.)

So, really, just make sure your character is well rounded emotionally. A character who can't find a reason to get out of bed in the morning and is constantly wailing about how horrible their lives are, isn't going to function in the vast majority of stories on Roleplayer Guild that are generally about defeating something or overcoming a significant physical obstacle. A character who lost their family in a house fire due to a battle or raid, and now dons a shield and sword to prevent anyone else from meeting that same fate, on the other hand, is an admirable if scarred person who has all the motivation in the world to see your typical conflict-based plot resolved.

[Robeatics]

(God, Brovo, you're my hero.)

If you wanted to keep a character as close to real life as possible, think about their upbringing and personality before the tragedy/tragedies. People react to events with vastly different long-term effects. Age, experience, personality and early-taught mannerisms will always alter their perception on events. A character who’d been taught to always fend for herself will react to a tragedy of loss of family much more differently than a more sheltered character, a child will respond to abuse and be affected by it long-term differently than an adult. Instinct may shift. They could flinch or stand with their back to walls always, more subtly; or develop a phobia, odd interest in unorthodox things, or temper at the more obvious. Humans are funny creatures. A character will always feel much more organic with a quirk or two, a strange, unhealthy fetish, an addiction, a fear of separation/whatever. A lot of the people on My Strange Addiction have clinical depression, anxiety, past trauma such as death of family members or even abuse. Where does your tragic character find comfort? Do they utterly stifle emotions associated with their past or harness them?

[Jorick]

Others in this thread have already covered the major points, so I'll be brief. Don't make their entire life and personality revolve around the tragedy, but don't just mention "oh no tragic history!!!" and leave it at that either. Find the middle ground where real people end up after experiencing tragedy; there's a lot of room for differences between the two ends of the spectrum. Strive for realism in emotional responses, because that's what will speak to people. Just avoiding the traps of overplayed eternally brooding tragic characters or emotionally dissonant super happy on the outside to mask sadness type characters will do a lot for avoiding the cliches associated with tragic histories.

However, avoiding cliches just for the sake of avoiding them isn't always a good thing. A lot of cliches have acquired that status because they're solid story devices or because they're based in the reality of how people react to things. For instance, in direct relation to the tragedy thing, a character having a mental/emotional breakdown after experiencing a major loss is extremely cliche, but it's also extremely realistic and to maintain believability you would probably have to explain why your character did not have such a reaction. There's plenty of wiggle room in realistic depictions of emotions and reactions and such for the sake of making good fiction, but it's a good thing to keep in mind if you're trying to make solid characters that readers will appreciate and relate with.

Oh, also, originality is not in and of itself a good or bad thing, nor is unoriginality. Both assessments are comprised of comparing your work to that of other people, which is usually not a great thing to do. You should instead strive to make the best possible thing you can, regardless of what others have done. If someone else thought of it first, so be it, your writing style and the situations you put that character through should be enough to make them markedly different in the end anyway, so who cares? In the end, if you're not trying to sell whatever you're writing, the only thing that matters is if you like the character and enjoy writing them. Focus on that instead of trying to be unique and you'll be happier for it.

[notdeadyet]

One thing I do to write a tragic character, is give them a character flaw, not a "woe is me" backstory. Givin these character flaws makes alot of room for developement, and makes makin the rest of the character simple sometimes.
Ei- character flaw= abandonment issues. - lets give them a background where important figures leave. How do we keep this from being such a sob storry? Lets have it be my new characters fault. They push people away. Which leads to another character flaw.
I also find that using the story you will be in, you can make character flaws that will surely lead to character and plot development.
Ei: im doing an "assassin school" rp. Well its an emotional toll to kill somebody. You may ask any vet, and they will agree. So i made a character who lacks emotional stability. This will give our school reason to keep our counselor, and allow me to have my character conquer thei emotions. Not to mention a struggle that will be aparent, and may cost lives... Though this character isnt necissarily tragic, i set them up so they can easily become tragic, based on our story.
Which leads to my final point. Tragic characters are when first written, often quite depressing. I personaly try to not make them, but instead make characters who through plot developement can become tragic. Why? Otherwise I make realy wierd, cliche psychopaths. And though a freak or two is good here and there, it gets old fast.

[Roose Hurro]

Robeatics said
(God, Brovo, you're my hero.)If you wanted to keep a character as close to real life as possible, think about their upbringing and personality before the tragedy/tragedies.

This is what I did with my character Pico. His "tragic" past includes not only his family being killed when he was very young, it also included his exile when the Theocratic "powers that be" decided he hadn't "grieved enough"... which eventually lead to his complete exile, the "moment" when he decided to leave his entire planet behind and find a life "Elsewhere" in the universe. However, due to his upbringing and personality, rather than moping about, he used his personal "tragedy" as a reason to grab all he could out of life. To honor his family, his parents and siblings, by living true to what they'd taught him. And by defying the image of his kind in the eyes of others.

Of course, lots of other details, but that's the gist.

[vancexentan]

Well the best hand that I can deal to this question is with the heroic archetype. My planned hero archetype character was in a naruto roleplay and that he was supposed to have really unique abilities. The problem being that before hand since before his birth he was pretty much a lab experiment by the city's special ops to remake one of their formerly strongest rulers. He would go on through his life being a happy and particularly well liked individual until he started getting into the adult stages of his life. First he'd retain his overall heroic type behavior expected from an anime character like himself and grow stronger like that. But he'd start learning things and he'd slowly creep over to the edge of the darkness per say. First by having a teacher who's abilities are pretty much evil but he'd use them initially for the side of good. Then he'd start to slowly get more and more darker while trying to keep himself the way he was. However that is thrown out the window eventually as despite all his efforts he figures out that he was indeed just some science project developed by the special ops and that his whole life while thinking he was supposed to be someone special he really wasn't just some person's attempt at remaking someone who was special. This forces him into a moral event horizon which in turn makes him darker and as he slowly starts to accept it he betrays his village makes his own and then proceeds to try and murder everyone even those who weren't to blame.

Now this seems like a very typical anti-hero but what makes this fellow different is that he willingly accepts that darkness not because it was forced upon him but because he simply lost faith in everything he held dear beforehand and on top of that said village in the aforementioned was starting to make things that really didn't sit well with the big guy. To put it in simple terms without getting to far into things he's a good guy initially who can use darker moves but then turns into a not so well intentioned extremist despot who was once a genuinely good person. However he could have said no to this at any time previously and it was his choice of how he got to where he ended up. Unlike say Zod or Luthor he isn't interested in genocide, being the best, or even really winning or making a point. He's more like the joker who actually has a ethic code and morals he's doing it because he believes that he simply can't let things continue to happen like this for better or worse.

How is this tragic you may ask as well? Well for one no matter how much he wanted to be good he simply couldn't stop the inevitable fall from grace in the end. No matter how good he was he couldn't be something he wasn't meant to be: a person he was and always shall be a weapon.