Comments on Writing "light hearted" lead characters
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Writing "light hearted" lead characters
For some reason, when I find myself writing a male protagonist, I seem to default to the brooding, gritty kind of man that could easily find his place into a noir novel. Those characters are often shaped by something in their past, some mistake that they regret, or something in society that they deeply distrust. To be fair, I've been told that I write that kind of character well, in a believable way; so thumbs up for what might be an earned skill.
Yet, all my male characters can't sound the same. I want to be able to write more hopeful characters, light hearted characters, characters who can crack a joke and make the audience chuckle, characters that stay positive without sounding childish. It can't be raining all the time!
Yet, I'm at loss. I don't quite know where to begin. Part of me fears that "light hearted" will be instantly equated to "stupid, clueless" for the audience point of view.
In short:
How do you write believable, light-hearted characters?
P.S. First draft of this question was specifically about writing light hearted male characters, since at least in my case I have less trouble having a more diverse, emotionally wise, female cast. I didn't include it since it won't probably bey relevant to the answerers.
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Let me suggest that lightheartedness is not a character trait but a response to circumstance. Let me suggest that a lighthearted character is one who expects to get the things they desire, and that a heavyhearted character is one who does not expect to get the things they desire.
A man who goes courting expecting the lady to say yes, sets out about his task lighthearted.
A man who returns to his home expecting to find his family all dead, sets out upon his journey with a heavy heart.
It is true, of course, that some people seem to have a naturally sunny disposition, and that others seem naturally dour. Perhaps that is a psychological preset. Perhaps it is the expectation of life that have been formed in them by prior experience. So their character may condition whether they approach a project with the expectation of success or failure. But still, one can see their heaviness or lightness of heart as an expression of that expectation.
In other words, perhaps what you have to do to to create more lighthearted characters is to create a plot in which the protagonist fully expects to achieve their desire.
It won't be that easy, of course. The rain must fall sometime, or there will be no story. But if there is no story if the sun shines all the time, similarly there is no story if it rains all the time. There must be sunshine after rain. These things have always been the same. Why worry now?
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