Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

66%
+2 −0
Q&A How to ensure that neurotic or annoying characters don't get tiring in the long run

+1 Mark Baker. In addition, you can pad a character with other characteristics. Don't make A's special ability his only reason to be in the story. Give him a personal goal he's working toward. Giv...

posted 4y ago by DPT‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:57:27Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48002
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar DPT‭ · 2019-12-08T12:57:27Z (over 4 years ago)
+1 Mark Baker.

In addition, you can pad a character with **other** characteristics. Don't make A's special ability his only reason to be in the story. Give him a personal goal he's working toward. Give him a charismatic or otherwise appealing ability to go hand in hand with his super-power. Write a subplot just for him. Heck, if you simply give him a love interest that might help, because then the reader can be intrigued by how his partner deals with his craziness.

If you are bored or annoyed by A, listen to that response, and give A more to work with. It's more interesting to see how a character navigates **life** while dealing with heavy psychological stuff, than to simply see a character with psychological stuff.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-09-15T14:29:12Z (over 4 years ago)
Original score: 3