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Q&A Will an unrealistic character be out of place among other realistic ones?

Most of the characters in my story are well thought out and have realistic motivations and backstories, as I think most people agree that believable characters are important in writing (if you’re g...

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Grace‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T13:14:33Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48947
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Grace‭ · 2019-12-08T13:14:33Z (over 4 years ago)
Most of the characters in my story are well thought out and have realistic motivations and backstories, as I think most people agree that believable characters are important in writing (if you’re going for that sort of thing.) There is, however, one character which isn’t realistic and I think he reads as a caricature or just plain weird. I don’t really have an excuse for this, other than maybe saying “he’s insane”. Really I just need him to get in the way of my protagonist in minor situations.

I’m wondering if the character will stand out glaringly against my other characters. Am I being lazy to not delve into his psychology, or is it fine to put in varying levels of effort into different characters?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-11-14T17:39:51Z (over 4 years ago)
Original score: 2