The First Law of Character Writing: Loving Broken People
I'm deep into Joe Abercrombie's new book, The Devils, and it's reminding me why I fell in love with his writing in the first place. His characters are razor-sharp, damaged, stubborn, and impossible to forget. They're not "likable" in any traditional sense, but they're magnetic as hell. Why? Because you can feel how much time the author spent with them—how much he gets off on being in their heads, even when they're complete monsters.
A quote bounces around my head while reading The Devils: 'Plot is dumb, character is cool.' It's not always true, but when it works, in the best movies, books, and TV shows, you can feel it.
Hear Their Voices Clearly
When you love scribbling a character, their voice stops being work and becomes conversation. You quit "inventing" dialogue and start taking dictation. The rhythms become second nature. Snarky, broken, chatty, or clipped, that voice becomes muscle memory.
Relationships Matter
Characters you care about don't stay in neat little boxes. They pick stupid fights, form weird alliances, fall for the wrong people, backstab their friends. The emotional chaos feels real because it matters to you as the writer. You're not just connecting story beats, you're tracking emotional shrapnel across multiple episodes or chapters.
The Ensemble Becomes a Living System
In a good story world, each character serves a function but also has a life. Their choices create ripple effects. You start seeing narrative cause-and-effect through their individual wants and fears. This is how Abercrombie builds entire books around flawed people smashing into each other like bumper cars.
Scribble the Ugly Stuff
Loving your characters doesn't mean babying them. It means staying in the room when they screw up, betray someone, or fall apart. That commitment lets you scribble moral gray areas without breaking a sweat. It also gives your audience permission to care deeply, even when a character is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons or the right thing for terrible reasons.
The Reader Feels Your Enthusiasm
Like on a killer ensemble show, readers can sense when a scribbler is having a blast. It's contagious. You're not just delivering content, you're inviting them to hang out with people you're obsessed with.
What Abercrombie Nails
Abercrombie doesn't write heroes and villains. He writes humans with sharp edges and questionable life choices. And he clearly enjoys all of them, especially when they're at their worst. The Devils might be his most playful novel yet. He's not just moving plot pieces around; he's watching a cast of beautiful disasters fight for survival in a world that eats everyone alive.
I use a character checklist to keep myself on track:
Name, Special Skill, Appearance, Personality, Background, Achilles Heel, Dramatic Question, Relationships, Voice, Synecdoche.
Plus: Intention and Obstacle.
Sounds mechanical, but it reminds me that every character needs contradictions, secrets, and forward momentum. Abercrombie appears to get this instinctively. Every character in his books serves the story and feels like they have a life beyond it.
So, next time your story hits a wall, don't reach for structure charts or beat sheets. Go back to your cast. Ask yourself: "Which character do I actually want to spend time with right now?" Start there. Let them talk. Let them blow up your outline. That's usually where the story gets interesting.
When you scribble characters you love, even the broken, complicated ones, your audience will love them too.
