RESOURCE CHARACTERS The Dreaded Loner: Avoiding The Edge

Doctor Jax

Disease Empress
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Fantasy, Scifi, Urban Fantasy, Horror
We've all encountered "them" at some point in our writing careers, either in the fiction we consume or the roleplays we enjoy. They appeal to us in our melodramatic youth, and they dog us as punishment in other, less-imaginative writers. They are grimdark without sense. They routinely derail stories for their own arcs. They refuse to interact with others, roleplay characters or otherwise. They encapsulate a whole litany of bad roleplay or writing behaviors when it comes to a character archetype we all love to hate:

The Loner

Now, that is not to say that the archetype doesn't have it's place. There are some amazing loner characters in fiction. However, roleplay is a social activity, and so writing a loner can be a difficult task, because, well, how are you supposed to get people to interact with someone who often just wants to be left alone? My goal is to offer some do's and don't's when employing the Loner archetype, and how to manufacture some organic interaction when you've written yourself into a corner with someone who is, for all intents and purposes, antisocial by nature.


1. They're Characters First
This is my cardinal rule of writing. Stories usually aren't interesting if they're not populated by people. If you're someone who's very comfortable with character writing, but you're worried about writing a so-called 'loner', you're already on a good track. Loners are going to be - by nature - a character study. They're a person first, from the ground up, through backstory, personality, quirks, faults (that aren't only 'I just don't like people'). If the character you're writing doesn't have anything going on besides 'I travel alone, I don't talk, and I scowl', you might want to go back to the drawing board and continue putting meat on those bones, because you'll find when you're writing, there's no way to actually hook the protagonist/character into a plot naturally. What is it that they want? What are they afraid of? Do they have favorites? Were they always this way? How does this fit the setting you're writing in? And most importantly: what is their character arc? I don't advocate for people going the 'they become more extroverted' route, because there's nothing wrong with introversion, that's just how people are wired, but there does need to be some form of character growth involved to make a loner interesting. Where do you want this character to end up, by story's conclusion - in a better or worse place than when they started?

2. Backstories Matter, But Let It Breathe
The most difficult - and prone to edgy nonsense - portion of a loner is their backstory. Often surliness, a lack of desire to interact with others, and a general distaste for society at large is due to some form of trauma enacted upon the character in question. Usually what happens, in my experience, is that the backstory becomes an unsightly tumor that worms its way into the entirety of the character until that is all there is to learn about this character, nothing deeper. A great example that immediately comes to mind is Sasuke Uchiha, a character I (and others) find insufferable for the fact that his tragedy is brought up in nearly every single character interaction he has. That gets old fast. We already know they killed your clan, Sasuke. Yes, you hate Konoha, I heard you the first fifty times. Do you have anything else to say?

Backstories work best when they're exactly that - a backstory. It isn't the main focus right at the moment, and while it can drive an arc, the character should have more going on in how they act with others than to spew a SparkNotes of their tragic biography. Personally, I prefer backstories to be like coffee: dripped out, a bit at a time, letting it percolate. The adage "show, don't tell" is your friend here. Leave something to the imagination. The loner relies on mystique, and over-explaining is the death of mystery. Allow other roleplayers or readers to draw their own conclusions, rather than the character rant it out in their first interaction.

That said, I behoove people to write non-traumatic loners as well. Some people just don't like being around people. That's fine. They're a whole person, with a philosophy that just doesn't prize heavy social interactions with lots of people they're unfamiliar with, by nature or by design.

3. Entering The Plot
So you have your fully fleshed out loner, but now what? There is a plot afoot, but how do you bring them into it? The way I see it, you have two options, either externally pulling them into or internally driving them toward the story. What external forces are forcing this character's hand? The evil kingdom happens to be camping right past her front door, and they're ruining her prize camellia's. His child's been kidnapped by the goblins who're central to the plot. They're nearly broke, and a heist is easy money. They've been drafted into a military against their will. These means of entrance are by chance. A good example is Mad Max: Fury Road, where Max is pulled into the plot by being kidnapped by Immortan Joe's forces for that sick ride of his, plunging him into helping Furiosa and the Wives.

Your second option is aligning their goals or values with the plot, an internal driver. Maybe they want revenge on the same despot that killed their family. Maybe they're an environmentalist, and the local Evil Corporation is poisoning the forest. Maybe that artifact they've spent their life looking for is in grasp, but it means working with others to get it. In this case, the loner decides to initiate engagement instead. In an out-of-left-field example, Aragorn from Lord of the Rings is a loner by nature as a ranger, but chooses to help when it's evident Middle Earth needs Isildur's heir.

Is the reason why your loner engaging external or internal? If you're stuck, go back to your character's arc and background. Those might need tweaked if you can't think of a good reason why they'd be involved in this story. Collaborate with others in the group to build backstories in tandem, or if writing in a solo setting, intertwine character backstories and relationships to give a springboard into the plot.


4. Interaction Is Not Always Dialogue
Great! You've got a loner, who now has a reason to even be here to begin with. Now, how do you interact with others, when this is a person who just isn't particularly wordy? Well, good news for everybody, interaction is not always dialogue. Humans are nonverbal as well as verbal creatures, and simple things like taking someone's seat, or putting mayonnaise in your coffee, or immediately scribbling notes in a frantic and perhaps demented manner are all interactions that don't require words. Make use of nonverbal cues, like sharing food (trust) or locking doors (distrust) to affect the environment and cue the feelings of this particular character - all without saying a word. Now, you've given something for other characters (roleplayers or novel-written) to react to, digest, and comment on.

Obviously, your character is eventually going to have to communicate to another sentient being, but less is more. If they're someone who doesn't talk much, when and why do they speak? Are they someone who isn't good with words, and therefore actually kind of awkward when they finally talk? Or are they very confident, and they speak their mind bluntly? Do they dispense pearls of wisdom, or are they sardonic?

I cannot iterate this enough, but not all interactions should be hostile. If every single character interaction is a conflict, your character will quickly frustrate others in a roleplay setting, or bore a reader in a novel setting. Controversial opinions are one thing, where they have a strong personality, but constantly trying to fight others will get stale quickly, as now your loner has become the worst thing possible - predictable. Another good indicator your interactions and writing have grown stale is if your emotional range for said character is anger, rage, or brooding. Characters don't necessarily have to be maudlin and weepy to be complex, but a little bit of variety is the spice of life.


5. Making And Breaking Relationships
I highly recommend working with other RPers in roleplay environments to build backgrounds together. It can be a quick way to hook a loner type into the plot, as well as give them someone to interact with off the bat. It takes a lot of the legwork out of having to build that ground in-game. I recommend the same for novel writing. However, if for whatever reason that doesn't work out due to their backstory or the themes you're looking to construct, your character should be making relationships, good or bad, in the story. Try to have some balance between good, neutral, and bad or complicated relationships between characters.

If you're finding that every character is someone your character hates, start over. You'll make very little headway in and out of character, unless you have a good reason to change that at a later date and it's part of their arc to get towards a less hateful place. Even if you dislike most people, you should have one person at minimum that you've built a complex relationship - it doesn't have to be a good one either. Hatred, especially complicated hatred, can be great for character interaction, but it does have to be interaction, and it should be fun for both players, I cannot stress enough. If the other person is not onboard, you're gonna have a bad time. Talk these sorts of hatred relationships out, out-of-character. Roleplay is a cooperative effort. This is obviously not an issue for novel writing.


6. Reciprocate
As I said before, RP is a social activity, and social activity requires some form of reciprocation. Any good RP partner is going to reciprocate and give as good as they get, bouncing off one another. Obviously this is a rule that largely refers to the RP environment, not necessarily novel writing, but it can apply as well with balancing stories with multiple plotlines. Your loner does have their own arc, where they grow as a character, but in an RP there are many characters, and yours is not the 'main', so to speak. Having a loner participate in another character's arc can change the dynamic between them for better or worse, and it may also add new dimensions for a loner to learn something new, come across an experience they would otherwise not have had, or experience something profound that might change their worldview. Out-of-character, it also shows that you are as invested in other people's stories as you are about your own. Give as good as you get. Participate with others, build stories with others.

A great example of this is Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. After having an arc of his own, in which he grows to let go of anger, he is still someone who is not necessarily gregarious. Yet, despite this, he has a trip with each of the main cast, on each of their own journeys, to the point it's literally an in-joke that "I want to go on my life-changing journey with Zuko, it's my turn for wisdom."

It's a wonderful example of balancing in novel or series writing as well. Zuko does not dominate the 'screen time' of ATLA, nor does he override the other characters and their agency. He does not outstrip them or overshadow them. The world punishes him for his mistakes. His backstory is truly dark, but it is slowly revealed over time, and much is left for you to put together about life in his father's court. He builds rapport with the rest of the cast, and you are invested in how his story ends. In the wrong hands, Zuko could have been an insufferable character, but he was handled masterfully with tact and subtlety.



And that really does it for my general tips around making a 'loner'! If you can think of other tips and tricks, I'd love to hear them. I'd also love to hear your stories and examples of loners done right, or alternatively loners done very, very wrong, either laughably or frustratingly so. And please, no names, so as to protect the innocent.
 
Fantastic points, well-structured and strategies that are very easy to integrate into writing... As well as the famed Zuko example, which is always brought up, haha. This is a great guide, thanks so much for sharing!
 
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Great stuff! :thumbsup: