FROGS AND TOADS; IMPULSE vs LOGIC

   Years ago I was watching a nature program about amphibians and a contrast between frogs and toads was drawn that has forever shaped my view of people. You see, when a frog is sitting on a lillypad and it decides to go back into the water, it just jumps...never bothering to check if there's a school of fish waiting to gobble it up. Toads on the other hand, look before they leap and are far less frequently munched by such opportunistic predators.

   People are much the same. Some of us look before we leap, considering the consequences of our actions and weighing the risks and benefits, whereas others of us jump right in without a thought in their head that things might not go according to plan.

   In the same vein as last Wednesday's post about Writing Character who are Emotional vs Passionate, this week I'm focusing on logical and impulsive (illogical) characters. So let me define a few things. Logic is the act of reasoning, considering outcomes, and basically thinking about what one is doing and why. Therefore, illogical behavior is behavior that lacks forethought. We all know people who fit into these categories. Most of us are a blend of the two with a slight lean towards one or the other; and most characters in stories are as well. However, when writing a character, it is important to remember which way he or she leans on this spectrum as it can make a huge difference in their behavior.

   This part of character creation happens organically for me. I write a character and their logical or illogical behavior comes out. It's not something I really have to think about (illogical writing?). From time to time I need to go back and fix a few choices that the character makes to bring them in line with their nature, but overall, once it becomes apparent to me which way a character is leaning, their voice has become strong enough to keep things going on their own.

   It's not usually a good idea to have a purely illogical or logical character unless you have a very good reason for doing so. Spock, for example, was famous for his logical behavior, and loved for it, because it strengthened his character. And before anyone tries to say that the Joker in The Dark Knight was purely illogical, think again. He was ALWAYS thinking about outcomes, always planning ahead. Regardless of what he might have said, he did have a plan.

  As a side note, there is also intuition which is based not on logic but on instinct. Sometimes, a character just knows that doing this or that will have a certain outcome, even though they can't explain it. Logic only comes into play when the time comes for them to decide if they will follow the intuitive prompting or not. Remember this line?
   "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Sometimes the characters in Star Wars heeded their gut feeling, other times they didn't. Now go and watch the movies and find each time this happened and figure out if they handled it logically or illogically.