# Craft Tip 11: More Human than Human ### how writing characters out of your comfort zone makes you stronger [Alex Eos](https://substack.com/@alexeos) May 08, 2026 I have a black notebook covered in Crayon Shin-chan and Hello Kitty stickers where I keep my writing rules, because apparently the universe decided my craft wisdom should live inside something that looks like it belongs to a chaotic twelve-year-old with excellent taste and unresolved opinions. Some of those rules I’ve already talked about here. Others are still waiting for their moment. One of them resurfaced recently with the kind of petty force I usually associate with drag brunch, public humiliation, and a cocktail used as punctuation. In my defense, the trajectory of the cocktail was on point and spiritually justified. Which brings us to our topic: Your characters are not identities. They are people. * * * ### People are people so why should it be… Writers get nervous around certain kinds of characters. You can feel it in the prose. The sentences get careful, the dialogue gets polite, and the character stops behaving like a person and starts behaving like a mission statement someone hopes won’t get them yelled at online. That is usually the exact moment everything goes to hell. Because most bad representation is not offensive first. It is boring first. Sure, we can argue the _Skywalker Saga_ until we are blue in the face. We can talk about how everyone around Rey feels flattened into a safer, duller version of what they might have been, or how Luke and Han became older, sadder, washed-up men without even the pleasure of being interesting about it. Not in the tragic sense. Not in the film-noir sense. Just thinned out. But that is the real problem with bad representation: it is not that it always offends. It is that it so often sands the character down until there is nothing left to grab onto but the label. When writers don’t know how to write a character, they reach for a shortcut. Sometimes that shortcut looks like: - The sassy gay friend - The strong female character doing most of the work for the other characters limiting their agency and the agency of others. (eg: Rey from Star Wars) - The disabled inspiration arc - The emotionally unavailable man with a tragic past and excellent Jawline. (Unless your writing towards that trope or film noir then that cliche shortcut works) These are not characters, they are preloaded settings, mildly-bad clichés and you drop them into a scene and hope the reader fills in the rest like it’s a group project. The reader does just that and stops caring. * * * ### On social identity A characters identity is not behavior. Being straight, Gay or having a disability is not a personality. These things shape how a character moves through the world. They affect risk, safety, access, power, perception and how the system moves against them. It affects their outcomes in life and how they hold or do not hold power over a majority. In other words, they matter. But they do not replace: - Desire - Contradiction - Ego - Fear - pettiness \[my favorite\] - love - Bad decisions made with full confidence The things that actually makes us/someone human. * * * ### The Brunch Lie Not all gay men or Queer Folk(x) go to Brunch. In fact, you should invite me to more brunches. Thank you kindly. While some gay men do. Some absolutely do and will argue about eggs like it’s a constitutional right and moral obligation. But if every gay character you write is: - drinking mimosas - giving dating advice - delivering perfectly timed one-liners You are not writing a character. You are writing a performance. And performances are exhausting to read. Unless you're writing a character who is a sparkling vampire and full time menace using this to their advantage to overthrow a system. Then it becomes less of a stereotype or performance but more of a trope. * * * ### The “I Cut a Bitch” Problem Declaring something is not the same as earning it. This is true in fiction and in life. Any idiot can threaten to take a massive shit on someone’s windscreen. The question is whether the threat feels earned, whether it fits the person, the grievance, and the level of psychic damage involved. I am not admitting to anything here except excellent judgment. It has to come from someone whose spirit has been pushed into very specific forms of expression. (allegedly.) If this sounds like you or your character then at some point: They need to be the kind of person who would actually do it. Not metaphorically. not aesthetically. Not in a “they’re edgy in theory” kind of way. Otherwise it’s just dialogue pretending to be personality. This applies to everything: - “I don’t Trust anyone.” - “I’m a survivor. - “I Don’t need help.” - “I’m dangerous.” Cool. Show me. * * * ### Write Behavior, Not Labels Instead of asking : What is this character? Ask: What do they do when things go wrong? Do they: - stay quiet when they should speak? - pick the worst possible moment to be honest? - protect the wrong person? - escalate when de-escalation would save them? - crack a joke right before everything falls apart? That’s character. Not the label. The behavior. Because behavior has to do double duty. It has to reveal who the character is, and it has to show how they approach conflict. A good action is never just an action. It is also a confession. It tells you who panics. Who lies. Who performs bravery. Who mistakes recklessness for courage. Who confuses love with loyalty and loyalty with self-destruction. That is where character actually lives. Not in the label. Not in the identity category. Not in the author quietly hoping the reader will do all the work and call it depth. Take something simple: a peasant with no military training overthrowing an empire. On paper, that premise sounds ridiculous until behavior makes it believable. Does the peasant win through seduction? Through sabotage? Through patience? Through sheer suicidal nerve? Do they survive because they know how to read people better than generals do? Do they become useful, invisible, beloved, underestimated? The method matters because the method is character. A reckless character topples power one way. A patient character does it another way. A vain character does it differently than a humble one. A bitter character, a romantic character, a cowardly character, and a deeply petty character will all attack the same problem in completely different ways. That difference is where the writing starts to feel alive. Visual details can help, but only when they support the behavior instead of replacing it. A character’s appearance should feel like it belongs to the same person making those choices. The way they dress, move, groom themselves, or carry their body can reinforce something true about them. Vanity. Precision. Exhaustion. Defiance. Control. Neglect. But visual detail alone is not personality. A scar is not depth. A leather jacket is not rebellion. A limp is not complexity. Those details matter only when they connect back to how the person moves through the world and what they do once conflict arrives. That is the rule. Write the choice. Write the reaction. Write the behavior under pressure. The label can inform the person. It cannot be the person. * * * ### Quick Example (How this appears on the page) #### Flat verison: He was gay, witty and always had something to say. #### Actual verison: He watched the argument for a full thirty seconds before stepping in—not to fix it, just to make sure the worst possible truth got said out loud. Then he smiled like he’d improved the room. Now we have: - intention - timing - a little chaos - a person you can recognize Identity can still exist. But now it’s attached to **behavior**, not replacing it. * * * ## The Simple Test If you remove the identity label from your character, do they still feel like a person? If the answer is no, you don’t have a character yet. You have a category. * * * ## The Actual Rule Write them as people. Not idealized. Not sanitized. Not reduced to something safe and presentable. Let them: - be petty - be wrong - be inconsistent - be funny at the worst possible time - make decisions that cost something Let them embarrass themselves. Let them act up. And if they act up? Then yes. Someone might get a drink thrown in their face. Or worse—depending on the kind of person you actually wrote. * * * ## The Quiet Truth Readers don’t connect to characters because of what they are. They connect because of what those characters **risk, choose, and ruin**. Everything else is just description. * * * ## One rule I keep in my notebook If the character starts to feel like a type— **break them.** * * * If you made it this far, you clearly enjoy watching characters make terrible decisions with confidence.