How To Fix Overpowered Characters

 

Often, a thing I see new writers struggling with is giving their characters well-rounded abilities or powers or making their characters human-like. 

                              Giving your character well-rounded abilities                                                Whether they be magical or mundane.                                

(Oak in 2016-17  (left) VS. Now (right)) 

It can often happen that you end up with an overpowered character. This happened to me a while ago with my character, Oak, who I made invincible in battle because she could turn any weapon against its user. That meant all weapons including arrows would be unable to touch her. Given that Oak is a half dryad, I started from the idea that Dryads can turn an axe on a wood-cutter. But I turned this into an invincible power. Also, in her backstory, Oak survived a forest-fire with no injuries (and seemingly no personal trauma). I've fixed those issues with her now (she now has vulnerabilities and psychological complexities), but it was a problem when I was first starting out. 

                                                       Balancing Out the Abilities 

While a character can be made uninteresting or invincible with something like superpowers, a writer can also make their character's single ability too powerful too even if it is something mundane like sword-fighting. In reality even when someone is good at something, they always have weaknesses. No one will ever be perfect at anything; they will always have something to work on, and having them be absolutely perfect causes problems. 

For example, you could be a really good artist and painter but have difficulty drawing hands or eyes. And while you would be a good artist, there would be still things you would need to work on. Those would be your weaknesses or flaws, maybe even something someone would notice if they looked at your artwork. But sometimes when you create characters you have a desire for them to be perfect at everything. 

One of the reasons I like Dungeons & Dragons as a writer, is that it forces you to make well rounded characters and not to make them overpowered. Here's an example of what I mean: 

(Part of Jinx's character sheet (for Level 4))

If you notice there are skills that the character is really good at (the higher the number the more you add to your roll), and some things the character is not good at (the lower numbers). But even if there is a higher number, there are still skills that aren't as fine-tuned as those with the highest possible number. My character is naturally good at skills that require charisma, but not good at skills related to survival. 

That is not to say that your character can't be skilled in more than one thing. They can be, but you should figure out how skilled they are compared to other skills. I'll give you an example of that with three characters from my own novel (who are skilled in more than one thing in different ways). While I don't normally use my own characters as examples, I feel that showing you what I have done with my own characters could potentially help you with yours:

My character Annabelle is proficient in three skillsets (detective work, magic, and fighting), but I figured out how skilled she was in each. The thing that it the easiest for her to do, because she has been working on it for so long, is detective work. She has been working on fighting for quite some time (not as long as detective work), so she can engage in combat and won't be easily defeated (when using a sword or dagger). However, she is unskilled with a bow and arrow. She is slightly skilled with magic, but she is still learning, so her magic (at the moment) is likely to be out of control at times. 

So, Annabelle is not invincible as a fighter; however, she is skilled enough that it would be hard to defeat her in battle. But you could get at her weak points if you knew what they were. And as a detective, she would know what she was doing if she walked into a crime scene. However, like I said before, just because it comes easy to you doesn't mean you're perfect at it. At times Annabelle has been wrong about a case. 

                                                            (D.I. Time (left) Ophelia (right)) 

Then I have two different characters who have similar abilities, but have different levels of skill. D.I. Time and Ophelia have their own abilities. D.I. Time is like Annabelle, skilled with detective work, however whereas Annabelle is more skilled with sword-fighting than magic, he is more skilled with magic, and he uses it more often than he would a weapon. He finds magic to be more useful to interrogate criminals than brute force. 

Ophelia is a healer (and priestess) so has no idea how to use weapons like swords, and she spends most of her time healing people with her earth and air magic. While she is skilled with it, she still has a lot to learn. Also her magic can double as a weapon if she wants. She can make vines and plants grow and cause a small wind storm. However, those take a lot of energy to do, and since she is a healer she cannot hurt people, so she has to use her powers when fighting carefully, so as not to hurt someone. 

As you can see, your character can be skilled in many different abilities, but still find some easier than others. 

                                      Using Their Mistakes to Propel the Plot-  

Then, we come to the other issue: how much does your character being right or wrong influence the plot? If it is a story with an ensemble cast you may want to think about this for each of your characters, but if it is a story with a single main character, think about how their successes and failures influence the plot. It is much less interesting to see someone succeed every time. 

In some well-known stories, the mistakes of the characters are important. In A Midsummer Night's Dream for example, Puck's confusion as to who the correct Athenian man was-- that is the one Puck was supposed to lay the love potion on the eyes on--plays an important part in the rest of the plot because it causes confusion and drama. Or, in the myth of Oedipus, Oedipus mistaking what the oracle told him about killing his father, and thinking the oracle meant his (adoptive) father is essential. He ends up running away only to kill his actual father and accidentally fulfilling the prophecy. 

But then what about a character succeeding? Isn't that sometimes interesting to watch? Yes, but the success shouldn't happen every time. Your character is mimicking humanity, even if they are not human, and humanity isn't perfect at anything. Even in detective stories, like Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie's stories with Mrs. Marple or Poirot, the characters are not always right. And sometimes when they are right, right away, it is show their ability as a detective. 

In BBC's Sherlock, this happens when John meets Sherlock. Sherlock is able to deduce what John is like what he has been through, and then he asks John whether he had been in "'Afghanistan or Iraq?'" (A Study in Pink) --

 

John is of course confused by this, because how does Sherlock know this information that John never once told him? Later, Sherlock explains how he knew the information, "when I met you for the first time yesterday, I said Afghanistan or Iraq? you looked surprised [...] I saw, your haircut, the way you hold yourself says military, the conversation as you enter the room [...] you said trained at Bart's, so army doctor, obvious, [...] wounded in action, suntan, Afghanistan, Iraq" He doesn't simply know the information, he figured it out through deduction. However, he got one piece of information wrong, and he adds "and there's your brother, your phone's expensive email, enabled MP3 player, [...] you aren't going to waste money on this, it's a gift then" (The Study in Pink) he thought the phone was a gift given to John by his brother when in reality it was his sister. 

The greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes, like anyone else is able to make mistakes is able to be wrong even though his mind works faster than most people's. But, him being right (most of the time), is to show how skilled he is, and if he makes a mistake that doesn't make him less of a good character. In fact, it makes him more life-like. 

                                  Fixing Overly "Perfect" Characters                               

Sometimes an author writes an overpowered character because the author cannot fathom their character doing anything wrong. However, this can lead to a type of bad characterization. Everything (literately everything) the character does is golden and good--even if they commit murder or do something morally wrong. Not that every character is going to commit murder of course, that is not a given. But let your character make mistakes and let it be shown as bad, it makes for a more interesting character. 

                                        The Perfection is Merely an Illusion 

One way to turn the problem on its head though, would be to create a character who appears to be perfect but under the surface isn't. Or have your character's story be told by an unreliable narrator. For now, we're going with "the perfection is merely an illusion" as a way to fix it. 

(Image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray#/media/File:Doriangray.jpg)

For the first approach, I am going to bring Dorian from The Picture of Dorian Gray into this. While Dorian is not perceived as being completely perfect by society, he does appear to be perfect in a sense: he never ages, and he is handsome. However, despite the fact that he seems perfect, he is not. He has a painting that absorbs all of his sin and all of his age. The painting itself is a conflict for Dorian, for when he commits murder, he doesn't want anyone to view the painting as evidence against him so **spoilers (highlight to view)** he destroys it and by destroying it kills himself too .**end spoilers** So, Dorian's perfection is merely an illusion that is hiding something much darker. 

Now, when it comes to applying something like this to your character whether it be Fantasy, Contemporary, Horror or Historical, it is important to think about what flaws your character is hiding and why they are keeping up the illusion that they are perfect. If it's Contemporary and your character is in a high school, is it because they want to be popular? If so, are they successful in that endeavor, or do their flaws come creeping in? This same thought can be applied to any social situation where there are competitions about being popular and not just a high school. 

If it is Fantasy, Science Fiction, or perhaps Historical, if your character has a background that is bad, perhaps they are a criminal of some kind or they possess magic (or technology) that is frowned upon in the society of your world. If so, then it would make sense for them to keep up a seemingly perfect presentation of themselves to the public even if they are doing something that may be questionable. 

Of course, if it is Horror (or Gothic), you can go the route of them hiding a curse of some kind. Perhaps it is not the same curse as Dorian, but maybe they are a vampire or a werewolf, or have a long-running curse in their family that they cannot get away from. 

Of course, these are just suggestions, and there are many ways to do this that I haven't mentioned. 

                                              The Unreliable Narrator  

(Image from Wiki Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aubrey_Beardsley_-_Edgar_Poe_2.jpg)

 Moving on to unreliability: what if your character is supposed to be shown as good to the audience even if they committed something horrible like murder and and they don't feel any guilt whatsoever about it? There is of course a way to write a sympathetic murder or have your character do illegal/immoral things in a sympathetic way, but since we're going off the case where they feel no guilt of having done these deeds, we're going to unreliability for now. 

One good example of an unreliable narrator is the narrator in the Tell-Tale Heart. The narrator tells the audience about his objective behind murdering the old man, that "[o]bject there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye!" (Poe 1). The narrator wants us to known that he loves the old man, so therefore his plotting to murder and murdering of the old man was justified. However, we as an audience know better and know there is something off about the narrator, from the way in which he speaks the opening lines: "True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am;" (Poe 1). And also we know that his unreliable from his insistence that he is not mad at all, and telling us (the audience) that he is more clever than a mad man when it comes to murdering the old man. 

So when presenting a character who is viewed as good by themselves even though they committed horrible deeds whatever they may be, think about how they will be unreliable about it. Do they think that it is good, even heroic that they did this? Do they do it for (unsympathetic) reasons such as that it was easy for them or because they wanted to? If it is told in first person, do they lie to the audience about what they have done or tell them and expect the audience to sympathize and agree with them? Once you have that figured out, you can figure out how to portray your unreliable narrator in your short story or novel. 

                                              The Sympathetic Approach 

(Image from Wiki Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Play_Scene_in_Hamlet.jpg)

And the final way to do it, is to make your character's actions sympathetic. Don't change that it happened, but change the way in which it happened. Returning to the example that I've been using, where a character has killed someone, a sympathetic approach would show that perhaps it was because they were forced to, did it in self defense, or had to make a hard choice and the only "good" option was killing someone.

 After you change the way in which the deed was done, you also then have to make the character feel guilty in some way, even if they do not express it outwardly. Do they have nightmares? Or constant thoughts about what they have done? If their guilt is expressed outwardly, do they try to fight against what they have done, for example by helping the family of the person they murdered? 

Also, think about why they had to do this. Was it for revenge? Do they want to kill someone who had hurt them, but then end up hurting themselves by killing them? Was it because they were forced into it? Are they a gladiator who was forced into doing it, and have to kill people in order to survive but feel guilty about it and want to escape? Or, is it something else? 

Either way, if your character kills someone, in order for them to be sympathetic their first reaction shouldn't be "oh cool!" or "that was so good of me." There should instead be a feeling of dread: "oh no" and "what have I done?" If your character's first reaction is a problem, either change your character to be unreliable, or change the reaction completely. This will help the audience sympathize or just want to watch your character from afar. 

 Here are some things to think about...

1. If your character is skilled in more than one ability, make a list with #1 being something that comes easy to them and the largest number being the thing they have to work the hardest on. 

2. If something comes easy to your character, how do they feel about losing or being wrong when it comes to that ability? Do they make a fuss about it or are they all right with it? 

3. If they make a fuss about it, how do your other characters feel about it? Are they less likely to want to be around your character or do they compete against your character for this reason? 

4. If your character doesn't make a fuss, how do they feel about teaching others about their abilities? Or helping others learn to hone their own skills? Would they be a good mentor?

5. How does your character view themselves? Do they think they are the hero? If so, do you agree with them? Or are they being unreliable? 

6. What is the most selfless act your character has done? And what is the most selfish act they have done? 

7. What are the most positive attributes of your character and what are the most negative ones? 

8. Regarding the most selfless act, would your character selfless if they got nothing (but perhaps a smile, a hug, nothing substantial that is) in return? 

9. Regarding the most selfish act, what did your character do? Was it illegal (stealing, murder, etc.)? Or was it simply mean or hurtful to someone else? How guilty about this do they feel? 

10. If your character had a painting of themselves that took every selfish action and negative action they have done and presented it in the painting, what would the painting show? (Write or draw this). 

11. In the reverse (once you've figured out what the first painting looks like) if your character had a painting of themselves that took every selfless act and positive action and presented it in the painting, what would the painting show? (Write or draw this). 

12. If your character turns out to be told by an unreliable narrator, is your story told in the first, third or second person? If it is told in the third, do the audience and the other characters know this character is unreliable? If it is told in the first, how do you present the unreliability of your character? Do they speak in a way that comes off as being unusual (ex. in broken sentences)? Do they say something that alerts the audience that they are untrustworthy? 

13. What is one part of your character's ability that they are the most good at it, whatever it may be that they still need to work on? And how do they go about working on that? 

14. Suppose your character enters a competition related to their strongest ability, and they end up losing. Do they try to do anything to change the results? Do they feel it is unfair? Attack the winner? Or do they congratulate the winner of the competition and act like a good sport. 

15. If you're taking the sympathetic approach, how do the other characters feel about them? Do they still trust them (even with what they did)? Does your character feel hurt by this? 

16. How kind is your character to their friends (if they have any)? Do they push them around? Or are they generally nice to them? 

17. What is one skill your character wants to learn and hasn't yet for whatever reason? Why haven't they tried to learn it yet? 

18. What is one time within your story where your character fails? How important is their failure to the story as a whole? 

19. What is one time within your story where your character succeeds? How important is their success to the story as a whole? 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What are your own approaches with dealing with overpowered characters? 

-Quinley