Writing the Shadow: Strengthen your characters

In the words of Carl Jung, “How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.” In turn, if we are to make our characters whole and bring them to life on the page, we can use principles of Shadow to give them depth.

Our heroes cannot be all good, our villains cannot be all bad. They must have different facets to make them believable, and their complexity and human flaws will make them memorable in the minds of readers.

There are some classic literary characters that portray the Shadow side as a clear duality.

In the novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by R.L. Stevenson, Dr Jekyll drinks a potion that splits his consciousness into two. It even changes his physical form. The evil Edward Hyde emerges to commit violence and murder, then all he has to do is drink another potion to turn himself back into the responsible and moral Dr Jekyll, who tries to atone for the sins of his darker half.

In a confessional letter, Jekyll writes of his nightly adventures as Hyde,

“When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centred on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity… It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone that was guilty.”

Perhaps we can all relate to times when we indulged in behaviour our responsible selves would condemn. I’ve certainly woken up more than once and wondered who the hell I was under the influence of a potion that tasted a lot like tequila. Thankfully, not for a long time!

We all have a drug of choice, and mine has always been alcohol. There’s certainly no issue with a few glasses of wine with friends and family, or a few G&T sundowners. It’s excess and being out of control that is the Shadow acting out.

Admitting and acknowledging this brings it out of the Shadow and into the light. While I was certainly ashamed of myself in the depths of those killer hangovers, I can look back now with the gifts of middle age and be grateful that I didn’t do more damage to myself or others.

Back to the story. Jekyll understands that by indulging Hyde, he makes that side of him even stronger:

“I began to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde be irrevocably mine… I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self.”

In this way, Jekyll taps into a concept that Jung also expresses around the Shadow. The more we repress an aspect of ourselves, the more we push it down, the more violently it may explode at some other point in our lives. As Jekyll admits, “My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring.”

In terms of modern literature, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk portrays an unnamed narrator who discovers a darker alter ego. Tyler Durden encourages him to engage in bare knuckle fist-fights, saying, “Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer… Maybe self-destruction is.”

Both books portray characters who allow the Shadow side to take the reins, but for most of our stories, we do not need to split a character so exactly in two. The Shadow is less a binary construct and more a continuum that differs for every character.

“Some of the greatest and most compelling characters in literature are the villains and the psychos, all born from the darker, less acceptable realms of the writer. It is when the hero goes into the darkest part of the forest that he discovers the gold.”

—Jamie Catto, Insanely Gifted

Character flaws

Characters who wrestle with their Shadow selves inevitably have flaws that make them far more relatable and human — and readers want to know what happens when those flaws drive a character to action.

Character flaws are aspects of personality that affect a person so much that it’s the challenge of the story to face and overcome them.

In Jaws by Peter Benchley, the protagonist Martin Brody is afraid of the water, and he has to overcome that flaw to destroy the killer shark and save the town.

Breaking Bad is so compelling as a TV series because Walter White’s journey from mild-mannered chemistry teacher to drug kingpin is all about his flaws and yet, despite the dark themes, the audience cares deeply for him and the other characters along the way.

Succession remains one of my favourite TV series. Logan Roy is flawed as a father and his children are so broken because of him, but familial love is complicated and the show demonstrates those very flaws in all their variety.

Some flaws are about personality. A character who values status above all else may marry someone who helps them ascend in the social hierarchy, but perhaps they can only find true love when they overcome that flaw.

Some flaws are more life-threatening. A character with an addiction to painkillers might lie to cover up spending patterns and spiral into debt to fund their need.

As with real people, never define your characters purely by their flaws.

The character addicted to painkillers might also be a brilliant and successful female lawyer who gets up at four a.m. to work out at the gym, likes ’80s music, and volunteers at a local dog shelter on the weekends. There are plenty of functional addicts who don’t fit the stereotype too often portrayed in the media.

Part of your job as a writer is to break out of cliché and write original, compelling characters, and sometimes we can only do that by seeing our own dark side.

“No matter what you see on the outside, everyone struggles on the inside. Everyone is damaged, some people more severely than others, and the hurts we’ve experienced in life leave wounds that change the way we view the world and ourselves. Sometimes flaws develop as we attempt to defend against further hurts.”

—Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, The Negative Trait Thesaurus

Back story wounds

Elements of Shadow often originate in scars, wounds, trauma, and painful memories rooted in a character’s past. Character wounds are formed from life experience and arise from events that happened before the story even begins, but they shape a character’s reactions in the present.

Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games carries the wounds of a traumatic childhood shaped by poverty, the loss of her father, near starvation, and the burden of providing for her mother and sister in a violent and unequal society. These wounds shape her mistrust of others, her survival instinct, and the anger that feeds her Shadow as she navigates the brutal Hunger Games.

She needs these darker elements to survive, win the games by killing others, and ultimately to defeat the regime that oppresses her people. Katniss is not a loveable character and although there are moments of tenderness, her dark side remains ascendant, as it needs to be for the plot — and readers love her for it.

In my ARKANE thrillers, Morgan Sierra’s husband Elian died in her arms during a military operation before the series begins, but her memories of it recur when she faces a firefight, and she struggles to find happiness again for fear of losing someone she loves once more.

Of course, trauma affects people differently, and the variety of responses may provide even more dimensions to a story.

For example, the COVID pandemic was traumatic for many, but its impact on behaviour varies. For some, hand-washing and virus-avoidance practices turned into Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and some struggle to leave the safety of their home. Some people have scarred lungs, others have scarred memories. Still others couldn’t wait to get back out in the world and seek adventure once more.

Question your assumptions about where a wound came from and how it may affect your character.

The Shadow in the antagonist

The most straightforward manifestation of the Shadow is through the antagonist or villain. These characters often represent the darker aspects of the protagonist’s personality — traits they might deny, suppress, or struggle with.

I love writing villains and usually have fun creating my antagonists, although I also try to make their desires understandable.

In my thriller Crypt of Bone, Milan Noble is a good-looking, charismatic CEO of a pharmaceutical company that funds global healthcare initiatives. He’s a well-respected businessman who gives money to the arts and cultural institutions. Much of his work benefits humanity.

But his company has a secret wing that focuses on population control through eugenics and also psychological manipulation, culling those Milan does not think are worthy to live, in order to fulfil the prophecy from Revelation that “a fourth of the earth” would be killed in the last days. He also seeks supernatural power through his search for The Devil’s Bible, intending to use an ancient curse to transform himself and those who follow him.

Milan’s back story includes an abusive, occult-obsessed father, hinting at a generational Shadow passed down through the bloodline, and he re-enacts the sins of his father through dark sacrifice.

Yet Milan is conflicted by his deeds and keeps an underground collection of bonsai trees he has spent years cultivating. For every death, he hammers a nail into one precious tree in atonement.

In another of my thrillers, Tree of Life, I found inspiration for my antagonist in extreme climate activism, which is understandable and even encouraged in our society at the time of writing.

Aurelia dos Santos Fidalgo is heiress to a Brazilian mining empire and grew up on the edge of an open cast mine owned by her father, while her mother pined for the Amazon rainforest of her youth. Aurelia wants to purge the Earth of those who pollute and destroy, and the only way to save the world is to eliminate all human life.

Secrets and lies

The Shadow loves secrets because a character will find ways to hide it, and that may lead them to behave in ways they never would normally. It might start with one simple lie, but spiral into actions that swiftly run out of control.

From addiction to affairs, from gambling and money issues to eating disorders, when a secret finally makes its way out into the open, it can destroy a life, a community, or a society.

In The Secret History by Donna Tartt, a group of students try to keep their involvement in a murder secret, but it slowly erodes their lives.

In real life, Bernie Madoff kept his Ponzi scheme a secret for decades before it imploded in 2008, when it was revealed he had defrauded thousands of investors out of billions of dollars. He died in prison, while one of his sons died by suicide, the other from cancer, and many of those who gave him money struggled to live on what they had left.

I recommend watching the Netflix documentary Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street. It’s an incredible account of the lengths people will go to keep a secret and how enormous lies can be perpetuated, even for decades, before inevitably crashing down.

Temptation and obsession

The Shadow may tempt characters towards risky behaviour, taboo desires, dangerous obsessions, or moral compromises that threaten to overpower their rational self-control.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a fascinating case study for the power of the Shadow. While fantasies of bondage and control may be common, they were hardly topics of mainstream discussion until Fifty Shades brought BDSM erotica out of the collective Shadow and onto daytime TV (in certain Western countries, at least).

But the book is not just about sex. It’s also about power.

The respective character arcs are almost a reversal. Christian starts out as physically dominant and emotionally distant, but in the story, Ana eventually emerges as the one who binds Christian to her.

Perhaps what is more interesting than the book itself is the reaction to it and what that reveals about the Shadow for an individual, or a society.

Transformation through a character arc

Memorable characters are those who overcome their flaws and wounds, their Shadow side, and transform into a new version of themselves.

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo must overcome his addiction to the ring and the temptation it offers to throw it into Mount Doom and save Middle Earth.

In the Star Wars movies, Anakin Skywalker descends into the dark side to become Darth Vader, but eventually gives his life to save his son when the Emperor tries to kill Luke, overcoming the Shadow that had ruled him.

Do your research

Humans are complicated, and people react in different ways to different situations. We all bring our history and emotional baggage along for the ride of life. Don’t assume that someone else’s reaction would be the same as yours.

Don’t lean on stereotypes or clichés. Do your research.

Read non-fiction books for facts and memoirs for the experience of a situation, as well as fiction to see how others have written about it.

Watch documentaries about people who’ve suffered, and films that feature characters with whatever form of darkness you want to include.

Interview people, watch YouTube videos, or listen to podcast episodes for authentic details.

You can’t produce your best writing without filling your creative well, so research the Shadow in all its facets, and dip into your own to bring your characters to life.

I recommend two books in particular around this topic: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma and The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws, both by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.

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Once again, look after yourself if you choose to research darker things.

You don’t need to read graphic descriptions of murder to write from the perspective of a murderer. I’ve written a lot of death in my books and I’ve never read anything in the true crime genre. I read supernatural horror but not slasher gore fiction, and I don’t watch horror movies. My imagination — and my fear — are more than enough.

If you find yourself dwelling too much on the darkness, switch to something else. Go for a walk, preferably somewhere you can see people being normal and nature carrying on as if you don’t exist. I like walking by the river or the canal, listening to the birdsong and watching ducks paddle along, or the herons fishing. These things will continue long after I’m dead and that grounds me back into real life.

Questions:

•   Consider the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. What ‘devil’ has been long caged for you? How has it come out roaring?

•   What are some memorable characters from your favourite books? What aspects of the Shadow can you recognise in them?

•   If you have already written stories of your own, can you do the same for your characters?

•   What kinds of authentic and interesting flaws can you develop for your characters?

•   Why are you attracted to those flaws in particular?

•   How can you use back story wounds to deepen your characters? What are some ideas you could use in future stories?

•   How can you use the Shadow as part of your antagonist, but without making it everything that defines them?

•   How could you use secrets and lies in your stories?

•   How could you use temptation and/or obsession in your books?

•   How can you use the character’s Shadow as part of their transformative arc?

Resources:

•   How Character Flaws Shape Story with Will Storr — www.TheCreativePenn.com/willstorr

•   Insanely Gifted: Turn Your Demons into Creative Rocket Fuel — Jamie Catto

•   The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma — Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

•   The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws — Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi