Character 101: Character Flavours
Greetings and secession! Wait a minute… Oh well, let them leave if they so damn want it! Can always invade later. Anyway, welcome everyone to another exciting blogpost on characters! It uses a different style today as Anne Winchell and I add different examples from our own stories. We are discussing character flavours, as we call it! But what is it?
The fuck is this?
Every character has traits: good ones, bad ones, neutral ones, and more. It is what makes a person who they are, and a character too, as characters are meant to be like people! Before we continue, it is important to understand that “good” and “bad” are context sensitive to readers, to the world they are in, and so on. So when we say “good” or “bad,” we mean it relative to all these factors.
(Anne:) You can think of “good” as traits that help the character advance in some way through their character arc or the plot progression, and “bad” traits as ones that don’t. That doesn’t necessarily mean that “bad” traits hurt them, since obstacles might result in a burst of advancement in the future and actually be in the “neutral” category, this just means that “bad” traits aren’t useful or are actively harmful to your character.
(Vivian:) Now, what in tarnation are flavours? Well, humans have 5 base flavours, described in more detail in Alien senses: sweet, bitter, sour, salt, and umami. So Lady Verbosa and I have made a classification system based on these flavours for character traits. It is not meant to cover all possible traits but to be a framework to discuss characters and if they are too good or too bad. We will be using a broad definition of traits which include skills, behaviours, abilities etc. Winchell, you wanna describe the flavours and what traits they include?
(Anne:) Of course! Thanks, Vivian. Many people tell you that you need three dimensional characters in your stories, but we're here to tell you that you need a well-flavoured character! Making sure your character has all five flavours will in fact create a three dimensional character, and it’s an easy way to conceptualise how a good, well-rounded character is formed.
One interesting difference between Vivian and I is that Vivian considers learned skills to be traits, whereas I tend to view them as inborn characteristics only, though of course a person’s inborn characteristics might be shown or revealed in different ways at different times or be dependent on a person’s upbringing or environment. (Vivian: And she next uses wisdom as an example which is learned and not inborn…) The ability to be wise is inborn, I would say, since some people are just incapable of this no matter how much knowledge or experience they accumulate. 😛
In terms of what we agree on, I want to briefly mention that even within a single person or character, the same trait might fit into different categories, though generally that’s covered within the flavours themselves. I’m going to focus on characters, but keep in mind that this applies to people as well.
Sweet
(Anne:) Let’s start with sweet. These are the “good” traits. Basically, they’re a trait that helps the character in some way (Vivian: These are generally considered good in every instance. They might not always be useful but still give additional options). Examples might include strength, wisdom, or dexterity.
In my series the Imperial Saga, the main character, Tahirah, has a very sharp intellect. She picks things up quickly and easily, which is a good thing to be able to do in all circumstances. She’s also able to learn the abilities of other people from the Empire. This is a definite sweet, as it helps her character and while it’s not always immediately useful, it helps her a lot. Vivian, do you want to add anything from your books?
(Vivian:) ARGH! Oh well, let’s go with my little HOOMON boy Jules! His sweet is that he is a natural when it comes to nentroplasma related stuff. Think of it like being super skilled with electrical stuff.
Bitter
(Anne:) If sweet is the good, then bitter is the bad. These are traits that are considered almost universally negative, regardless of story, because they harm your character. Examples might include sadism, stupidity, or weakness (either physical or mental). It’s important that even your best characters have some bitterness or else they turn into a Mary Sue (or Gary Stue depending on sex). People, and therefore characters, will always have weaknesses and negative traits wrapped up in who they are or as a learned behaviour (in Vivian’s view). A purely sweet character just isn’t interesting, so be creative with how you make your characters bitter, and make sure this element is there!
For Tahirah, two bitters are her obsessive thinking patterns, which in the story centre on the trauma of seeing her family executed, and that she has trouble thinking on her feet. These aren’t great traits to have in any situation and would weaken characters in almost any story (or be stumbling blocks for people in real life). Vivian, how’s Jules on bitter?
(Vivian:) This one is simple. For him, outside of nentroplasma-related stuff, he is pretty dumb. He finished school and all but… not with honours or the likes. His knowledge outside of that about the rest of known space is limited.
Sour
(Anne:) So we have good traits and bad traits that are good and bad in almost every circumstance, but what about those traits that are context dependent? That’s where sour comes in! A sour trait is one that might lean either way depending on the situation at hand. Examples that at first seem sweet might include honesty, since in some circumstances that can really backfire, and kindness, since again, there are situations where that will absolutely hurt your character. For examples that at first seem bitter, we might have ruthlessness, since sometimes that’s what your character needs to survive, and impulsivity, which Vivian actually initially listed as a bitter. Sometimes you need to be impulsive because too much thought on a topic will hurt you. Vivian will get into a specific example of that in zhir example.
(Vivian:) We decided this was sour because sour is one of those flavours you sometimes want… and sometimes do not want. Certain foods and dishes should be sour, others should under no circumstances be sour.
(Anne:) Characters tend to have more sour traits than pure sweet or bitter, since a lot of things really depend on context. Don’t be afraid to load up your character with these.
Tahirah’s primary sours are her curiosity, since sometimes her need to explore and find things out helps her learn vital things about her situation, but sometimes it gets her in trouble… a lot of trouble. She also has a strong freeze instinct when in adrenaline-charged fight, flight, or freeze situations, leading to passivity in charged situations. This is related to her bitterness of not being able to think on her feet, but while that is never useful, freezing actually saves her life at certain points because her enemies underestimate her as a result.
I said that characters tend to have a lot of sours, and I do want to bring up another bit of Tahirah’s sourness that’s central to the entire series: her ability to manipulate the elements into magic. This gives her the ability to escape situations and defend herself easily, plus a host of other benefits. However, when she’s growing up, anyone with even a hint of magic is killed, so using magic can be a strength in some situations but very negative in others. Vivian, over to you!
(Vivian:) For a sour, Jules is very impulsive. His idea of a plan is to run and do and solve it all along the way as things happen… the plan bit was deciding to go there. But he is very capable of thinking on his feet as he does whatever he impulsively went for.
Salt
(Anne:) Brief sidebar here on salts. We often think of them flavouring savoury meals, but when I moved to the United States South, people kept telling me to put salt on my watermelon. This might be a thing in other regions, but I’d never heard of it, and it sounded disgusting. Watermelons are sweet, so why would you add salt? Well, I tried it, and wow! If you haven’t, definitely do so. Instead of ruining the flavour, the salt actually brings it out and highlights it.
That’s what your character’s salt does: it enhances their other traits. Examples might include fearlessness, or rather a lack of fear. This can heighten a variety of sweets by making a character’s courage more heroic as they go to the brink of death without batting an eye. But at the same time, there actually are moments when fear is a good thing. Fearlessness brings out the sweet of courage, maybe, but heightens the bitterness of something like a short fuse, impulsivity, or even curiosity. Fear exists for a reason, and the lack of it can heighten the other flavours.
One of Tahirah’s salty traits is her strong imagination. When combined with her magical ability, a sour, it gives her the added ability to imagine new ways of using magic. That’s sweet! Unfortunately, when combined with her obsessive thinking and trauma, it dooms her to imagine her family’s suffering in detail. You can see how the trait of imagination works to enhance various flavours, and it can enhance sweetness as well. Vivian, how’s Jules on this?
(Vivian:) I would say his salt is the fact he knows how to use rifles. It is good when he is trying to save people as it gives him, well, lethal leverage, but when his impulses make him go astray, it can cause needless casualties as he doesn’t think before shooting.
Umami
(Anne:) You’re probably thinking we’re out of ways character traits can work. Actually, Vivian and I took a while to think of this one as well. I tend to think of umami as a flavour as sort of stable and consistent, so that’s how we interpreted this. A character’s umaminess (is that a word? It is now!) consists of those traits that are unchanging about them and form the core of who they are. There’s overlap with all of these traits, so an umami trait could be classified as any of the others, but it’s set apart by how vital it is to who a character is, and it’s something that can override any of the other traits.
This might be hard to understand, so let’s look at Tahirah. All of her actions are founded in a desperate desire to live. Her survival instinct is so strong that it can overcome every one of her other traits depending on the situation, and it doesn’t change during the course of the story. When survival is at stake, she can do very dumb things that someone with a sharp intellect wouldn’t do, such as trust and even love people trying to hurt and kill her. If her life is on the line, she actually can think on her feet, but only when it’s really dire. In life or death situations, she’s able to push aside obsessive thoughts, and when she was a child during the Empire’s invasion and would have been killed instantly for using magic, she became completely unable to use it, negating that whole trait. You can see how that survival instinct dominates her personality and forms a stable, consistent note throughout the story that’s stronger than any other of her flavours.
Vivian, what would say Jules’s umami is?
(Vivian:) One umami that Jules has is definitely his constant desire for adventure and seeing new things. It is in fact one of the things that makes the story take off and is one that will remain so for future books to come.
Why is this useful?
(Vivian:) Phew! That was a lot to take in, but something definitely worthwhile! You might be asking
You handsomely beautiful limax, how is any of this useful?
Thank you random reader! But yes, why is it? Well, Anne alluded to it earlier: it is the infamous… Mary Sue (which I will use through this post for both sexes). It is hard for many to pinpoint exactly what makes a Mary Sue and how to avoid it. One key property of a Mary Sue, most often, is that they are over sweetened with no real bitters. Some might include sours to pretend they are bitters, but it is in reality a sour that will magically become useful whenever it matters. We will go into this more at a later date with a whole post on Mary Sue!
This model gives people a way to describe traits and properties of characters and analyse them better. It is not the end all be all, as I said earlier, but it is helpful to think about: what are the flavours of your character? If they have too many sweets, you either remove them or add more bitters. Or maybe you go with salts instead that enhance already existing bitters to make them even worse!
(Anne:) This is a great way to create those oft requested three dimensional characters. If your character is flavourful and sparkles with each of the five flavours adding their unique taste, you’ve got a character people will read and believe. Some characters will have one trait more dominant than others, and that’s fine and even good since it adds variety and makes your character unique, but you want all flavours present. Keep in mind that I’m talking about all characters, antagonists as well as protagonists. Your audience is consuming your work, and you want every element to taste good!
This also works to balance groups of characters. In addition to the characters’ own personalities and traits, they work within the group as their own flavour. If you have a group of adventurers, one character might be a little sweeter, balanced out by one who is a little more bitter. Sour characters are great in some situations, less than ideal in others. You may have a character who acts as a salt, bringing out various traits in the other characters, and you always need one umami character making sure that the story stays on track and forming the backbone of the group. This can rotate, of course, and characters aren’t necessarily locked into what they add to the group dynamic. But your group overall should have a full, rich flavour just as delicious as each character individually.
One final note on usefulness is that this helps define your audience and genre. In a light-hearted space opera, your characters may be a little sweeter, with plenty of sours and salts to add on as well as a strong umami. In grimdark, everything is just a little more bitter. You still want your characters to have sweetness, but that shouldn’t be dominant. When you’re creating and describing characters, keep genre in mind: what do your readers expect of this genre, and do your characters fit? The occasional exception is fine, and some genres are less strict than others, but you want to appeal to the specific palate of your audience. If they’re looking for a dessert and you give them a main dish, they’ll be disappointed.
(Vivian:) Great points! An additional point on this that I wish to raise is that characters not directly relevant to the conflict of the story can generally be sweeter than characters that are involved in the tension and climax.
(Anne:) This gets into the role of deus ex machina, who are often characters who are sugary lumps of sweetness with helpful and good traits galore that swoop in and save the day. As discussed in my post on conflict, the more involved a character is in the conflict, the more realistic they need to be, so the central flavours of your story need to be well-balanced. But those characters who don’t swoop in to save the day and work as side elements can be the occasional candied yam to add to the meal. Pay attention to each character’s role in the story, and again, think of the meal of your story. You want an overall richness and fullness, but you can have a side dish or two that’s more concentrated as long as it doesn’t dominate.
(Vivian:) All the great metaphors we can use! This is brilliant!
(Anne:) Don’t you mean delicious?
(Vivian:) Yes! Let’s Grill Anne!
Over-flavouring
(Vivian:) We have been hinting that you should not do this in general, but what happens to a character who is over-flavoured in one category or another?
For sweet, it is pretty obvious. They are simply TOO good at too many things. This makes the audience question how they have gained so many great traits and skills. If they are not the right age or situation, it will be entirely unbelievable. To go back to Jules a bit, he is in his early 20s. Him being a great nentrician (think electrician) is not entirely out of the realm because if one assumes the interest started when he was 10 years old, spending 10 years and your youth obsessing about it makes that sweet entirely believable. But if I threw in more skills, you would naturally, and rightfully so, start asking, “Wait a minute… Where did that boy get the time to learn all of this?” at which you as an author have to go “iunno” and suspension of disbelief is shattered as the verisimilitude blows up in a big cloud of smoke!
(Anne:) Characters who are overly bitter are usually either annoying or pathetic. Remember, this isn’t an interesting type of bad trait that actually works in their favour sometimes. Bitterness means they’re not good at something in a way that actively harms them and their role in the story and conflict. A character who isn’t that bright and is, say, bad at decision making won’t be interesting to read because they’ll just make bad choices and you’ll want to smack them. Those bad choices won’t lead to interesting story outcomes, either, because in that case their bad decision making would be sour, as in sometimes helpful. Nope, this is just bad, boring, annoying stuff. An overly bitter character isn’t a good addition to any story because they’re just going to stay in place or fall behind while the story moves past them.
(Vivian:) As Lady Verbosa DEMANDS things to be in order, I will be doing sour! In many cases, this is the largest category of traits for any character, but if it is too big, we get problems, too. We get someone who in some ways is unpredictable and very hard to write. If you have too many traits that can be good or bad, it is easy to miss which one applies in the current situation. As a writer, you are too focused on something else that you think is the most relevant. This will again draw readers and viewers out of it, and let’s be honest: if you have NOTHING you are good at and can always count on, it is… boring. You don’t want random trait #3214 to be the one that saves the day this time, you want it consistent in a few traits that they come back to in creative ways.
(Anne:) Salty is good, right? Enhancing other things is fun! Well, if you have an overly salty character… What exactly is there to enhance? All you get is the salt taste, nothing else. Instead of biting into sweet watermelon made sweeter by the contrasting salt flavour, you get yourself swallowing a spoonful of salt. Yeah, not pleasant, right? If your characters only have traits that strengthen or enhance other traits, they’re not really characters, are they? They have no substance of their own. Salt is good, but good in moderation only. Don’t empty the salt shaker over your character or that’s all your audience will taste, and it’s not great.
(Vivian:) Last but not least, umami. If you get too many of these, the character generally becomes… well, static. There is nothing that will change or evolve. Even if you do episodic stories, like I am for books, you want some stuff to change. It doesn’t need to be much, but something so you can see that a character is not entirely the same but can evolve and change. And in serialised books, well, this is a death blow. The character has to change all the way through the series until the end. And too much umami is everything opposite to change by definition.
Summa Summarum
(Vivian:) From this alone you can see that as a tool and a metaphorical choice of words, thinking in terms of the 5 flavours is a great tool! It helps sort characters, but more importantly, it greatly facilitates discussions about issues with a character or their good parts! I hope you’ll find this as useful as I and Anne have and do!
(Anne:) So when discussing your characters or having a deep introspection about yourself or the real people in your life, consider the richness that they bring to things. Are they satisfying all of your taste buds? And if it's a story you’re writing, how can you help give your audience the best experience? Thinking in terms of flavours is fun and really works if you’re willing to take a nibble and try it for yourself!
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Copyright ©️ 2023 Vivian Sayan and Anne Winchell. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as flavours and how they relate to characters are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. We want you to use this way of analysing characters! However, specific ideas such as the characters of Tahirah and Jules and their specific flavours plus all language or exact phrasing are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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