Birds of a feather flock together

[Ragandar]

I've spent the past week or so doing work on a new project and I've noticed a rather striking tendency about my works. They all contain a pair of (main) characters that are similar in one way and the exact opposite for a different aspect.

For example, the similarity: in my first work, the two protagonists have to deal with anger a lot. One is under a lot of stress because he became emperor before his time and the other has a genetic defect/magical interference akin to Logen Ninefingers and the Bloody Nine.

The contrast: the emperor is a dyslexic and desperately tries to avoid reading because it gives him an incredible headache. The other protagonist grew up in the streets and is equally desperately trying to learn how to read because he is infatuated with stories. These are not small things that add to character either, but instead come up very frequently.


At first I thought this was a funny coincidence that happened to add to my story (at least for me), but I have noticed that something similar is going on in this new project.

Two of the main characters are eager to explore new lands beyond the horizons of their known worlds, though for completely different reasons. They are also each other's counterpart when it comes to their religion, where one is very tolerant of others and the other... not so much.


I've looked through my ideas for other stories, and a lot of them contain these weird pairings of main characters with a similarity and a contrast, though none of those are as refined as the first example. I haven't really contrived any of these pairings. They just naturally occur to me as ideas.

Is this odd, or have you experienced something similar? Because now that I've noticed it in my work, it nags at me a little bit. I don't want it to be some kind of lame gimmick that I'm doing unintentionally.

 

[allmywires]

I tend to write a lot of variations of the same character...work to your strengths, right? That's how I see it, anyway!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Oh i'm obsessed with tormented 30 somethings, difficult teens, and half mad people.

 

[allmywires]

Oh i'm obsessed with tormented 30 somethings, difficult teens, and half mad people.

Tormenting...same...

 

[zmunkz]

Is this odd, or have you experienced something similar? Because now that I've noticed it in my work, it nags at me a little bit. I don't want it to be some kind of lame gimmick that I'm doing unintentionally.

Funny you mentioned all this... I have a similar "issue" in my current work that has left me scratching my head. I have 3 POVs, and I've noticed several odd overlaps that I definitely did not plan, despite the fact the characters are very different people on different arc. Defying my best efforts, it seems my characters mimic one another in their ups and downs, including some of the life-type events that trigger their ups and downs. I don't know what to make of this... I wrote these POVs at different times, but now that I'm twining them together I feel like I need to fix it. I never would have thought other people have had this specific problem too lol. Only thing I can think is that as I sink myself into a character, aspects of their life and course are inadvertently leaking across when it is time to sink into the next character. Guess it is something to remain aware of as I write.