Yuffie's Writing How-To's

How to write FOILS

If you've been reading my book reviews, you've heard me praise Brandon Sanderson over and over for his phenomenal action scenes and magic system. However, he consistently makes the same mistake in terms of his protagonists: they're too perfectly calculated. They're PERFECT foils for each other. A little too perfect.

In The Rithmatist, we have Joel, a kid whose life dream is to become a Rithmatist, and he's better at Rithmacy than most of the actual Rithmatist students. Unfortunately, he missed the deadline to become one, so he's just a regular guy. Melody is a Rithmatist who wishes she wasn't, and she sucks at Rithmacy.

They are perfect foils for each other: Joel wants to be a rithmatist but can't. Melody is one but doesn't want to be. Joel rocks at it, Melody sucks at it.

But it's a little too perfect. It ends up sounding contrived, too planned out. People are usually not on exact opposites of the spectrum from each other. There should be varying levels of whatever trait you're looking at.

I'll give another example from Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire. Vin is a tiny street urchin who has the most extreme trust issues I've ever seen in a human being, she's very cold and calculating and doesn't know how to laugh. Kelsier is the rebel leader who is so warm and open and believes in the goodness of everyone. They're good foils for each other, but they're TOO good. They are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum for trust, compassion, and optimism.

When you create your characters, it's good to create foils (you guys know what I mean by foils, right? from wikipedia: "In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight particular qualities of the other character."), but don't make them the perfect foil in every aspect. Characters need at least one or two traits of common ground in order to interact a little more deeply and believably.

A good example is in Harry Potter. Harry hates studying and always breaks the rules. Hermione is study-obsessed and wants to follow the rules. But they have common ground: They're courageous and have a strong sense of justice and valor, and they hate Malfoy. Harry is famous and rich, while Ron is poor and kind of a dork, but both love to fool around, laze around, and get into trouble. All these characters are still foils of each other, but they still share some common ground.

Do a little planning when coming up with your characters so they are good complements for each other, but make sure it doesn't LOOK like you planned that out. Make it more natural by giving the protagonists something in common, whether it's a goal, backstory, personality trait, etc.