Single Trait Characters: When They're Useful and How To Use Them
Whether you recognize the term or not, we all know the trope of the single-trait character. These guys show up at least once in every book, movie, and TV show, and they're useful because they fill up space and they're easily identified. A single-trait character is someone who appears in a story and is recognized/identified by (you guessed it) a single, solitary trait. The tall one. The loud one. The one who loves soccer. Characters such as these are useful as background characters, and they're easy to tell apart because they each only have one characteristic to be remembered by. Aside from Jamie, none of the kids in Rise of the Guardians strictly have any deep characteristics, but since we were already dealing with such a large cast of characters, none of the kids strictly *needed* a complex personality . Now, before we go into how to use a single-trait character, let's first talk about how not to use a single-trait character. As always, this isn't necessarily wr