Your characters and thier social bonds

[K_S]

After watching a rather long video talking about character archetypes, particularly the loner subclass...

video here

I was wondering, to those who write... how many of your charters would be considered loners? How would you/do you show it? How do you spice up the narrative to avoid the various traps listed and what not? What difficulties have you encountered when dealing with this type of character if you've dealt with it, or seen others deal with it... And if you've ardently avoided that type of character why do you chose not to go that route?

Yeah, I'm a ball of inquisitive today. Just pick whatever you want to answer, if you want to answer I guess?

Examples would be nice if anyone wants to share...

Since I started, I guess I'll go first:

Spoiler: format of loner character sheet

Genre aka fandom

Works/status

type of loner, social distancing, character history, and social circle if any

difficulties when dealing with this character due to their lack of social nature, in writing, plot ect.

character growth, embracing the trait, rejecting, ect

Loner one:
Genre/fandom: LOZ, Twilight Princess

Works: IP "Four by four"

Name: Shad.

Type/hist notes/social circle if any:

More of a social inept, loner with some serious personality/anxiety issues... Shad is shy, prickly, and a closeted snarker who is blocked in all interaction by his own perceptions of how he should act and be (a gentleman) and his dogged, neurotic, inability to move beyond the "should's" in his head. If it weren't for Telma's/his mentors efforts he'd talk to no one and take names off the task board to make ends meet. While he has a very small social circle -clients, the head of a bar he likes to go to, and as the story progresses a Hero from Faron- he's wildly neglectful of it. Constantly forgetting Telma's name ( a woman who he's a regular's at, whose name is on the bar sign that he walks into when he wants drinks, and he's a bi weekly regular and been a patron since he was a teen...) and has to be hauled out of his own thoughts by a disaster and a near death experience that spooks him into realizing that Telma is all he has and he isn't willing to let her die. Still, despite heroics, and resolve, he's a dogged introvert who flies to bits when forced to socialize too much. He will get physically ill from stress, and when the "hero" of the tale comes, and is too wounded to do more than work as a guild to lead other heroes to the evil plaguing the land... And when Shad realizes no one else save him, a bar keep who is older than his own mother, and this wounded man from a rustic land, can actually see the monster of this story he's been thrust into... Well he's no hero, he's horridly unhappy, but knows he has to do something.

Getting over it/adjusting/embracing/character growth:

The second he's done he's retiring in the middle of no where with a huge piles of books and no one is going to stop him... so he's definitely embracing his status. In the RD of later chapters he's awarded for service and he literally takes the money, a few interesting books, ignoring the many ceremonies he's breaking as he walks up to the head of his gov, just demands things. And he is given what he asks for by a stupefied royal, because that's now how people act. But he does. And he turns on his heel, and walks out of his own knighting ceremony, because he's utterly done, and he's done with everything and everyone for several weeks after the sheer horror of having to deal with everything and everyone non-stop for a month.

Difficulties with this character type:

Getting Shad to respond to anything. He's so self absorbed and ditzy he just mows through his environ, nearly plows into the big bad in a darkened room and eaten, because he's that detached. Also, interaction between himself and anyone else. Can he do it? Yes. Is he alright afterwords? Only if he can get away to calm down and get a few hours of peace and quiet immediately after, or he literally will fall apart, and writing that is hard.

Loner two:

Leonardo Giovanni

Fandom: Pokemon, "Two paths", Complete

type/hist/ect:
A bitter loner, he drives people off as part of a complicated personal belief system and is dogged in his belief that he would be better alone and makes exceptions for others only for "his own personal mental well being and sanity". Selfish is a key word when dealing with Giovanni. The process to be considered for further interaction is "whats in it for me" and as long as you have something to bring to the table, than it's a step in. But that step can be taken back at a whim and the door slammed obscenely fast. As for moving up and inward.... the criteria to get on that "acceptable list" for interaction is a rough route indeed. He starts the series on the top of a social/economic empire, and a criminal empire as well, and wears many social masks for each group he deals with. By the end of the first act, in a mix of boredom and a epiphany, he tears everything down and is stuck dealing with the consequences of his cut and burn tactics that'd peppered his personal and professional life... (which is where the series gets its' name "cut and run").

Growth ect:
He starts the main tale with near nothing and no one, and at first is ecstatic for it. But old interactions creep in and their consequences come to roost and he has many of the stereotypical challenges for the heartless, "evil", character thrown at him. A series of "you are what you are in the dark", that run the stereotypical gauntlet.

Would he hurt a child, would he abandon them in a dangerous situation, would he rescue those "significant" to him, what about the helpless? His main growth is realizing that his answers from the start of the story, to the end of it, have changed. He's asked these questions in the form of the happening before him in the first two stories, and his actions when he encounters mirrors of that situation change when he encounters them again... And he's stuck at tales end bemused by his own "quixotic quirks", while simultaneously bucking a trend of "love redeems", because it hadn't... and he's content for it. And yet despite eschewing the standard ending for a retired monster and the like he's reinvested in a world he'd let merrily burn mere chapters before and humored by that change in himself....

Difficulties:
Honestly it was a personal moral issue with writing this Gio than anything else. He's a man who talks bluntly of killing and does it. Who will kill to "preserve" an asset and just not care when the more normal morally inclined folks lose it at his actions. Views ruination of someones rep as "sport" and the like... Inserting his alone time, his need to be away from others, was actually a break form how awful he was when with others... and that was a new experience as a writer.

 

[WildBoots]

In my settings, it’s pretty common for trainers to be alone, so loners do well! I’ve never had trouble getting them onscreen with others, though. For one, there’s almost always a pokemon for them to interact with. But most of my stories are about humans interacting with other humans. Badly. (A lot of my dialogue can be summed up as “two characters try not to have a conversation.”)

Spoiler: My examples

The protagonist in Spring is painfully shy—very poor charisma stat. A lot of the tension in the story comes from him not knowing what to say or wanting to say something and being afraid to. So he’s most interesting when there’s another person around to make him squirm. I contrived a magical reason for him to inherit a traveling partner, and then, later, a change in setting (which he created through the pursuit of his goals) puts him in the middle of a lot of people for lots of terrible interactions.

One of my protagonists in Continental Divides is certainly withdrawn if not a loner; the first time we meet Mark, he’s reading a book in a bar. But he’s got a lot of social obligations that force him continually to work with others: he’s got family who show up and make requests, he’s got teammates for group projects (some of whom he likes and some of whom he doesn’t), aaaaand then there’s my other protagonist. Natalie is his opposite in a lot of ways, so it’s especially fun to throw them at each other and watch sparks fly.

I think questions about making loners interesting is really just a question about character motive (the most important thing to establish in a character-driven work). What do they want? What obstacles can you throw in the way of that desire to make them struggle for it? For someone who’s shy or standoffish, having to talk to/work with someone else is usually a great obstacle! In both of my examples, my “loner” character definitely experiences the rest of the cast as obstacles.

I also think focusing on growth/change is probably the most useful part of that character sheet! You don’t have to share it here (unless you want to) but I think you should get more specific about how you want him to change. Then you’ll know exactly the best obstacles to throw in front of him to force those changes.

 

[BossCar]

The main character....kinda.

Valen’s a war veteran who’s become so accustomed to a mostly lonely life with little to no joy/fun that he couldn’t even handle being thanked multiple times, so he took off. He’s suffered from PTSD and Depression.

Rosa’s his girlfriend, and boy does he need that romance. It’s a two way street, though. Rosa doesn’t want another guy. She wants Valen.

Valen’s also a person who puts himself down, and Silver really doesn’t like that. He quickly forfeited a match in Chapter 5, albeit his Typhlosion was struggling, and Silver defeated him in Chapter 17. I revised Chapter 17 to add more to this. Silver wonders if Valen actually tried his hardest to win

Valen’s very weak socially, but as a trainer, he’s on par with Red and Blue.