How your character's contradictory trait will benefit your story

Here's another tool to consider when working to develop tension in your fiction: contradiction in character.

It might sound antithetical to all the advice on making characters feel real, but David Corbett assures you that it's perfectly in keeping with those tips — there are contradictions galore in the real world, so why not also in fiction?

Corbett provides a brief discussion of contradiction's purpose for a story, along with several different types (and examples) of contradiction in fiction, at Writer Unboxed.

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