Compelling fiction often emerges from characters who act against expectation—morally, socially, or emotionally. This course focuses on writing ethically questionable characters and sustaining narrative tension without simplifying for likability or resolution. We will explore how contradiction, ambiguity, and restraint deepen characters and strengthen a story’s emotional force.

Class sessions will combine psychologically informed craft discussion, close reading, and guided generative writing exercises. We’ll identify where writers may unconsciously intervene to justify or redeem a character’s behavior, and experiment with stepping back from those impulses. Through targeted exercises, students will practice writing against their own moral reflexes, resisting redemption arcs, and actively engaging with discomfort to reach emotional depth.

By the end of the course, participants will leave with newly drafted or revised pages that engage more fully with moral risk, alongside strategies for holding ethical complexity across scenes. Writers will gain tools to resist protecting their characters, and to write contradictions while maintaining narrative clarity.

Students do not need to come prepared with existing work. New material will be generated during class, though writers are welcome to apply the techniques to works-in-progress if they choose.

Letting Characters Misbehave: Writing Ethical Tension in Fiction | Led by Uttama Kirit Patel (Fee Waiver)