When characters are out of their element 😬 (updated)

When you consider that most of my characters are blatantly counterculture by nature, it's not hard to see why a relatively average experience might cause them to feel out of their element.

When you know that the protagonist for my current series spent most of his life breaking down massive walls, it's always interesting to see him dealing with his teenage daughter's anguish over being bullied or trying to comfort a crying baby. It's not the big problems that unsettle Jorge Hernandez, it's the average 'normal' situations that put him out of his element, especially those that require a certain amount of sensitivity. If you're a man that enters a room with both barrels blazing, how do you deal with the principal of his daughter's school? If he's used to threatening or killing his enemies, how does he deal with a pesky neighbor? 

The irony is, of course, that most of us would have the opposite problem. Although the situations I mentioned in the last paragraph might cause most of us to cringe, we would much rather deal with them than someone trying to kill or threaten us. For the characters in my books, the latter is more their comfort zone...you know, for lack of better words. 🤭

Why do characters need to get out of their element? Actually for the same reason why we have to get out of our element because it's necessary for growth. You don't want to be someone who's forever the pesky teenager they were at 15, nor do you want to read about a character who has the same MO book after book. While it might be nice to see your character be a womanizing, gun-slinging jerk in book or season one, you're going to get sick of it by season/book 4-5 unless you start seeing him questioning his beliefs and methods. 

When we met Jorge Hernandez at the end of (book 2 in the series) Always be a Wolf, he wouldn't win an award for sensitivity. While some may argue that this hasn't changed much, we do start to see him mellowing out as the series goes on, growing tired of his former lifestyle (to a point) while increasing his level of respect for women, something he didn't have much of early on. Meanwhile, some of the other key characters have also grown but not always in the most pleasant ways. 

Putting a character out of their element is a great way to shake things up, so you can see where everything falls.