Trust - A Human Observation Project Post

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Most of us strive to see the best in people, and give them the benefit of the doubt.  Others live as sceptics afraid to trust anyone in case it backfires.  And then of course there are those of us who are balanced in their viewpoint.  We approach things cautiously yet with an open mind.


Thinking on these contradictions gave me the idea for this blog post.  Even those who say they would never be taken advantage of sometimes are.  On the flipside of that, those who say people are out to “screw” other people may find themselves pleasantly surprised when their trust is rewarded with an honest friend.

I believe in analyzing this aspect of human nature – trust – we can strengthen the characters in our books.
Even those who wouldn’t consider themselves trusting, or as they would term it “naive”, human nature allows for inconsistencies.  They may find themselves trusting when they had no intention of doing so.

So how does this aspect of human nature effect our books?

Dishonest people prey on taking advantage of those who are trusting.  All you have to do is think about the many schemes.  For example, you won a cruise and all they need is your credit card number to confirm your vacation.

Misplacement of trust gives us an interesting springboard to create a lot of conflicts in our books.  Characters relationships become complicated as people don't know who to trust, or strained when trust is misplaced.

We're complicated as human beings and by analyzing this aspect of our make-up we can add another layer to our characters.

What role has trust played in your writing? Is it something you can share with us without revealing a key plot point in your book?

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 1, 2011 at 5:55 PM

    My motto is "Trust the Process". This relates more the writing process than character or plot development, but it gives me the courage to write.

    Trust also gives us the courage to live. Love. Laugh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carolyn ArnoldNovember 1, 2011 at 6:24 PM

    Great input Anne! It's true...even we didn't give ourselves over to trust at some points, we'd miss out on a lot in life.

    ReplyDelete

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