The basic idea of the “coin method” of character development is simple. Often times creators fall in love with their characters and have a tendency to focus more on their characters’ positive attributes more than their characters’ flaws. This tendency toward creating near-perfect characters can make them feel less believable. ‘Believability’ is not about whether or not what the character does is realistic, but rather it’s whether or not the character behaves like a the rest of us ‘highly flawed’ humans while doing it.
If on one side of the coin, your character is stingy, then the other side of the coin can’t be that the character is also generous. Generosity and stinginess are two different coins, not two sides of the SAME coin. An example of two sides of the same coin is if the character is generous, then a negative aspect of that trait might lead to the character also being an irresponsible spender.
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