Sympathetic Characters

Would you feel drawn to someone who displayed only arrogance and a big ego?

Give him another side to his character - perhaps a trait that gives him a human touch with which which the reader can connect. Does he collect butterflies or show kindness or a soft spot towards something or someone?

Well being arrogant is human. Maybe he's repressed and arrogance is his defense. Think about what makes you like another human being. Do you have arrogant friends? If so, do you understand why they are the way they are? Don't be afraid to write about your own experiences. That is what makes storytelling so rich.

The character has to be likeable and flawed for us to sympathise with them.

Arrogant and big ego are not bad for a character but only if they are part of a bigger picture, I think. I like complex characters, people who have different sides and require time and effort to be understood. I don't like to know who the characters are from the first chapter, I want to discover them, their secret spots.

Give him a ragged, moth-eaten canine sidekick that he completely dotes on. Seriously.

Well, the deaths and kidnappings you mention, do they make him feel guilty or responsible in any way? Do they prompt him to change? No matter how arrogant he is, there's always room for him to change, and there's nothing more likable than a jackass character who evolves along the way.

People love to sympathize with those characters who are flawed, as they can identify with them, but they also sympathize with those characters who develop and change. A dynamic character is much easier to sympathize with than a static one. They're more realistic, for one thing.

I think it would make him all the more likable if he started out as a total jerk but gradually came to realize the consequences of his attitude. (While maintaining at least a BIT of his jerkiness. Flaws, remember. ) He can end up still being basically an arrogant jerk, but a jerk with his heart in the right place.

Just to use a widely known example:

Rowling managed to give Snape and even Voldemort sympathetic sides through introducing the bits of their backgrounds that make us understand (1) why Snape is so bitter and (2) that Voldemort is indeed psychopathic, psychically crippled from birth. This program comes to a head in Book 7, when she shows Snape as a child so emotionally deprived that he is "greedy" for friendship and when she gives us the terrible image of Voldemort's shattered soul as a flayed, abandoned infant.

That's the "here's why the jerk became a jerk" method.

Another example is Child and Preston's character Pendergast, an FBI Special Agent whom many other characters consider arrogant and insubordinate, coldly intellectual. However, those characters whom he befriends learn how deeply loyal and loving he can be and how deeply committed to the core ideals of law enforcement.

That's the "you only think he's a jerk because you don't know him" method.

Finally, there's the difference between book-Aragorn and movie-Aragorn. While I have no problem with book-Aragorn (having gotten used to the traditional self-proclamations of similar heroes from Tolkien's model epics), I've heard from many that he strikes them as arrogant. Movie-Aragorn, on the other hand, is shown to have doubts about his ability to fulfil the destiny that pursues him, and it's generally others who proclaim his illustrious ancestory (f.e., Legolas at the Council of Elrond, who tells Boromir that Aragorn is his lord, while Aragorn looks embarrassed at the brouhaha.)

That's the "great as he is, he has self-doubts" method.

Then there's always the ragged mutt method, as mentioned above. Love of animals (or the human downtrodden) seems to redeem difficult characters in many readers' eyes. Examples from Bleak House: I had instant and deep sympathy for the mysterious character Nemo when Jo the street-sweeper said the man always shared his scanty cash and food with him. Ditto Mr. George, who picked up the crippled soldier Phil Squod on the road and kept him under his wing from then on. Also in Bleak House, Miss Flite, who keeps many little birds in her miserable garret as the embodiments of all her long woes and long-delayed hopes.

Why not leave him as he is. Not every character has to be sympathetic. I wrote a female lead who wasn't sympathetic either. She was uninvolved at home, more concerned about her job, involved with a man she worked with, but to me the way I wrote her was perfect for the character she is.

Sometimes if you make a character sympathetic or soft hearted it rings false. Not everyone even good people are sympathetic or really likeable.

LOL - I'm having a different problem with sympathetic characters. My POV MC is turning out to be pretty whiny. I have to give her a backbone.

But back to the point - is arrogance your MC's defense against his destiny? Yes, he's got a prophecied destiny and is the last heir but does he really want to fulfill this destiny? Meaning, he'll do it because he's the only one who can but he'd rather be elsewhere.

Some psychologists think a superiority complex is compensation for an inferiority complex, according to wikipedia, and see either as a sign of neurosis.



Yeah, right. Like they're so perfect.

A character should be interesting, but not necessarily sympathetic.

I can see why one wants to make their protagonist sympathetic, so the readers will root for them. But my thought is this: if you make the character three-dimensional instead of just a collection of generic traits (he's a jerk, he's selfish, he's arrogant...) then your readers are going to be drawn to them no matter what. And how do you do that? By giving your character a real life -- before, during and after the story. A real human being, and not just some puppet. That even Hitler could be sympathetic if we know his had a childhood, that he'd loved, and that he was, perhaps, a victim of ambition, circumstances and insanity... etc. etc.

My personal view is that sympathy or sympathetic characters are achieved when the reader understands the character and there is an event or circumstance that the reader can empathize with.

This has nothing to do with likability. I believe that to be a red-herring. There are many characters that I did not like, but I was drawn to them like a moth to a flame because I understood them, their plight, their quest for power, their appetite for death, etc. etc.

I agree with Maestro, Make him 3-d, make him real, make him interesting, make him believable, and the reader will be drawn to him.

ALso, give him experiences that the reader can share in. Just making someone a jerk for no reason is one thing, but showing a situation in which his being a jerk is an actual attribute and BAM, now we've got some understanding and empathy and the reader will be drawn to the MC.

anyways, my two cents.

Mel....

Remember, a sympathetic character doesn't have to be lovable, just understandable.

The reader doesn't have to love the guy to understand where he's coming from.

I think that characters become sympathetic when they don't threaten the reader. Make him a nail biter, give him a spider phobia, or make him deal with night terrors. Anything that can make the reader sit back and say, "Huh, this guy might be good at everything, but even I don't have a fear of squirrels."

BTW, I L.O.V.E. Pendergast.