Unlikeable characters

heyjude · Oct 12, 2009

Particularly in this genre (M/T/S), it seems like there is a glut of characters that just flat-out aren't likeable. No redeeming characteristics, nothing. I just finished a book recently wherein the character was interesting enough to carry the book even though he was a total loser, but about 3/4 of the way through it, I realized that I hated every single character in the book.

What do you think? Are there more unlikeable characters out there now? Why? What makes them more attractive?

On a personal note, I recently got a rejection from an editor that said my male MC was not edgy enough. Is there a new invisible line in this genre that you have to cross to make a book saleable these days? I'm curious!

jeseymour · Oct 12, 2009

I think there are definitely more unlikeable characters. Look at "Dexter." I can't stand those books, by the way, because I think the character has no redeeming qualities. Just to relate this to my own writing, I've written three books (don't ask why I don't just stop) about a hitman who is trying to retire and wants to go live with his family on a farm. I've gotten quite a few comments from agents that the character is not sympathetic enough, which I think can be translated to unlikeable. I got one last year who said she really liked my writing and to let her know if I write anything with a different character. But back to the original question - yes, there are more out there. I don't know what makes them more attractive. If I did, I'd be doing it.

As far as edgy - maybe more like Jack Reacher? That seems like what people are looking for, the tough guy who can walk across coals without burning his feet, get shot and get right back up, that sort of thing. No flaws? Or maybe more like Dexter. More flaws? Let us all know when you find out, okay? :tongue

Oh - one more thing, similar to your editor's comment. One of the members of my writing group had a novel rejected by an agent because "the main character isn't manly enough." What does that mean?

MarkEsq · Oct 12, 2009

I think it's a fine line. Our MC's have to be manly, I think, the kinds of men women want to have protect them and that other men want to be. At least that's what my agent said she liked about my MC.

But it's important to avoid being cliched - the super-cool, tough guy who is secure, can shoot like Wild Bill Hickock and fight like a ninja. Maybe we recognize these cliches and over-compensate by adding flaws, until we end up with an overly flawed, and therefore unlikeable, character. My suggestion would be to err on the side of the "too perfect" rather than the "too flawed." After all, we are offering escapism and people like to escape to places they will feel safe with people who will protect them.

Just my view, of course. My bad guys are horrible, weasel-like characters, flawed every which way.

Bufty · Oct 12, 2009

I enjoy the Jack Reacher books because they're very readable and great stories to boot.

I find Reacher believable and likeable. He is a loner, but has a background. He has a conscience. He has a moral code. The violence isn't gratuitous, and the sex isn't in one's face despite the back-of-the-book slogan 'woman want to be with him'.

I discovered he doesn't swear, either - which doesn't render him any the less believable as a character, although that aspect has no special influence on my purchasing books.

heyjude · Oct 12, 2009

jeseymour said:
Oh - one more thing, similar to your editor's comment. One of the members of my writing group had a novel rejected by an agent because "the main character isn't manly enough." What does that mean?

Wear a pink polo shirt just one time, just one...

I'm reading the new Reacher now and while I like the books there's something, I don't know, distant about Reacher. Although I like how Child wrote this one in 1st person.

I love the show Dexter, but haven't read any of the books. He always seems to be striving for something more in the show, some piece of humanity, which is what keeps him from being too horrific for me.

MarkEsq, that's a great point about a character who can protect you. That's part of what I was aiming for with my guy. He's genuinely a good guy. His flaws come out when someone he loves has been targeted--then all bets are off.

jodiodi · Oct 12, 2009

I've read all the Dexter books and watch the show religiously. I like him as a character for different reasons in the books and the show. The character on the TV show has the advantage of allowing us to see him going through his thought processes, his motives, and others' motives. In the books, we read about him, but don't have the actor's contributions to give us clues what to think or what he's thinking, how he's thinking it.

I adore the character period, but he is less likeable in the books than in the TV series. Still, he's one of my heroes.

BigWords · Oct 12, 2009

The "bastard MC" trend goes back quite a ways to the days of the holy trinity (Hammett, Chandler & Thompson), so it's unlikely that a raft of novels with MC's who have noble cores, curly golden hair and hearts as pure as fresh snow are gonna bother the bookstores any time soon. I like characters who are deeply flawed, mainly because I can feel superior to them.

And if you think about some crime novels, wouldn't the constant rain and piles of dead bodies drive a person to drinking, chain-smoking and sleeping around?

MarkEsq · Oct 12, 2009

BigWords said:
And if you think about some crime novels, wouldn't the constant rain and piles of dead bodies drive a person to drinking, chain-smoking and sleeping around?

Well, my wife won't let me sleep around but otherwise yes, that's me.

heyjude · Oct 13, 2009

BigWords said:
The "bastard MC" trend goes back quite a ways to the days of the holy trinity (Hammett, Chandler & Thompson), so it's unlikely that a raft of novels with MC's who have noble cores, curly golden hair and hearts as pure as fresh snow are gonna bother the bookstores any time soon. I like characters who are deeply flawed, mainly because I can feel superior to them.

Yeah, I keep seeing this argument and I've got no problem with flawed characters--we're all flawed to some degree or other. That's just realistic. But why do they all have to be actually unlikeable? What's so wrong with having a nice guy? I love seeing a nice guy pushed too far, but lately what I've been reading is total jerks.

jeseymour · Oct 13, 2009

So, heyjude, what exactly have you been reading? Can you give specific titles? I was reading one of the Evanovich series, number twelve, maybe, and stopped halfway through. Not that Stephanie Plum is unlikeable, she almost seems stupid at times. How many times can she jump from one guy to the other? Make up your mind already! But I digress. It's been a while since I've read anything from this genre, it took me most of the summer to read "A Prayer For Owen Meany." Then I started and stopped the Evanovich, as mentioned, then I read "Deadly Force: In the Streets With the US Marshals," a true crime for research. Right now I'm reading "Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character," again non-fiction for research.

So tell us where you're finding all these nasty characters.

heyjude · Oct 13, 2009

Stephen Jay Schwartz's Boulevard was what pushed me over the edge. I threw something across the room a few weeks ago, heck if I remember what it was (I have a terrible memory). I'll dig up a few more later...

Oh, The 7th Victim by Alan Jacobson was okay, and the MC wasn't a jerk, but there was absolutely nothing compelling about her. I didn't like her at all. Plus she made some stupid decisions that left me yelling at the book.

ETA: Girl With the Dragon Tatoo by Stieg Larsson. Interesting book, but I didn't like a single one of the characters. The MC would fit my definition of a jerk.

heyjude · Oct 14, 2009

Ah, it came to me in the middle of the night: the book I threw was Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell.

jeseymour · Oct 14, 2009

The only one of these I've heard of is "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." I must be reading the wrong books.

heyjude · Oct 14, 2009

Heh. Or the right ones.

Ken Hoss · Oct 14, 2009

One of the members of my writing group had a novel rejected by an agent because "the main character isn't manly enough."

Does that mean that a female MC has to be "feminine"? In my WIP Storm Rising, the MC is a tough NYPD Detective. While she does have her "feminine" side, she is mostly a tough, no nonsense cop.

My initial blurb:

Kelli Storm is a tough New York City Police Detective, with the tenacity of a pit bull, and the charms of a debutante. Just a girl when her Father was murdered, she won't rest until his killers are brought to justice.

jeseymour · Oct 14, 2009

I don't know, Ken, maybe a tough chick is good. Everything I've heard is that agents and editors are looking for a female Jack Reacher. Although I've heard they want a female author to go with it.

I've got a great female character sharing the lead in my WIP.

Ken Hoss · Oct 14, 2009

jeseymour said:
I don't know, Ken, maybe a tough chick is good. Everything I've heard is that agents and editors are looking for a female Jack Reacher. Although I've heard they want a female author to go with it.

I've got a great female character sharing the lead in my WIP.

I'm not putting on a dress for anybody! (A blouse and capri pants maybe.)

jeseymour · Oct 16, 2009

This just in - "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" won the Macavity Award for best first mystery. Maybe I do need to read it. Maybe editors and agents will be looking for unlikeable characters now.

Melville · Oct 16, 2009

jeseymour said:
This just in - "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" won the Macavity Award for best first mystery. Maybe I do need to read it. Maybe editors and agents will be looking for unlikeable characters now.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, after the first 50 pages or so, is brilliant and the title character is "difficult" but not unlikeable. And she's utterly fascinating. She's complex but, in her way, highly moral. Besides, she's not the "lead" -- a very mild, likeable (to the point of being bland) male journalist is.

She's even more compelling in the second book in the series. The premature death of her author is a tragdey: we'll only ever have the three books about this extraordinary young woman.

If anything, she's reminescent of Carol O'Connell's Mallory.

Calling her "unlikeable" is simplistic and, in my opinion, absurd.

ToddWBush · Oct 16, 2009

I think the "escapism" theory is correct. We read (and write) to escape the normalcy (with apologies to Warren Harding) of our own lives. For instance, I'll just use some basic examples:

When confronted with someone saying something not so nice about my wife, I'll probably make a comment to the rude person. But, I don't punch him in the face and then say something extremely witty like Reacher would.

When I have a problem at work that I'm struggling with, I still go to dinner with my family, feed my son his bottle, etc. I can't put everything on hold, drink an Anchor Steam on a deck, and pour endlessly over evidence like Harry Bosch.

We'd all LOVE to do those things, because it's what a "hero" does in our society. But, that's why it's fiction. These are the "manly, edgy, flawed, anti-hero" way of handling problems.

Ok, maybe I'd do the Reacher punching thing. I am taking mixed martial arts now!

heyjude · Oct 16, 2009

Melville said:
Calling her "unlikeable" is simplistic and, in my opinion, absurd.

Wow! I haven't been called absurd in days!

I agree that it was a good story, however I disagree that any of the characters were likeable. The journalist didn't strike me as bland, he struck me as icky, and therefore unlikeable. (At least in his personal life.) My opinion, of course.

ToddWBush · Oct 16, 2009

Oh, one more thing. If the character is flawed because he's a "loner" but he's "the best at what he does" and "hates authority" but all of these things are nothing but generic character traits pulled from Write A Novel Madlibs, then it's bland.

And I hate to say it, but yes I'm talking to you Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Thomas Greanias, David L. Golemon, Matthew Reilly, and James Rollins.

I love thrillers. Seriously I do. But how many super-soldier, former CIA, covert government assassins can there be in the world? Can we have a thriller Royal Rumble to decide which one stays and the rest have to go? How can agents buy this crap? Maybe that's what we all should do to get published... get a Writing A Thriller by Madlibs and start bombarding agents with these manuscripts, and just perhaps they'll stop buying this crap.

heyjude · Oct 16, 2009

ToddWBush said:
But how many super-soldier, former CIA, covert government assassins can there be in the world?

This is an AWESOME point and one I've often wondered!

jeseymour · Oct 16, 2009

How about a former Marine, ex CIA, ex covert government assassin, who's also an ex-con with ties to organized crime? He's a recovering alcoholic too.

All he wants to do is settle down on a little farm in New Hampshire and grow potatoes. But things never work out that way. Oh, and he's completely unlikeable to everybody but me.

ToddWBush · Oct 16, 2009

jeseymour said:
How about a former Marine, ex CIA, ex covert government assassin, who's also an ex-con with ties to organized crime? He's a recovering alcoholic too. All he wants to do is settle down on a little farm in New Hampshire and grow potatoes. But things never work out that way. Oh, and he's completely unlikeable to everybody but me.

Like I said in the Mystery Writer's Social Group... if we ever met these people that we LOVE spending hours and hours reading about in real life... we'd HATE them with a passion. Everyone in their world does, why should we be any different?

Ah, but they are fuuuuuun to write and read about, ain't they?

Unlikeable characters

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