First Person Narrator, is not a good guy.

First of all, welcome to the world of despicable 1st person narrators My 1st person novel is told by an assassin that works for a corrupt government. Saying she's not a very good person is an understatement to say the least.

However, there are a few things you'll need to watch. First off, if 70% of the book is told by the crook, I'd guess that would pretty much make him a MC. If the book is specifically the other MCs story, you might have to rework it a bit. The other thing is, if you're inside someone's head for hundreds of pages, a few redeeming qualities are bound to surface (even if said person chooses not to notice that they have said redeeming qualities). It's very hard to pull off a character that is just 100% bad, especially if you're inside their head a lot. It could work, but imo you'd have to give him a decent backstory to cover it, because I have a hard time believing that someone is inherently evil for absolutely no reason.

That's just my opinion though Good luck with it! And sometimes the bad guys can be the best storytellers.

Yeah, welcome, man.

--Azrael, I disagree that just because the book is mostly his POV that makes him the MC. See One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

My MC for um...side project number 1...is a huge bitch. I'm working the Snow White thing into it. So she is the evil queen. A lot of revisionist stories like this go all the way and twist it so the villain is totally sympathetic, misunderstood, whatever. But I'm working hard not to do that with this one. I'm trying to make a change in her character from pretty normal to pretty not. Hopefully it works out.

I guess it's cool as long as we the reader understand why he is the way he is. Plus he's not a psychopath so like Azrael said, he isn't really 100% evil.

Yeah, good point Jane. I didn't even think about the One Flew... thing. You're right, of course, and I can see how if he's just telling the story, then that makes sense that he's not really the MC. Anything can work if done well. I just always like to take a step back and ask how telling the story from X point of view makes it work better. Therefore, if it is important that the thief is telling the story, even if it isn't his story persay, then there you go.

I know that's probably a lot of rambling, but it's 3am back in Florida where I wish I was at right now, and I haven't quite adjusted to west coast time Forgive me. I'm better at this in the morning.

Right right. Of course isn't that the case with everything in writing? "If it works..." "If it's best for the story..."

Sooooo subjective!

It's two here, and my nonadjusted computer clock tells me three. But dammit, I'm not in Boston anymore! Still pretty exhausted. But your post totally made sense.

The thing is...the narrator can be "a crook"or "bad" but you need to make him sympathetic so the reader is compelled to continue reading. You can add a dimension to his character that makes him more complex - Look at Darkly Dreaming Dexter - he's the MC and yet he's a serial murderer. The author brilliantly makes us the reader care about him and be sympathetic.

First person is very intimate and personal -- it's okay to have an unlikable, unreliable narrator but your readers need something to identify with him (either his voice, or there's something really interesting about him). If he has absolutely no redeeming value at all then I really do question, why do you want us to go along with him? Why 1st person? And that's the problem, since he is not even your MC, and you spend 70% narrating from his point of view. Your risk is that you won't allow your readers to attach themselves to the MC at all. About whom your story really is?

There are very successful stories where the narrator is not the MC -- The Great Gatsby, for example. But the narrator in that book is likable -- not some sociopath, and the story really isn't about him. He's just observing. I seriously doubt a "crook" would be observant about what is happening to your MC enough to make us care.

Then again, I haven't read your book. Maybe you're doing something I'm not aware of, and it works. Who am I to say you can't do it?

First person narrator, MC, AND unlikable:

American Psycho.

I'm sure there are plenty more.

Good points made here, and I especially agree with Azraelbane.

Another reason why the narrator shouldn't be 100% rotten to the core is that virtually no one in real life, no matter how bad, views him/herself as rotten to the core. The worst criminals find some justification for their behavior, regardless of how flimsy (e.g., many street thugs blame their victims for being so stupid as to be in a dangerous neighborhood at night).

One of my favorite books, KILLER by Joey (pen name), is the non-fiction autobio of a mafia hit man. Joey states that he's bad and suggests he has no redeeming qualities, but in many places, his actions reveal a deeply buried compassion that he shows to the very few whom he considers innocents (though he never says any such thing).

So that's a different approach to humanizing your bad-guy narrator -- let him brag about how bad he is, but show him "tipping his hand" by acting compassionately toward a small child or a puppy, but being careful not to be seen doing so. Sumthin' like that...

Raphee said:

In my WIP, I have a First Person narrator who is a crook. The MC is someone else and though the MC is the second first person narrator but 70% of the narration is done by the crook.
So my narrator is not someone likeable. As I said he is a small time crook.
He doesn't have any redeeming qualities about him, being an opportunist et al.

How good or bad or how big a problem is that. Is that a problem i should be worried about.

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Just because he's a crook doesn't make him unlikable. I can think of a number of main characters who are despicable, but people think they are cool or interesting. Hannibal Lector comes to mind, even though that wasn't first person nor was he really the MC, people love that character.

As long as the character is compelling the audience will like him despite his career choices.

maestrowork said:

I seriously doubt a "crook" would be observant about what is happening to your MC enough to make us care.

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Why? Are you making the assumption that if he's a crook he's some kind of boob? Cary Grant was a crook in "To Catch a Thief." He seemed pretty intelligent, enough that he would have made an interesting first person MC had someone decided to write it that way.

Ferret, my thought is that if the narrator is a crook with no redeeming quality, he would most likely be very selfish and he probably cares more about what he wants and how he's going to get it, and thus he wouldn't care less to observe the MC, unless, of course, he's some kind of investigator and it's his job to observe and report on the MC. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

Raphee said:

Let me ask you guys, what hints would you give me so as to humanize or make likable a character who actually justifies his badness. Do keep in mind that he is not a hannibal lecter.

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Giving background on the character usually helps. If he justifies his crimes in the text, that kind of thing helps. It lets the reader understand what the hamster inside his mind is smokin' as the wheel squeaks on

Azrael, I disagree that just because the book is mostly his POV that makes him the MC.

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Right you are. Is Watson the main character of the Sherlock Holmes series? The writer knows who his main character is, okay?

I agree. Some backgrounds would help. Even the crook has a past that may make use empathize for him -- parents, ex-love, etc. What does he want and desire?

For example, in the movie You Kill Me, the protagonist (played by Sir Ben Kingsley) is a professional killer, an alcoholic, a meanie. But he's far from being one-dimensional, and we get to care about him because he, too -- we find out -- has problems and he, too, wants to beat alcoholism and have a good life and find someone he loves. So, even though your character is a "bad person" do think about what makes him human -- by thinking about what make US human, even someone you really don't like.