Unlikable main character

Depends on the character and story I suppose.

When you encounter really whiny character, there really isn't anything relatable or unique or interesting about them, they're just annoying? Yeah that would be a difficult sell.

Someone you love to hate however? Those characters can be fascinating.

I will admit, there's nothing as embarrassing as writing a character you wanted people to like only for the readers to absolutely detest them.

I have seen agents who use "I didn't fall in love with _____" to indicate a project they didn't see anything wrong with but didn't personally like.

I've just set aside Blackbird by Chuck Wendig because - well, I was going to say the characters are so unlikeable - and that's partly it, but also there's an incredible amount of violence and death. Don't want to deal with that at this time of my life.

The two main characters - and 2 more minor but still prominent ones - so far are not fun, not nice, not anyone to hang out with - but interesting. But not enough for me to keep going with it.

Samsonet said:

I have seen agents who use "I didn't fall in love with _____" to indicate a project they didn't see anything wrong with but didn't personally like.

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I use this phrase frequently when I'm editing or critiquing manuscripts. It's totally fine to dislike, or even passionately hate, a character and still enjoy the story. I always use Catcher in the Rye as an example--I thoroughly detest Holden Caulfield with my entire heart. I find him rude, antagonistic, lazy, and entitled; yet, I still read the book once every few years anyways. Whatever the faults of the MC, the book stands up against the test of time. But when I read a book that has a me character, it lessens the impact of the rest of the story for me.

Hearing this from an agent isn't the end of the world. At the end of the day, an agent is still biased and their opinion is influenced by factors far beyond your control. But if you hear this a few times, take a look at how your character is written--chances are, there is room for improvement in their speech, actions, or how they are described throughout. A major red flag for a boring character is if they don't develop at all from start to finish, or if their development is shaky at best. Whether they go uphill or down, it's important for the character to change. Otherwise, he's just a paper mario.

Having read a whole bunch of this discussions, I've come to the conclusion that there are 2 types of readers.

1) Those who prefer likable characters.
2) Those who don't care as long as the main character is interesting.

I am definitely the first, and so is my father. Unlikable main characters is the reason I give for not liking The Corrections, and it's the reason my dad gives for not liking Lolita. My husband doesn't care about likability and enjoyed both those books. Of course, different readers will also find different characters likable. But the "interesting not likable" advice, which inevitably comes up, grates on me because it definitely IS a factor that affects my enjoyment of a book as a reader. There are a few books with unlikable main characters that I've enjoyed somewhat, such as Gone Girl. But it's rare, and I don't imagine I'll ever love such a book. If I am going to love a book, it better have a likable main character. And I don't seem to be alone in that.

Also, I believe there are some genres and types of stories for which likability is more important than in others. For example, I read a lot of romance. A good romance has an emotionally satisfying ending that gives you an "aww!" feeling at the end. I cannot see how that could happen if the leads are unlikable. Perhaps the worst would be if one is likable and the other is an asshole...it would feel like a tragic ending. Again, of course, different readers find different characters likable. There are many controlling, possessive alpha-holes in romance, and that baffles me.

Then there is the issue of likable vs relatable, which always comes up, too. They're not exactly the same thing, but I think how these two relate to each other also depends on the reader. Likability and relatablity may be more closely linked for some readers than others...at least, that is my impression from reading such discussions.

Anyway, I think you can have unlikable main characters, but I think you have to consider your audience and the type of story you're writing. If the MC is unlikable, there should be good reasons for it. And if you write what you think is a likable MC but readers keep telling you otherwise, you should definitely take a closer look.


I actually recently sold a book--a romance, in fact--with a cranky misanthrope as the hero, and the editor really liked him and said he was "endearingly grumpy." I think this is partly because:

1) He had relatable feelings, just a little more extreme than the average person. I mean, we've all want to be left alone at some point, right?
2) Although he didn't like people, he wasn't evil or malicious.
3) There were understandable reasons for him to be the way he was.
4) He still had a code of morals.
5) He was cranky, yes, but he wasn't annoying.
6) It was funny. (Actually, humor is the main thing that can make up for an unlikable character for me as a reader.)

It is possible to make a character likable even if they don't sound terribly likable from a brief description.

popmuze said:

This is what I've been hearing from one agent after another. They either didn't "fall in love with" or just plain don't like my main character. How do I make my main character more likable?

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I imagine you have heard similar, several times in this thread, but I want to stress:

whatever an agent said, likeable does NOT equal relatable/readable.

Even if they said it does, they messed up....either for expediency or by carelessness. It isn't like Humbert Humbert or Christian Gray or a hundred others weren't swell fellers, they were raging, cancerous dick-bags. But they were, to the agent and to the audience, relatable and/or, at least, engaging.

Not always the same as "relatable: or "likeable," but sometimes as important or even moreso.

I want to clarify.

Earlier I mentioned how a character does not necessarily have to be likeable as long as they are interesting. I still stick behind that, but only partially. What I should have mentioned was the goal of the book. What do you want this book to do? I'll put it like this. There are books that are more character driven and there are books that are more plot driven. There a books where the author's intentions are for us to root for the main character and books where the intentions are to get inside of his head. So I guess what I am saying here is, what are your intentions?

If the goal of the book is to take a journey through a character's psychology, say a serial killer, I believe that, in such a circumstance, the MC doesn't necessarily have to be "likeable". Sure, likeable in the sense that he's interesting enough for us to want to read about him but not likeable in the sense that we agree with him, his views and actions. I will use The Tell-Tale heart again. I do not believe Poe's intentions were for us to root for the main character and want to see him win in the end, but I believet he intentions were to show us his insanity. Show us how he thinks. The story itself was driven by this man's psychology.

In the case of a story where the goal is to see the outcome of the MC in the end (Does he get what he wants? Does he win in the end? Will he succeed?), in this sort of story I would say the MC does need to be likeable because the goal of the story is for us to see what his ending will be. The story wants us to root for him, and when the character is not likeable for us to root for, it fails it's goal.

I will say this, I've read my fair share of stories in which I hated a main character so much that all I could do is roll my eyes anytime they've gotten hat they wanted. I had no desire to see them succeed in the end, and I found myself rooting for the villain and enjoying when the main character was in trouble. Because of these main characters, I wanted nothing more than to put the book down. However, I've also come across things where our MC is a serial killer or something else we would normally detest but the story's focus was on the character's psychology and why he became who he was. The characters psychology is what carried the story, and that's what made it so entertaining.

So, in the end, I think that more than anything, it boils down to the kind of story you are trying to tell and what those goals are for that story.

"Couldn't connect with the main character" may just be a form letter they send all their rejections. It can be hard to tell sometimes, because agents often have boilerplates that sound a little more specific than "not for me," but really aren't.

But even if it is, one agent feeling that way doesn't necessarily mean all readers will. Agents are human beings with tastes of their own, and while their first concern is how marketable a book will be, all else being equal, they probably want to represent marketable books that they can cheer for on an emotional level too.

For example, I've run across a couple of agents who say right in their submission guidelines that they will not even consider a book where a child is abused, harmed or in danger. This means they'd summarily reject a number of huge bestsellers, from horror books by the likes of Stephen King, to bestsellers like Flowers in the Attic, to a number of mid grade fantasies (where the protagonists who are kids who are sometimes in danger and often fleeing abuse).

Why would they limit themselves and reject entire swaths of potentially profitable novels in the genres they rep (when it's clear that such books are quite marketable)? No idea, but for whatever reason, they don't enjoy such books, and they're not comfortable repping books they don't enjoy. I'm guessing some agents have trouble connecting with books where they don't like the main character, even if that person is compelling in other ways. Doesn't mean that other agents won't snap them up.

popmuze said:

Not that I'm denying that my character may need work, but does anybody think this may just be standard form agent speak: Like "great idea, great writing, but I just didn't fall in love with the main character."

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If you're getting that specific crit from more than one agent, maybe that's a problem?

Perhaps it's a matter of character vs. author. If you like your character, maybe you're not giving him/her enough obstacles and challenges? Generally, the more a character suffers or fails, the more forgiving we are of their flaws. It's a weird competitive thing. Mary Sues are bad because the plot/author treats them too gently and leniently, and they succeed without great strife.

Sadly, I think as humans we're suckers for wit, for kindness, for bad***ery. So if your character has too little or too much of these things, I think that's the fine balance.

Is this helping at all?

I think that the most important part is for a character to have the desired effect on the reader. If I hate the main character and that's not your intent, then there's some sort of breakdown between the way you intend to portray him and the way that I am perceiving him through the work.

I'm currently watching The Last Kingdom on Netflix.... main character is not very likable, yet I'm loving the series.

Is the problem that your character is has "unlikable" characteristics, or is he/she just two-dimensional, uninteresting, and boring?