MC likeability

It's the tritest advice in the world, but it's also the most applicable here: read what other people have done.

Re-read some of your favorite books. Ask yourself, why did I get so involved with this character? What made me love them? How did the author gain my sympathy from the get-go. You could do this with movies as well. What makes teens so crazy about that Bella Swan character? What do people see in that Harry Potter fellow? Why do sci-fi fans still get so invested in the future of Paul Atreides?

To be a bit more specific - If you look at it, it's really not puppy saving that makes people sympathize with a character. Maybe the character is funny, or maybe they stand up in the face of overwhelming odds. Maybe they're feeling out of place, or maybe they're struggling to pay the bills. Relatability is a huge part of likability. Just find a way to show that in your first chapter, really your first page or two, and you'll go a long way towards fixing your problem.

This is kind of funny, because I just wrote a blog post about this very thing. It's quite short, and only deals with one reason characters can come off as unlikable, but you are welcome to check it out at this link.

romance2die4 said:

I am afraid that my leading lady is not likeable, and I don't know what to do about it. I have had two beta readers, who are not writers, comment on this. Both read the first two chapters. One of them suggested that I show my heroine hanging out in her apartment and give more information about her life. I considered adding this, but I think it would be boring. It would have no purpose in moving the plot forward.

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Good call on your part. If nothing was actually happening in her apartment, I'd get bored and stop reading.

Is it wrong to expect the readers to wait to learn more about the character?

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Depends. Is your "wait and see and maybe you'll like her later on" book competing with other romances that are all "You'll relate to or like her right away!"

Or are you hooking readers in some way other than connection with the heroine?

In my case, they will learn about her inner conflict and how she overcomes hardship and grows as a person. Things like information about her professional life and her relationships with other people develop also.

How do you make a MC likeable from the start? Do I really have to begin my tale with the MC saving a puppy?

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Your heroine doesn't necessarily have to be likeable from the start. But she has to be someone I find interesting. Maybe she's got a problem I can grasp, or maybe she's got an interesting skill that's shown at the start. Maybe she has a funny narrative voice. Maybe she's just something you don't come across every day in a romance novel, e.g. she's half-Inuit. You need to make me want to read more about her, in other words, so that you can keep me on board until she becomes likeable or until I can relate to her.

Seconding the 'fascinating more than likeability' idea. An oldie but a goodie is 'Gone With The Wind'. Not a romance, but women's fiction. Scarlet O'Hara isn't likeable: She views everyone through the lens of 'what can they do for me?' She's self-centered harpy who doesn't learn better by the end of the book. She's a selfish daughter, a bad mother, a rotten sister, doesn't really have friends, and treats men like ATMs.
And yet, there's something about her - you can't quite look away. OMG, what is she going to do now?
She's laser-focussed on getting Ashley for her own, and what good she does in only an unintentional side-effect of her desire to get him, or money for Tara. She's more of a force of nature than a person you'd want to spend time with, but she's compelling.
And you see it from the opening scenes, where she's sitting between two handsome young men, toying with their affections in an off-handed manner. They're window-dressing for her.

I would want a more specific definition of what your betas considered unlikable. Does it mean that she's boring, she's not doing anything, she's just kind of there and they are having a hard time relating to her? Or is she unpleasant, bitchy, hostile, etc?

If she's just a bristly sort of person, as long as she wants something and is trying to get it, then you'll be good to go. But if she's just kind of there and you are saving all the good character development stuff for later in your story, you might have an issue that you need to address.

frimble3 said:

And yet, there's something about her - you can't quite look away. OMG, what is she going to do now?

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I'd say one reason I couldn't look away is because she's not completely evil. She promises Ashley she'll keep his wife safe, and she does that - grudgingly, but she does it. She supports her family after they're left destitute; her famous "I'll never be hungry again" vow includes "No, nor any of my folks" (which includes her family's former slaves). She loves her mother. She's not in any way a nice or likeable person, but she's multifaceted.

I'd also disagree that she doesn't learn better by the end of the book. She realizes Melanie was a true friend to her, which is why her deathbed promise to Melanie is that she'll take care of Melanie's family. She finally sees Ashley for what he is, but she forces herself to be kind to him. Most of all, she realizes Rhett loved her. Of course, by then it's too late, but she does see things differently at the end.

Yeah, that hook is sometimes tricky to get right off the bat. I think it took me something like ten times to get the right one for one of my finished drafts. Fifteen or twenty for the other one. I applaud anyone who gets a hook for a draft first thing, it's not an easy thing to do even after years of practice.

Good luck, I hope it all goes wonderfully.

romance2die4 said:

I have been doing this with new things I pick up, but I went back and looked at a few books that I really enjoyed. It was a good idea because what I realized is that it isn't so much that they don't like my MC, but that my hook isn't good enough. Since they aren't writers, they just express it differently. Back to the drawing board...

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That's always a risk when non-writers beta-read. They know something's wrong, but can't really put their finger on what it is. But they also get you closest to your potential audience. ::sigh::

Glad you figured out your problem though! Best of luck to you!

Have you brought your readers inside your MC's head? Even if she appears prickly or cold, is that how she really is inside? And if so, does she have a compelling reason to be that way?

Remember that not everyone likes everyone else. Haven't you ever picked up a book that other people liked and found yourself disliking the heroine?
Do you like your heroine? What do you like about her? Her courage? Her common sense? Her sense of humor? That's what you need to make clear at the beginning. Or is she supposed to be obnoxious or prickly or whatever at the beginning and change as the book goes on? If that's so, she still needs some if not redeeming at least appealing characteristics at the beginning.
You also need to remember that your beta readers could be wrong. I don't know if you've used them before, but consider that they may simply not like the kind of characters you create.

romance2die4 said:

What is your process like? That is a lot of drafts. Do you revise, completely re-write or a combination of both?

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For me it was a combination of everything. The original story for the soon to be published one had another 100K tacked on to the front of it - before the scene that it now starts at - and it took me a long, long time to figure out exactly where to start. I started out where "Part II" originally began, realized it was a hugely passive area, culled that back a ways and thought I'd just start off where the LM sees the LF for the first time in years. I guess it worked because it's one of the bigger things mentioned by my betas when they read it the first time. That was the one that took me about 15 to 20 times to get the hook down pat for it.

The other one wasn't quite as bad trying to find the hook, thankfully my geeky brain figured that one out in a shorter amount of time, and less tries.

I don't mind a lot of drafts because I'm picky and I tend to keep a copy of every single revision, rewrite and whatnot I have for the manuscripts on my external drive - I'm ultra picky about keeping backups just in case. Having a computer go PFFFFFFFFFFFT! on you in the middle of writing a draft makes one ultra careful about backups and such. Can't be too safe.

Give your heroine a sense of humour? Even the coldest character becomes likable through occasional moments of sarcasm or wit...

It's hard to say without seeing the piece, but for me even a heroine behaving like a complete asshat can be likeable. The reason is that we are immediately put inside her head and can see, for example, that her behavior comes from a place of insecurity or confusion or some other non-evil motivation, or even that her character flaws come from some tragic past experience that she is going to work through during the story.

Following this thread! Rereading my "book in the drawer" which got lots of "I don't like the MC" comments from agents. I reread it for the first time in a year and saw, yeah, now that I'm more disconnected from the process of writing it I don't even "like" her anymore. I'm trying a switch to first person to let the reader get into the head, at least as an activity. Agreed with the suggestion of a sense of humor.

You have to imply something about your MC is mysterious. Something that will grab your reader and want them to continue reading.

All manner of stories get written where the MC is much less than a "likeable" person. George Macdonald Fraser has written an entire series about Flashman, an extraordinarily unlikeable bastard derived from a 19th century Victorian novel, and it's been highly successful. On TV, who really finds Dr. House or Raymond Reddington "likeable" characters? Or, in more archeological history, J.R. Ewing of the groundbreaking TV series Dallas?

What your MC has to be, without fail, is interesting to the reader. "Likeable" is not a necessity.

caw

Aaah... there are many popular unlikeable characters in fiction. But in romances? It's a little more difficult to pull off because the reader will always be thinking that the unlikeable hero or heroine isn't worthy of their love match. In my opinion, you always have to find something likeable about your main characters in romance, something the reader can point to and say "Oh they're not as bad as everyone thinks."

blacbird said:

What your MC has to be, without fail, is interesting to the reader. "Likeable" is not a necessity.

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Yes to the first part, no to the second. In Romance, as CEtchison says...

CEtchison said:

In my opinion, you always have to find something likeable about your main characters in romance, something the reader can point to and say "Oh they're not as bad as everyone thinks."

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I would change likeable to sympathetic, though. I think it's okay not to actively "like" an MC for a short while, as long as I have a modicum of sympathy for them. Eric Northman from the Sookie Stackhouse books comes to mind. We weren't *supposed* to like him, but there was always that little something under the surface.

My MC is a hellion but there is a very good reason for her attitude and I get it out there on the double.

In another novel I had an MC do an act of random kindness. It wasn't even a paragraph but it showed there was more to him than F-bombs and Wild Turkey 101.

ElaineA said:

I would change likeable to sympathetic, though. I think it's okay not to actively "like" an MC for a short while, as long as I have a modicum of sympathy for them. Eric Northman from the Sookie Stackhouse books comes to mind. We weren't *supposed* to like him, but there was always that little something under the surface.

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Yes, sympathetic. That's definitely the right word.