Dealing with characters you don't like

[Sasha Distan]

We've all written antagonists, characters whose purpose in fiction is to anger and annoy, to push people's buttons and force your other characters to evolve and move forwards, regardless of whether this happens through discussion or fighting.

 

But has anyone written a main character that they don't like. I refer to my current MC, Bay 'star' of Bad Stereotypes. I love him, he's adorable, but as his story evolves i am starting to dislike him a little bit. Bay has really bad internalised homophobia, and though his progression in the story is natural, i am starting to become angry with him.

 

So has anyone else had a main character that they haven't liked?

[layla]

Yes, actually, in Guitars and Guitars 2 one of my main Characters, Cole, is a character that I don't always like a great deal. I know he is there to be play a certain part, but the more i write him and the more unforgiving and unwavering he becomes, the less i like him and the more i want something bad to happen to him to maybe force him to change his ways.

[Thorn Wilde]

The nameless protagonist of my short story Pretty Boys is pretty much a psychopath, or at the very least a sociopath, and I don't think I really like him much even though he doesn't technically cause harm to anyone... I find him fascinating, though.

 

My character Alan from Nemesis (where he plays a supporting role and occasional antagonist) does some fairly awful things and has some pretty bad internalised homophobia too, but when I used him as a main character for the first Hubris story I came to really love him, even if he pissed me off at first.

 

I'm having a harder time with Craig, also from Nemesis, whom I'm writing a story about for Hubris now. I keep wanting for him to be reasonable and do the right things, and I know he can't because it's not in character for him. It's really difficult to write from the point of view of a character who's so blatantly homophobic.

[Sasha Distan]

 the less i like him and the more i want something bad to happen to him to maybe force him to change his ways.

 

here lies my problem. how can i do something really bad to my main character like that? he is going to get there... but writing him while he annoys me hurts.

[layla]

sometimes doing something really bad to a main character makes for good story.

[Thorn Wilde]

I notoriously torment my main characters. I put them through absolute hell, but they always come out happier in the end.

[Sasha Distan]

I notoriously torment my main characters. I put them through absolute hell, but they always come out happier in the end.

 

I did that to Nanuk, and Jesse...and Tobias and Jahke. some of them went through literal hell to get their happy endings. but Bay...I dunno, he feels different.

[Thorn Wilde]

I did that to Nanuk, and Jesse...and Tobias and Jahke. some of them went through literal hell to get their happy endings. but Bay...I dunno, he feels different.

 

Yeah, not all characters have to take that path on their journey. There are other ways to become better people, after all.

[Sasha Distan]

Yeah, not all characters have to take that path on their journey. There are other ways to become better people, after all.

 

I hope he will become a better person through his relationships with his co workers and new friends. he needs to be more accepting, that's for sure

[Thorn Wilde]

I hope he will become a better person through his relationships with his co workers and new friends. he needs to be more accepting, that's for sure

 

I'm sure he will be. The people we surround ourselves with can make a world of difference.

[Dolores Esteban]

Sir Mortimer in my story Play Favourites is an evil character, one ot the two antagonists. I didn't like him, but writing him was fun nonetheless because I knew that I would punish hm in the end.

[Sasha Distan]

 because I knew that I would punish him in the end.

 

See this is my problem. Bay is the main character, i'm not supposed to want to punish him, people are supposed to emapthise with him even when he's being an idiot.

Currently though he and Issac are being cute together. 

[Thorn Wilde]

See this is my problem. Bay is the main character, i'm not supposed to want to punish him, people are supposed to emapthise with him even when he's being an idiot.

Currently though he and Issac are being cute together. 

 

If it helps, I empathise plenty with Bay. Not because I have internalised homophobia (I definitely do not, never have), but there are other groups I have been likened to where I've wanted to beat every other member of that group with a shovel. In my teens, people used to label me emo, now they tend to label me hipster, and don't get me started on back when I identified as a Christian and had to make constant disclaimers to show people I was a rational human being and not a fundamentalist.

[Mark Arbour]

This is all nonsense (and I say that somewhat lovingly).  You are the God of the world you created.  If you don't like your main character, change him (or her).  People can have epiphanies, life changing events, that can help them shed some of their more annoying qualities.  Or adjust those annoying attributes so they're not so annoying, but more enjoyable.  Have you never changed, never evolved?  I'll bet you have.  Besides, thinking your way through that can make your story more creative and interesting. 

[Sasha Distan]

This is all nonsense (and I say that somewhat lovingly).  You are the God of the world you created.  If you don't like your main character, change him (or her).  People can have epiphanies, life changing events, that can help them shed some of their more annoying qualities.  Or adjust those annoying attributes so they're not so annoying, but more enjoyable.  Have you never changed, never evolved?  I'll bet you have.  Besides, thinking your way through that can make your story more creative and interesting. 

 

While i take your point well, don't worry. my 'problem' is that i need Bay to change, and i have plans for him to change, but i hate writing the unchanged version of Bay. but i need to in order to build up his character.

he evolves well.

[Former Member]

When dealing with a character I hate, typically, I write a short that bears no reality to the actual story where I do terrible, terrible things to them.  Right now I'm writing a story about a player pretty boy type person and I want to rip my hair out because he is so flipping annoying and whiny sometimes.  So for that, I tend to write out of chrono order so I can get to the happies and then I go back to the sads.  Such is the beauty of writing.  As long as you don't have a deadline, you don't have to write it step by step.  That's what I do at least, skip around a bit and then drag yourself back to fill in the holes.

[Thorn Wilde]

I do that a lot too.

[Sasha Distan]

OK... so i am going to do something bad to him....it sort of appeared while driving. Hopefully everyone will forgive me for it.

[Thorn Wilde]

If (most) people could forgive me for the Craig storyline, I'm sure we'll forgive you for whatever you do to Bay.

[Sasha Distan]

If (most) people could forgive me for the Craig storyline, I'm sure we'll forgive you for whatever you do to Bay.

 

there is that. i won't be the worst thing i've done to a character by a long way. what i did to Jesse was abominable.

[JamesSavik]

As a writer, you are in a unique position to encourage karma to land on the deserving.

[Thorn Wilde]

As a writer, you are in a unique position to encourage karma to land on the deserving.

 

And instead we use it to put characters we love through absolute hell for the sake of an interesting plot. Writers are cruel people.

[Former Member]

We've all got a little bit of a sadistic streak. If we didn't no one would have a good story lol.

[Sasha Distan]

We've all got a little bit of a sadistic streak. If we didn't no one would have a good story lol.

 

and i would say i have a nice streak on the side of my sadism....

[The Pecman]

Yeah, it's tough to write characters (especially lead characters) you dislike. But I've often found that it's the characters' flaws that make them interesting: maybe they have a bad temper, or they tend to criticize others, or they're impatient and snippy. Maybe they're overconfident, or they have a bad habit of being so arrogant, they step on other people without even realizing it.

 

What can be fun is when they have their comeuppance over time, and by the end of the story, they're sadder but wiser, even (hopefully) changed people who are much more rounded and more human. I did this with a novel a few years ago, and I had a few people write in and say, "hey! I hate this guy! I don't want to read this story!" But the longer you stuck with it, the more you see the guy was guilty of making several bad choices in life, pretending he was somebody he wasn't, and eventually beaten down by a tough adversary and forced through circumstance to accept who he really was.