I Love to Hate You: The Irresistible Antihero

One of the biggest challenges for writers is to create appealing protagonists (my Beta Readers know how hard I’ve tried with mine!) According to the experts, if readers don’t identify with our characters, they’ll stop reading. But attaining character identification is not so simple, especially if we look at how the dictionary defines this word:


identification
noun

1. a process by which one ascribes to oneself the qualities or characteristics of another person.
2. perception of another as an extension of oneself.

Psychologists tell us that “we like best those who are like us,” but if we take into account that everyone has different tastes and personalities, the task seems monumental. Yet, there is an almost universal agreement that most of us are drawn to positive/optimistic characters like Lucy Ricardo or Forrest Gump. Sounds simple enough, except that not every character can be like them. Time and time again, we’re told that nobody likes perfect characters because they’re not true to life, that our protagonists should have flaws and that they should learn/change/grow along the way in an emotionally satisfying way. With all that in mind, how do we balance flaws and appeal? Logic tells us that the more flawed the character, the bigger his/her arc will be. And if we have a big character arc, we just may touch our audience. But if nobody likes him/her, how do we make the reader continue reading?

Fascinating antiheroes in literature and film are proof that this can be done. In search of answers, I came across a simple concept to solve this dilemma: unsympathetic characters must COMPENSATE their flaws with a compelling trait. This quality should be gripping enough to keep the reader's interest, despite his/her feelings for the mean main character.

Ideally, negative protagonists should have one or more of these five traits:

1. HUMOR

There is something irresistible about a person who can make us laugh. When we first meet Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) in As Good as it Gets, we immediately dislike him, yet we can’t help but laugh at his quirky habits and some of his snarky comments. We are hooked by this unusual and utterly unlikeable character (perhaps because we’re curious to know what crazy thing he’ll say/do next.)

At the beginning of When Harry Met Sally, Harry (Billy Crystal) is full of himself and obnoxious, but some his comments are so outrageous they’re funny. By the middle of the film, he has matured and his insights on men/women relationships start to make sense.

For ten years, Sally could not stand Harry. 

In Overboard, Joanna (Goldie Hawn) is a millionaire snob who hires a carpenter called Dean (Kurt Russell) to build a closet on her yacht. When the task is complete, she refuses to pay him as the closet was not done to her full satisfaction. That evening, after she falls overboard and suffers from amnesia, Dean claims her as his wife hoping to get his money back by having her take care of his kids and house. Joanna must adjust to a humble, rural lifestyle and do things she’s never done before. As expected, she encounters a number of funny situations that, eventually, win the audience’s (and Dean’s) favor.

Joanna experiments in the kitchen for the first time.

2.  POWER

What do Scarlett O’Hara, Michael Corleone, the Vicomte de Valmont have in common? They all have power. Scarlett is so beautiful and charming no man can resist her. She also has the power to overcome the hardships that come her way during the war.

Scarlett knows exactly how to get what she wants.

Valmont (Dangerous Liaisons) can conquer any woman he sets his eyes on. For his love, they’re willing to ruin their reputations and their marriages. 

The irresistible and cruel Vicomte de Valmont

Michael Corleone (The Godfather) starts off as a sympathetic character, an articulate family man and returning war hero who wants nothing to do with the mafia, but eventually becomes as ruthless and powerful as his father, Vito. Power, or the ability to achieve what us mere mortals can’t, can fascinate and hook the audience in spite of the protagonist’s flaws.

3.  SYMPATHY

Clint Eastwood is a brilliant director. When we first meet the bitter, rude and racist protagonist of Gran Torino (Walt Kowalski), he’s standing by his wife’s coffin during her funerary service and his badly dressed, ill-behaved, self-centered grandchildren are giggling and checking their cell phones. In addition to these offenses, his two sons are whispering a joke at his expense. We are immediately sympathetic to this character even though we can see from his expression that he’s not a warm and likable man.

Walt Kowalski surrounded by his uncaring family

The protagonist of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, is not the most charming heroine: she’s an antisocial computer hacker who never smiles or has a kind word for anybody. However, we see early on that she’s had a rough life. Not only does she live a lonely existence in a cold, humble apartment, but also, the only person she seems to love (her guardian) has a stroke and she’s left in the hands of a disgusting man who abuses her.

When something bad happens to a character or those he loves, we feel sympathy for him (if the author handles the situation well). In addition to sympathy over Walt Kowalski’s crappy family and his impending loneliness, he has positive traits to compensate for the venom that spills from his mouth every time he speaks: he’s hard-working, brave, loyal, straightforward and kind to his dog.

4.  JEOPARDY

Both Lisbeth Salander and Walt Kowalski have another thing in common. Even though they’re tough and confident, they’re vulnerable. Salander is a small, thin woman, with a guardian twice her size who has no conscience. Kowalski is a sick old man who, despite all his weapons and war experience, lives alone in a neighborhood ran by gangs. The two of them are never safe and we cringe every time they take a bold action (which is often).

The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo is always in danger.

As a woman in the South after the Civil War, Scarlett O’Hara is often in danger, too. Her vulnerability makes our bad feelings for her soften at times (though she keeps making us angry throughout the entire novel!)

5. MORAL CODE

If we can see early on that an unsympathetic character is, at the core, a good person, we’re more likely to tolerate his/her bad behavior. We may even start rooting for him/her. Salander does a lot of illegal things, but she has a sense of justice that we can sympathize with. She punishes evil and cruel men. We may not agree with her methods, but we instinctively know that she wouldn’t harm an innocent.

Kowalski has no regards for other people’s feelings and is quick to insult them, but he recognizes that his young neighbor has a good heart and appreciates/respects his virtues. He’s willing to commit the ultimate sacrifice in order to give this kid a chance in the world. Despite his many flaws, Kowalski has a clear sense of right and wrong.

Although Melvin Udall is consistently spiteful to his neighbor (Simon), he gives him shelter when the latter has nowhere to live. In addition, he takes good care of Simon’s dog despite his initial irritation toward the animal. This shows us he has a good heart.

The misanthropist, obsessive-compulsive Melvin
proves he has feelings when he helps Simon.

 BALANCING THE GOOD AND THE BAD

In his book Writing the Breakout Novel, agent Donald Maass points out that the most common mistake he finds in submissions is that the protagonist is unsympathetic. In an attempt to create flawed and interesting main characters, writers make them too dark and that can be “wearisome,” he says. Although he agrees that perfect individuals are not engaging and transformation can be very powerful in a story, redemption only comes at the end of a novel and readers may not stick around for that long. The key to make readers care, he says, is to balance negativity with sympathetic qualities and give dark characters “moments of humanity.” Maass offers the following tip: if a character is aware that he’s self-destructive, wrong or in trouble and makes an effort to change, the reader will remain engaged. The example he gives is Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People.

Conrad is a depressed teenager who’s just returned home from a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt following his brother’s death. Even though his thoughts are dark and depressive most of the time, Conrad makes an attempt to get better and take it “one day at a time.” The reader starts rooting for him.

“Readers need reasons to hope. To write the breakout novel, it is necessary to provide readers those reasons not just at the end but all the way through.” (Maass, Donald. Writing the Breakout Novel. Pg. 117)

How have you handled your own dark characters? Can you think of other imperfect protagonists in literature and what has hooked you to them?


Erasure - I Love to Hate You

Powered by mp3skull.com

Picking and Choosing Character Traits

Raise your hand if you've ever read a novel, then went to see the movie and the first thing out of your mouth was, "She shouldn't be playing that role! That's not at all how I envisioned the character to look! Whoever cast this thing didn't know what the heck they were doing!" (Or more flagrant wording if you are so inclined.)

Yes, my hand is raised.

Jennifer Lawrence
in
The Hunger Games

When it comes to movies, nothing seems to annoy us more than when a beloved novel gets made into a film and gets miscast. But why? Well, a lot of it has to do with how we've interpreted the characters on the page, and believe it or not, most of us interpret those characters much differently than how another reader might. I've heard more than my share of grumblings over Jennifer Lawrence playing Katniss in the upcoming The Hunger Games film. She's to old, not the right build, not a strong enough actor to believably play the part, etc. Take a look at the movie poster, and I'll let you be the judge. I'd have to say my personal favorite to this day is Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight, a sizzling story about a bank robber (George Clooney) and a US Marshal (Lopez) on a case to catch him in the act. The book was nothing more than a throwaway heist novel written by Elmore Leonard that I read a couple years before the film was made. In the novel, the US Marshal is a willowy blonde, nothing like how Lopez's character looks in the film. I'm sure you have a specific film character that to this day just bugs the heck out of you.

No matter how the film world ends up interpreting the characters we write in novels, we still need to take care in how we portray them. After all, it is the characters a reader falls in love with (just take a look at the Twilight series, because I don't believe it's the writing that's winning over fans). As writers, how does one go about crafting a striking character that will stand out to the reader and make the story come alive? Here are a few pointers:

• Avoid clichés -- Don't make every cop crooked, every blonde busty, every school teacher gentle and sweet, or every lead male flawless in appearance and backstory. I once reviewed a novel (The Art of Murder by Don West) and the whole thing made me cringe. To this day, I think it's one of the most character clichéd books I've ever read. You want your characters to be unique. Give them qualities that will stand out to the reader, like a fascinating backstory or quirky characteristics. I recently heard a statistic about hitchhikers. Hitchhikers who wear ties are more likely to get picked up off the side of the road than those who don't. Well, then give your hitchhiker a tie!
• Don't just focus on physical appearance -- Although we fall in love with a character at first sight (or first read) we always want to know what makes that character tick. What kind of story follows this character around? Is it a tale of woe? As the story unfolds, the reader wants to peel back the layers of what's hiding underneath. Make sure to give them that opportunity! Take the hitchhiker for example -- Why is he out hitching a ride in the first place? Why does he wear a fancy tie, and yet he carries a backpack on his back as a displaced homeless man would? Bring the reader to that point where they just have to know!
• But don't be vague about physical appearance -- When characters tend to be poorly fleshed out in appearance, the reader tends to feel a sense of disconnect. Although I've never read it, I remember reading reviews about Toni Morrison's 2008 novel A Mercy, a novel that seems to have flat characters, mainly because she doesn't physically flesh them out very well. And a lot of times, this is why we get disappointed at the box office. The director just had a different vision of a vague character.
• Give your main character a flaw -- Nobody relates to a perfectly written character, mainly because in the real world we all have flaws. As readers, we want to empathize with the main character. After all, we're invested in him/her for the next 300+ pages. This has a lot to do with those layers I spoke about earlier. The flaw could also be physical, like a bad memory or scars with a story the reader is definitely going to want to know. Back to my hitchhiker -- What if he has a mysterious tattoo on his hand that peaks the reader's interest? That marked-up piece of skin could be a clue to this man's past. What if it depicts something especially violent? Now the reader is going to wonder if the person who picked him up is having second thoughts about that misleading tie.



Need a lift?

• Look for people in the real world who best reflect your main characters -- It doesn't hurt to envision a certain actor as that mysterious hitchhiker with tie and tattoo and thumb out for a ride. Who comes to mind? Maybe keep a picture of that individual on hand so you have a reference back to how he looks. It can make the writing process less confusing.

Those are just a few ways when it comes to crafting your characters, but what if you're still struggling to figure out if what you're creating is going to work? Since we tend to pick and choose character traits from people we know in our lives, then here's an exercise for you to try.

When it comes to the people in your life, who is:

• The sexiest
• The smartest
• The most educated
• The most emotional
• The best well-dressed
• The slyest
• The dumbest
• The most creative
• The happiest
• The saddest
• The quirkiest
• The most ruthless
• etc.

The list could go on and on, but chances are, we know of someone who could fit into any one of those given categories. Don't be afraid to glean from the crop you have growing right in front of you. Your characters' pieces will fit together properly if you just know where to look. And hey, you might be able to figure out what the hitchhiker is really up to!

Do you struggle with creating believable characters? Do you have any tips you'd like to share when it comes to putting together a main character?