Category: creating likable difficult characters

Off with his head… nicely

First off, thanks to all of you who turned out in Pittsburgh! I was delighted to see you!

Now for the post. On July 19, 2012, capng wrote, …my WIP is told from the view of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. She’s pretty evil at the beginning of the book (and conceited, too!), but gets better as the book continues. How do I make readers dislike her but still worry for her? Or is that even possible?

Sure, it’s possible. End of post.

Just kidding. I’m giddy from muddling through Hurricane Sandy. Our little backwater didn’t get the worst of it, only a few hours of no power (and we have a generator). No trees on the house. Reggie (the dog) survived confinement without eating the couch or us. Hope all of you are okay, too.

Yes, it’s possible, and fun; it’s delightful to fool with the emotions of the poor reader.

If the Queen of Hearts is going to improve, then the seeds of her better self already exist. One way to make the reader care is to reveal the tender shoot in her that will grow slowly into a more likable character. For example, suppose Queenie pets her flamingo before using it as a mallet in the croquet game, and she clenches her jaw and looked pained when she hits a hedgehog. The reader glimpses a kind person locked up in there, even as she’s being cruel. Since this is told from her POV, she might wish for a gentler way to play croquet. If only, she can think, the mallet and ball don’t have to be alive. Then, because she isn’t good yet, she can add, But I must have my game. And the fresh air is excellent for my complexion.

When the reader learns that the flamingos and the hedgehogs are plotting against her, he doesn’t entirely want her destroyed. He’s rooting for her to have a chance to reform.

If she’s fun on the page, glorying in her evil, the reader will enjoy being in her company and won’t want anything to remove her from the story. Queenie in the example above is fun, and I hope Bombina, the fairy in my favorite Princess Tale, For Biddle’s Sake, is too, regardless of her fondness for turning people into toads. She’s not precisely evil, since she adores Parsley, my main character, but before Parsley comes along, she’s a fairy criminal. Here’s a sample:

Once, when her footman Stanley failed to open the carriage door quickly enough, Bombina turned his bushy red beard into a purple Fury-Faced Trudy toad. It looked funny, hanging upside down from Stanley’s chin. Bombina laughed, and Parsley would have too if Stanley hadn’t looked so shocked.

Admittedly, the book is lighthearted, which may make my task easier.

However, there’s little humor in Vollys, the dragon in The Two Princesses of Bamarre. She’s evil, but she’s good company, and the reader sympathizes with her. She also loves my main, Aza. So loving someone can help make even an evil character likable.

It’s an advantage to be telling the story from Queenie’s POV, because the reader sees everything through her eyes. Her narrative might go something like this:

I pronounced judgment, “Off with his head.” Diamond Jack’s eyes darted to my dear husband, Kingie. Two guards grabbed Jack’s arms, but didn’t pull him away. We waited for the pardon that would surely come.
Kingie, who liked everything just so, was pulling a loose thread on his doublet. He may not have heard my sentence.
I repeated, louder, “Off with his head.”
“Darling,” Kingie said, holding out the thread and issuing no pardon, “the silk is unraveling. Help me.”
What to do? I felt the blood drain from my face. I didn’t want this, but if I pardoned Jack – I couldn’t! My reputation would be destroyed. “Take him away.” I gestured to the guards, whose faces had paled too. Jack’s lower lip trembled. I looked away and heard them march him off. “Sweetie…” I fumbled in my purse. A shudder ran through me, and I could hardly control my hands. “I have a scissors.”

She’s behaving terribly but she’s suffering, and I think the reader has to empathize. If the story were told from Jack’s POV, she would probably be a lot less sympathetic.

Character worry is a great goad to reader worry. If Queenie is anxious, the reader will likely be too. Suppose Diamond Jack has powerful friends… Queenie is terrified of the consequences of his death, whether he actually dies or not. She’s bewildered about her husband’s failure to come through with a pardon, and she’s unable to break free of her bad queen persona. In every possible thought direction, there’s trouble. The reader paces mentally while she paces physically.

The key is making Queenie someone the reader can inhabit comfortably, can see himself in, even when she behaves badly. If she’s stuck in a position she doesn’t like but can’t figure out how to get free of, the reader thinks, Oh, yeah. I’ve been stubborn about something I didn’t really mean, too.

I just googled “making difficult characters sympathetic.” A link suggests three conditions that will guarantee sympathy: a noble goal; obstacles to its achievement; a great love or passion, which will humanize the character. This is a tad formulaic but interesting. It might work if our character isn’t annoying. Let’s take the sentences above. If Queenie doesn’t seem to like Kingie, we’re going to have a hard time liking her. If Kingie is just her husband, not her dear, if she thinks, Kingie, whose pitiful brain was often distracted by nonsense… instead of Kingie, who liked everything just so, the reader may prefer a cockroach’s company to hers. With thoughts like this, she’d be unsympathetic even while curing cancer against all odds and being sweet to her poodle.

Here are three prompts:

• Queenie inherits a kingdom that’s impoverished by defeat in war. Her glorious goal is to raise her people out of poverty. The obstacle is that the peace treaty calls for costly tribute. Her passion is for music, and she’s an accomplished violinist. Her flaw is that she will not tolerate dissent. Write a scene and make her likable.

• Turn her around in the next scene and make her impossible to like.

• Write “Sleeping Beauty” from the POV of the fairy who wants Sleeping Beauty to prick her finger and die. Make the fairy likable. You can use the three conditions I found online. As you write, you may discover that you have a new story on your hands. Keep going.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Making bitter sweet

Before I start, I want to point out the new link to the right, which will take you to my husband’s website for his beautiful photographs. If you need a break, it may be just the thing. In the galleries you’ll see photos on many subjects. The blog takes you through fall (so far) in southern upstate New York.

On June 30, 2010, Bearcoon wrote, How do you make rather dark characters still come across likable? I have several characters that have had a hard time previously in life and because of this are really bitter at everything, but I’d hoped people would at least sympathize with them. So far, no one really has. Are there any tips to making a lovable cynic?

Yesterday morning I took the train into New York City. I was meditating and snoozing when someone sat next to me. Her coworker took the seat behind her, and they talked. I drifted in and out of sleep and eavesdropped. The two were supervisors. My seat-mate went on about the flaws of each of her subordinates, detailing how she set them straight. I thanked my lucky stars she wasn’t my supervisor. When I opened my eyes I saw that she was young, pretty, perfectly attired for business. I hated her – in an impermanent way. I don’t wish her ill, but I really wish the people who work for her very well.

I’m being unfair, I’m sure. She may have been absolutely right in the way she handled each situation. She may also volunteer at a local hospital, take in injured pigeons, give half her salary to disaster assistance. And she may have to be perfect because a parent criticized her mercilessly when she was little. I still took no pleasure in her company.

This may be the crux of the problem. The bitter characters may not be fun to be around on the page. Even if the reader understands, for example, that Sean’s father beat him with a belt whenever he didn’t finish his string beans, if he whines on the page, the reader may have little sympathy. In fact, knowing about the beatings may make matters worse, because the reader may feel guilty for disliking Sean and may like him even less as a result, and may go so far as to put down the story he’s in.

When I was a young woman I knew a villain, a real life villain, who had no one’s best interest at heart but his own. It took me a while to figure this out, but thanks to my husband I escaped relatively unscathed. This guy probably had an awful childhood, although I know nothing about it. But, oh my, he was fun – funny, original. A conversation with him was always fascinating. When he wanted to, he could make me feel as brilliant as he was, and when he wanted, he could make me feel as dumb as a termite. He would make a great character on the page. The reader would enjoy being in his company even while recognizing his villainy.

So the first strategy would be to make your dark characters fun on the page. Bitterness can be expressed with humor, and humor is usually appealing. Self-awareness too. The cynic who knows she’s being unreasonable and says so often wins the reader’s forgiveness.

In The Two Princesses of Bamarre, the dragon Vollys is evil. She intends to kill the main character Addie, who is in her clutches. The reader knows this and still loves her, possibly because he understands she’s desperately lonely. Her tragedy is that she always annihilates the people she loves. She traps them, comes to adore them, then has to spend every minute in their company until they start to drive her crazy. Then she murders them and misses them instantly and mourns them eternally.

One reason the reader cares for Vollys is because she appreciates Addie, whom the reader identifies with. It’s as if Vollys loves the reader. It’s hard to dislike someone who loves you.

So that’s a second strategy. If your bitter character hates the world with one exception, your main, the reader will discount the world and be content.

Vollys is also expert at showing her side of things. Dragons and humans have battled for centuries. She reveals the dragon side of the conflict. In the way she tells it the reader has to sympathize. A human hero stabbed Vollys’s mother, and Vollys recites a moving poem about her death. Another strategy: show events from the bitter character’s perspective. In an old horror movie, Repulsion (definitely adult, and only for adults who like to be scared witless), the heroine is also the villain. She’s going mad and strikes out when she thinks she’s being threatened. The threats are imagined, but the viewer sees them too. She’s impossible to hate because we know she acts out of insane self-defense.

In my books about the fairies of Neverland, the fairy Vidia cares only about flying fast. She’s nasty and self-centered, but she’s funny, and occasionally the reader glimpses a better self. Those glimpses are enough to make her sympathetic. So, allow your bitter character an occasional moment of innocence.

Even a whiny, annoying character will be tolerated by the reader if your main character loves him. Let’s imagine that your main, Thea, babysits a troubled nine-year old, Ricky, who is in a terrible mood when the reader meets him. He torments Thea because he knows how to push her buttons. She may be mad at him, but she still loves him, and in her thoughts she tells the reader why. It could go something like this: Thea sat back in the couch, stunned. When she’d told Ricky about feeling stupid she never thought he’d use the information against her. From his triumphant face she saw he’d been saving it up. Then he ducked his head as if he expected her to strike him. She saw the curls at the nape of his neck and his tee shirt label sticking out. Her fury melted. The bonus here is that the reader winds up even more pro-Thea than before. You can try this.

Along the same lines – and this is one more strategy – a narrator’s affection for a character can make the reader like him. This is from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie, a few pages after Captain Hook has wantonly killed one of his own pirates: Hook heaved a heavy sigh; and I know not why it was, perhaps it was because of the soft beauty of the evening, but there came over him a desire to confide to his faithful bo’sun the story of his life. Later on, Peter fools Hook into thinking he’s a codfish. Who can hate such a silly man?

Consider fictional characters you know who are mixed blessings but beloved anyway. Think about how the author has reconciled you to them. Go back to the books and examine how it was done, the sentences and incidents that created the effect.

Possibly the best thing about this blog is the sharing. If you have ideas about making difficult characters likable, please chime in.

Here’s a prompt: Hazel has had an unhappy life–abuse, neglect; the few good people in her life have been lost to her. She began to form a connection with one of her teachers, but he just humiliated her in front of her classmates. In her journal (her only friend) she plots revenge. Write the journal entry, and make the reader like her.

Have fun, and save what you write!