I took a big risk with my first book and had readers fall in love with someone they didn't know was the villain. Some readers couldn't get past the reveal and subsequent transformation from hero to anti-hero. No one seemed to think he acted out of character, though, which to me highlights the lengths a reader will go to in order to excuse flaws in a character they like...until they reach a flaw they can't excuse. And the cognitive dissonance created will either have them throwing their Kindles (as one reader told me) or desperately looking for a way to forgive. Or both, since she kept reading. 😄
This is the greatest comment I have read. It is more informative to the fact that if you want specific fans, you can. Thank you for this comment. Plus: you aren't really doing it, unless you are taking risks it seems.
I'm kind of confused you said the character was a villain then you said he was a antihero these are two different things and I can't understand what you're trying to communicate a villain is evil and antihero is a person with bad character traits that reluctantly Saves the Day
Many years ago, I wrote a short story with a character very much like me. When the other students in the writing workshop kept commenting on how unlikable the character was, that turned into a moment of personal growth...and then made me extra conscious of developing likable characters in the future.
YT recently asked me how I felt about your video. I gave it 5 stars and ticked all the boxes (informative, helpful, inspiring, etc.) I hope it is helpful for your channel's growth. You have been very helpful to me!
Yes ! I read my friends novel that he sent me along with my clients screen play and one thing I need is that connection. I don't always have to relate to the main character but like you said I need to understand their motives and their vulnerabilities with out that the story becomes stagnant for me. Great video !
I was so excited when someone in a group posted she critiques the first chapters. I took a leap and handed over my first chapter (small fee), and when she returned it I was excited about how well it went. In the first chapter, she said she already cared about my MC and wanted him to have his Happily-Ever-After. He felt real, she could see him, she could feel his emotions, and that is the most important part for me, the rest can be edited, but if a character I love didn't come across to the readers as someone they cared about, it would have been a bit harder for me to fix.
From draft one to draft three (final draft before query) I’ve developed my characters much that I ended up changing one of their names because he was no longer the same person. When I drive for work (a four hour drive is not uncommon) I will often have conversations with characters in my head and get to know them. I’ve got entire profiles for my characters in my head that will never make it into the book but if you asked me their most embarrassing moment or their favorite color, I can tell you. My story only tells a small portion of their lives, but I know each person’s entire story. I’ve found the better I know my characters before I write them, the more relatable and real they become for my readers. That’s just my process, but I have much fun doing it that way.
While watching your video this morning, I was inspired with the perfect back story to add to the vulnerability of the primary protagonist in my current project. Thanks for the tip.
As always, great insight and guidance! I've struggled with my main character in that he has a certain habit that is quirky, and that sets him apart from most people, but I don't want the run the risk of it being TOO quirky, and become a distraction or even something that turns the reader off. I don't want to reveal it here, but this video has helped me I think hone and revise his quirkiness a bit so that it is not something severe, but does make him unique. Great work, Alyssa!
This is interesting cos in reading the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost world,- which I've yet to finish) and CS Lewis (Ransom in the Space Trilogy), I noted that a number of their characters were not likeable, at least initially, but you ended up supporting that one redeemable quality that serve them well when adversity struck
I've just stumbled over this channel and I firstly gotta say: it give me hope 😂 So long, you might not read: Don’t get discouraged if you’re facing devastating critique about your characters. There may be some truth behind it, but also precisely look into the audience who’s giving you the feedback, before throwing the advice into your projects. Regarding this video: I'm in a writing group, in which is our goal to give each other feedback to the projects we're working on. Yes, I've experienced that people didn't like characters - but looking back and rewriting a loooooot of things, makes me think a little differently about it all, now. I hardly recognize the characters from what they initially should've been. I believe many things that came up was that these specific people are just the "wrong" audience for the genre. Therefore, I think it is also critical to get the right beta readers, who are into or at least understand the genre. It's not that the feedback destroyed the entire thing, but I've listened to critique, changed it to the way people thought it should be, just to rewrite it into the way it'd been before (with a better style), because they've noticed it's not working the way they'd suggested. Even though the characters were somewhat likeable in the way you described it, they've changed a lot to be more sympathetic to my audience at the time. And even after the rewrite of the rewrite, I felt like I had to "defend" keeping bad characters traits in order to keep more flaws than only the ones the characters cannot do anything about - such as mental illness, making them do questionable things. It was a very hard and time-consuming experience, but at the time I thought it was the right decision since they're all very educated people confronted with different types of literature in their everyday lives. Nowadays, I'd think twice whether to take advice on Romance/Thrillers/Romantic Thrillers/Romantic Suspense/Dark Romance/YouNameIt from an audience, who enjoys thrillers as movies, but would rather read fantasy novels.
Good video. I would add that giving your protagonist introspection, self-deprecation, and a sense of humor (maybe even snarky) can make him or her engaging. Depends on the character, but characters with a bit of wit are ones I am drawn to.
It’s odd, I’ve written an entire book and never felt particularly attached to a character or felt like I was successful at making them likable. Then I wrote a short 14,000 word story and it was literally a tear jerker because of the characters. I feel like such an amateur because I’m struggling to identify out why one worked and the other was garbage 😂 😂 I love your channel by the way. My comment was a bit of a tangent, but an algorithm influencing tangent ;D have a great day
Sometimes it's about when you write the story and now the story itself! I hope you're able to figure out why exactly the short story worked well for you!
Well, favorite writing coach, I sure needed to gain insight from this video but there are no captions available and I'm deaf (kind of). (But you're still my favorite writing coach). Oliver John Calvert LinkedIn books on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
"This is not the book for me. I still cannot stand any of the characters and cannot for the life of me feel anything but contempt for them. They feel stupid, dickheaded, and like the people who die in 80's slasher flicks..." My first review. A lot of helpful advise in your video, appreciate the help.
Hey big question I have a novel in the works that centers around six different characters and there story’s and over the novel will all come together in to one big storyline. My real question was though the idea of making a flawed character who believes he is flawless himself. Though for this to work he needs the power and validation of the plot to show why he believes he’s flawless.
I've been working on a story about an anti-hero character. I love the character even though I mean for them to be awful, but I haven't gotten good feedback from my test readers. I've tried giving bits of backstory hinting why the character developed into a jerk, I've tried showing the person having good intentions, I've tried giving moments of vulnerability, and I LOVE this story. But. My beta readers don't like the MC. Thanks for your videos ^_^ I've been binge-watching writer stuff as NaNoWriMo is starting to creep up again and yours have such a nice, mellow tone.
Ooh, an anti-hero can be hard to execute--but it sounds like you're putting a lot of good thought into them! I wish you the best of luck with your story :)
Hi Im writing a short story which is about a son whose father has developed a terminal illness and the story is about the mental struggles the son is going through. The storyline is about the emotional journey that he goes through from shock and despair at the beginning to compassion and kindness for his suffering father. I was wondering does this sound like a good plot. I'm having a lot of difficulties in writing it. Would appreciate any feedback Ross
Sometimes a topic like this is already bouncing around in my head, but a video makes me think about it more deliberately. Thanks for the tips. Question. Do you also like to write? Just curious. Peace.
I struggle with this because in the first book of my series the protagonist is only twelve, although the series isn't aimed at twelve year-olds. I've had beta readers find her unlikeable for behaving immaturely or selfishly, or making the wrong decisions in situations. In no way am I criticising my beta readers, obviously I'm far too close to the story to view the characters objectively. How do I balance realistically showing someone at a young age, making mistakes and not thinking through their potentially self-serving actions, with making sure they're still likeable enough for readers to root for them? I remember being twelve and to write my protagonist I read my diary during that time, which honestly had some hilariously brutal things about other people in it that make me cringe with guilt now. So I want to do the protagonist justice as a true-to-life twelve year-old girl (unless twelve year old me was just unusually mean?) and avoid sugar-coating what it's like to be young and inexperienced in life. But I want to make it clear to the readers that her intentions are either good but just misplaced, or that her naivety means she just doesn't see when she's doing things wrong. At the moment she seems to come across as cruel and self-important
I wrote a scene where my main character was about to be mean to a child of her enemy in order to escape. I read the scene again and thought: "WTF, no you don't" and re-wrote the scene.
While I agree with what had been said in this video, I would like to point out that a number of unlikable characters who make interesting or surprising choices under difficult circumstances can still make for a compelling story. A lot of political or military stories function in this fashion.
That's a great point! Characters don't necessarily have to be "likable" to be compelling. As long as the reader can connect with them on some level and get invested in their story, that's what really matters.
me now omw to make a villain struggling with malignant shame that goes down the path that they do because they feel that they are the things that are said about them and that they can't change 😈😈
I hear a lot about how you have to make your readers care about the characters, or maybe just the main ones. Why? Maybe this is a female thing, but I can't ever remember caring about the main character. I think the character should be interesting, I think the plot should be interesting, but what good does caring for a character do? The character's future has already been determined in the pages of the book; so no matter how much I care about him/her, nothing will change that. I read somewhere that female readers tend to identify with the character more than male readers. Maybe that's the reason, (and the reason one hears so much about the importance of readers caring about the character is because most literary editors and agents nowadays seem to be female.) Anyway, that's my two cents.
I'm not sure about the gendered differences, but I do think that a likeable main character can definitely compel a reader to stick with a story longer than an unlikeable character--there have been times where I've stopped enjoying a story because the MC's voice is so annoying! But it's interesting hearing your take on it--thank you for sharing!
Great, a word I don't know. Good chance of being important. Google... "a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme" Are you fuckin with me?
'Epi" a prefix occurring in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “upon,” “on,” “over,” “near,” “at,” “before,” “after” (epicedium; epidermis; epigene; epitome); on this model, used in the formation of new compound words (epicardium; epinephrine). So It sounds like you could put it damn near anywhere.
This may seem odd, but I kind of… want people to hate my main character. I still want him to be empathetic, but only in the beginning. By the end, they will see that he is such a bad person that they’ll end up hating him in the end and loving the character they were preprogrammed to hate from the beginning. Basically, I want the protagonist to be kind of like Azula from ATLA: likeable and understandable but not redeemable
I took a big risk with my first book and had readers fall in love with someone they didn't know was the villain. Some readers couldn't get past the reveal and subsequent transformation from hero to anti-hero. No one seemed to think he acted out of character, though, which to me highlights the lengths a reader will go to in order to excuse flaws in a character they like...until they reach a flaw they can't excuse. And the cognitive dissonance created will either have them throwing their Kindles (as one reader told me) or desperately looking for a way to forgive. Or both, since she kept reading. 😄
Haha, what a great example of a character's likeability/unlikeability! Thank you for sharing :)
This is the greatest comment I have read. It is more informative to the fact that if you want specific fans, you can. Thank you for this comment. Plus: you aren't really doing it, unless you are taking risks it seems.
I'm kind of confused you said the character was a villain then you said he was a antihero these are two different things and I can't understand what you're trying to communicate a villain is evil and antihero is a person with bad character traits that reluctantly Saves the Day
@@corruptauthor Villain or hero--it's all a matter of perspective.
Many years ago, I wrote a short story with a character very much like me. When the other students in the writing workshop kept commenting on how unlikable the character was, that turned into a moment of personal growth...and then made me extra conscious of developing likable characters in the future.
Oh no! I'm glad you managed to find a positive out of that situation!
YT recently asked me how I felt about your video. I gave it 5 stars and ticked all the boxes (informative, helpful, inspiring, etc.)
I hope it is helpful for your channel's growth. You have been very helpful to me!
Yes ! I read my friends novel that he sent me along with my clients screen play and one thing I need is that connection. I don't always have to relate to the main character but like you said I need to understand their motives and their vulnerabilities with out that the story becomes stagnant for me. Great video !
I love how I typed in "how to write a character who's nothing like you" and a video on likable characters pops up. 😅
I was so excited when someone in a group posted she critiques the first chapters. I took a leap and handed over my first chapter (small fee), and when she returned it I was excited about how well it went. In the first chapter, she said she already cared about my MC and wanted him to have his Happily-Ever-After. He felt real, she could see him, she could feel his emotions, and that is the most important part for me, the rest can be edited, but if a character I love didn't come across to the readers as someone they cared about, it would have been a bit harder for me to fix.
From draft one to draft three (final draft before query) I’ve developed my characters much that I ended up changing one of their names because he was no longer the same person. When I drive for work (a four hour drive is not uncommon) I will often have conversations with characters in my head and get to know them. I’ve got entire profiles for my characters in my head that will never make it into the book but if you asked me their most embarrassing moment or their favorite color, I can tell you. My story only tells a small portion of their lives, but I know each person’s entire story. I’ve found the better I know my characters before I write them, the more relatable and real they become for my readers. That’s just my process, but I have much fun doing it that way.
Wow, that's thorough! Thank you for sharing your process :)
While watching your video this morning, I was inspired with the perfect back story to add to the vulnerability of the primary protagonist in my current project. Thanks for the tip.
I'm glad it helped!
As always, great insight and guidance! I've struggled with my main character in that he has a certain habit that is quirky, and that sets him apart from most people, but I don't want the run the risk of it being TOO quirky, and become a distraction or even something that turns the reader off. I don't want to reveal it here, but this video has helped me I think hone and revise his quirkiness a bit so that it is not something severe, but does make him unique. Great work, Alyssa!
This is an area with which I struggle a lot. Thanks for your insight!
This is interesting cos in reading the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost world,- which I've yet to finish) and CS Lewis (Ransom in the Space Trilogy), I noted that a number of their characters were not likeable, at least initially, but you ended up supporting that one redeemable quality that serve them well when adversity struck
My goodness. I feel like sending you my first chapter, so I can know if my characters are in line with what you've said.
I've just stumbled over this channel and I firstly gotta say: it give me hope 😂
So long, you might not read: Don’t get discouraged if you’re facing devastating critique about your characters. There may be some truth behind it, but also precisely look into the audience who’s giving you the feedback, before throwing the advice into your projects.
Regarding this video: I'm in a writing group, in which is our goal to give each other feedback to the projects we're working on. Yes, I've experienced that people didn't like characters - but looking back and rewriting a loooooot of things, makes me think a little differently about it all, now. I hardly recognize the characters from what they initially should've been. I believe many things that came up was that these specific people are just the "wrong" audience for the genre. Therefore, I think it is also critical to get the right beta readers, who are into or at least understand the genre. It's not that the feedback destroyed the entire thing, but I've listened to critique, changed it to the way people thought it should be, just to rewrite it into the way it'd been before (with a better style), because they've noticed it's not working the way they'd suggested. Even though the characters were somewhat likeable in the way you described it, they've changed a lot to be more sympathetic to my audience at the time. And even after the rewrite of the rewrite, I felt like I had to "defend" keeping bad characters traits in order to keep more flaws than only the ones the characters cannot do anything about - such as mental illness, making them do questionable things. It was a very hard and time-consuming experience, but at the time I thought it was the right decision since they're all very educated people confronted with different types of literature in their everyday lives. Nowadays, I'd think twice whether to take advice on Romance/Thrillers/Romantic Thrillers/Romantic Suspense/Dark Romance/YouNameIt from an audience, who enjoys thrillers as movies, but would rather read fantasy novels.
Good video. I would add that giving your protagonist introspection, self-deprecation, and a sense of humor (maybe even snarky) can make him or her engaging. Depends on the character, but characters with a bit of wit are ones I am drawn to.
Great point!
Hi, Alyssa. Thanks for this video. Very informative.
You're so welcome!
Relatability and likeability are fine and all, but readers can easily tell if the character in question is just a vessel for a petty power trip.
True!
It’s odd, I’ve written an entire book and never felt particularly attached to a character or felt like I was successful at making them likable. Then I wrote a short 14,000 word story and it was literally a tear jerker because of the characters. I feel like such an amateur because I’m struggling to identify out why one worked and the other was garbage 😂 😂
I love your channel by the way. My comment was a bit of a tangent, but an algorithm influencing tangent ;D have a great day
Sometimes it's about when you write the story and now the story itself! I hope you're able to figure out why exactly the short story worked well for you!
Great tips.
Glad you think so!
Well, favorite writing coach, I sure needed to gain insight from this video but there are no captions available and I'm deaf (kind of). (But you're still my favorite writing coach). Oliver John Calvert LinkedIn books on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
💯
"This is not the book for me. I still cannot stand any of the characters and cannot for the life of me feel anything but contempt for them. They feel stupid, dickheaded, and like the people who die in 80's slasher flicks..." My first review.
A lot of helpful advise in your video, appreciate the help.
Anne Rice LIVES
Hey big question I have a novel in the works that centers around six different characters and there story’s and over the novel will all come together in to one big storyline. My real question was though the idea of making a flawed character who believes he is flawless himself. Though for this to work he needs the power and validation of the plot to show why he believes he’s flawless.
I've been working on a story about an anti-hero character. I love the character even though I mean for them to be awful, but I haven't gotten good feedback from my test readers. I've tried giving bits of backstory hinting why the character developed into a jerk, I've tried showing the person having good intentions, I've tried giving moments of vulnerability, and I LOVE this story. But. My beta readers don't like the MC.
Thanks for your videos ^_^ I've been binge-watching writer stuff as NaNoWriMo is starting to creep up again and yours have such a nice, mellow tone.
Ooh, an anti-hero can be hard to execute--but it sounds like you're putting a lot of good thought into them! I wish you the best of luck with your story :)
I think Succession is a perfect example of how to make a great story with totally unlikable characters.
6:20
Hi Im writing a short story which is about a son whose father has developed a terminal illness and the story is about the mental struggles the son is going through. The storyline is about the emotional journey that he goes through from shock and despair at the beginning to compassion and kindness for his suffering father. I was wondering does this sound like a good plot. I'm having a lot of difficulties in writing it. Would appreciate any feedback Ross
Sometimes a topic like this is already bouncing around in my head, but a video makes me think about it more deliberately. Thanks for the tips. Question. Do you also like to write? Just curious. Peace.
I struggle with this because in the first book of my series the protagonist is only twelve, although the series isn't aimed at twelve year-olds. I've had beta readers find her unlikeable for behaving immaturely or selfishly, or making the wrong decisions in situations. In no way am I criticising my beta readers, obviously I'm far too close to the story to view the characters objectively.
How do I balance realistically showing someone at a young age, making mistakes and not thinking through their potentially self-serving actions, with making sure they're still likeable enough for readers to root for them?
I remember being twelve and to write my protagonist I read my diary during that time, which honestly had some hilariously brutal things about other people in it that make me cringe with guilt now. So I want to do the protagonist justice as a true-to-life twelve year-old girl (unless twelve year old me was just unusually mean?) and avoid sugar-coating what it's like to be young and inexperienced in life. But I want to make it clear to the readers that her intentions are either good but just misplaced, or that her naivety means she just doesn't see when she's doing things wrong. At the moment she seems to come across as cruel and self-important
I wrote a scene where my main character was about to be mean to a child of her enemy in order to escape. I read the scene again and thought: "WTF, no you don't" and re-wrote the scene.
Haha!
Does anyone know what 'upmarket fiction' means? I keep seeing that in MSWLs.
I have a video explaining the differences between genres here!: th-cam.com/video/tnpgfCqR1UM/w-d-xo.html
While I agree with what had been said in this video, I would like to point out that a number of unlikable characters who make interesting or surprising choices under difficult circumstances can still make for a compelling story. A lot of political or military stories function in this fashion.
That's a great point! Characters don't necessarily have to be "likable" to be compelling. As long as the reader can connect with them on some level and get invested in their story, that's what really matters.
@@AlyssaMatesic I appreciate you taking the time to reply. :D
me now omw to make a villain struggling with malignant shame that goes down the path that they do because they feel that they are the things that are said about them and that they can't change 😈😈
Erik from the Phantom of the Opera
Enough said
I think terrible people as characters are underrated.
Haha, that's fair!
I hear a lot about how you have to make your readers care about the characters, or maybe just the main ones. Why? Maybe this is a female thing, but I can't ever remember caring about the main character. I think the character should be interesting, I think the plot should be interesting, but what good does caring for a character do? The character's future has already been determined in the pages of the book; so no matter how much I care about him/her, nothing will change that.
I read somewhere that female readers tend to identify with the character more than male readers. Maybe that's the reason, (and the reason one hears so much about the importance of readers caring about the character is because most literary editors and agents nowadays seem to be female.)
Anyway, that's my two cents.
I'm not sure about the gendered differences, but I do think that a likeable main character can definitely compel a reader to stick with a story longer than an unlikeable character--there have been times where I've stopped enjoying a story because the MC's voice is so annoying! But it's interesting hearing your take on it--thank you for sharing!
Hi Alyssa. I muted your voice by mistake and found out you look like singing when on mute.
Where do you place an epigraph when writing a manuscript?
Great, a word I don't know. Good chance of being important. Google...
"a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme"
Are you fuckin with me?
'Epi" a prefix occurring in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “upon,” “on,” “over,” “near,” “at,” “before,” “after” (epicedium; epidermis; epigene; epitome); on this model, used in the formation of new compound words (epicardium; epinephrine).
So It sounds like you could put it damn near anywhere.
This may seem odd, but I kind of… want people to hate my main character. I still want him to be empathetic, but only in the beginning. By the end, they will see that he is such a bad person that they’ll end up hating him in the end and loving the character they were preprogrammed to hate from the beginning. Basically, I want the protagonist to be kind of like Azula from ATLA: likeable and understandable but not redeemable
You mean Heathcliff 😭😂
@@skywa7183 I still gotta read wuthering heights 😱
@@chimeiamv take Ur time. It's SO GOOD.
Too much fluff. Skip to 6:04
Cue up all the edgelords writing parodies titled "Is Mary Sue a Rape Magnet?" in response...