Okay, here is my question for today. How likable does your main character have to be?
I ask this for a reason. I took my first chapters of the new book to my writing group last night. Three of the four fellow writers there praised them; one did not. The one who did not said that she found my main character too unlikable. But the person who loved the chapters the most said that she loved them precisely BECAUSE my main character was unlikable and so she could see that the terrible events that were about to befall her would prove to be a powerful catalyst for her change and growth. Whereas if Sierra had been completely likable, the book would just have been a story about how bad things can happen to good people, and ain't that a crying shame.
Of course, I have a vested interest in agreeing with the person who loved the chapters, but I want ALL my readers to love them. Maybe that's an unrealistic goal. Or maybe I can do something that will make Phyllis like my character more, without making Leslie like the chapters less.
When I took an online writing course a couple of years ago from the brilliant teacher Dennis Foley, he said that you DON'T have to have a main character who is likable, so long as you have a main character who is fascinating. He cited Scarlett O'Hara as a case in point. I don't know if my main character is fascinating or not. And I actually liked her myself, or at least saw a lot of a certain side of myself in her: my younger goody-goody self.
In any case, my only option right now is just to keep on writing.
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Claudia, I love this topic! I've been trying for years to write about a very unlikable main character. I've given up over and over. Someday I hope to be able to figure it out. It's definitely a challenge. I like what Dennis Foley said about making the character fascinating. Actually, fascinating is much more powerful than likable. Perhaps that's your way in. Is your character someone who would be interesting enough to want to sit next to for a long bus ride? Someone you would really want to get to know?
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this topic as you figure it out!
Some of my favorite books and movies are about characters who are both bad people yet still oddly likable. Alex DeLarge from Kubrick's version of A Clockwork Orange is one example.
ReplyDeleteThanks for both of your comments. I think I'm feeling uneasy about this because the reader does need to want to read on, and does have to CARE what happens to the main character and feel invested in it. With Scarlett, we DO root for her to take Ashley away from Melanie, and to hold on to Tara, and to win back Rhett's love at the end, despite her scheming and other unattractive traits. How did Margaret Mitchell do it?
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite books is The Epicure's Lament by Kate Christensen and her main character is AWFUL. And I love it.
ReplyDeleteI'll look for that one, Francesca. The trouble is that my main character isn't AWFUL in any kind of delicious way; she's sort of a prim, priggish goody-goody. But part of me is just like her.
ReplyDelete_A Confederacy of Dunces_ is one of my favorite books ever, and Ignatius Reilly is unlikable in so many ways. I guess you have to just find a way of bringing out the humanity in the character, and put him/her in situations that make the reader feel for the character even though s/he's not likable. We all feel for people we don't like, if the circumstances are right.
ReplyDeleteWe always talk about this when I teach _The Secret Garden_ because my students are struck by the depiction of Mary as unsociable and unlikable at the beginning. I think readers are fascinated if the book makes us care to learn how the character got that way, or what her other more likable traits are, or what will make her change in the course of the novel or at least what will happen to her and how others relate to her
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