Character rehab

by Dana

I'm working on a point of view character and I have a problem.  She…isn't nice.  She's made crappy choices in her life, and her professional career is a shambles, through bad luck and her own actions.  She drinks too much.  She pushes people away…and yet, and yet, and yet, she is the protagonist.  Heroine, even, for she does act heroically in the end of the story.  Let's call her Anna.  Thing is…right now, Anna's such a misery-guts that she's coming off as sullen, not tough.  A basket case, not quirky.  Worse than that:  she's not interesting.  Sure, it's only a first draft, something I'm just noodling around with, but (not to sound too Carrie Bradshaw or anything) what do you do when you're not sure your character is someone you'd want to hang out with? 

Lots of rotten characters are, if not likable, compelling.  Defoe's Roxana, Tony Soprano, Scarlett O'Hara--none of these are sterling personalities, but they have…something.   Something admirable:  cunning, charisma, guts, quick wit.  Something that makes you want to see them…succeed?  Make the right choice?  A better choice?  You stick around even when they do awful things.  I need Anna to get some of that.

I began to wish for some kind of Character Rehab, a spa where I could send Anna off for a couple of weeks to find herself.  She could enjoy the benefits of the Sea-Salt Personality Exfoliation, the Swiss Pomegranate Backstory Peel, and the Rejuvenating Hot Rock Empathy Massage.  All this pampering would shape her bad attitude into just the right degree of tragic misunderstanding, turn her sharp comments into quips, and soft-brush those rough edges into endearing gruffness…

There being no such thing, just me in my office with my iPod, I resorted to chewing her out.  Okay, so I'm being childish, I figured, but it will make me feel better.  The writing books say to go with what is moving you at the moment, channel that.  So I did.

I started listing what I was so annoyed about, and because Anna was there with me, she started answering back.  Tartly.  That turned into dialogue, and my chewing out started to sound more like her cousin and less like me.  Okay, I can work with this, I thought, and kept going.  A bit of her backstory crept into it, and then I found out a little about her cousin, and where he might end up.  I kept writing. 

I haven't solved the Anna problem, not yet.  And I may never use that dialogue, or it may not end up being dialogue, or it may end up taking place between different characters.  But I know more now, than I did.  Sometimes, in the midst of frustration, you luck out and stumble onto curiosity, which will lead you to answers you can work with. 

Comments

[Louise Ure]

Dana, I was having exactly the same problem with the female protagonist in my current WIP. She's crabby, a failure, unsocial, not pretty. I wasn't sure I (or any readers) would want to spend 400 pages with her.

So I made her a man. Funny how all those traits work just fine for a male protagonist. ;-)

[Dana Cameron]

Thanks for stopping by, Louise!

Sometimes it's a name change, a gentle nudge, and sometimes it's a drastic make-over--or a sex change. But yeah, if a character isn't gelling, it's probably because there's more work to be done. Isn't it a relief when you figure out what the deal is!

[Sheila Connolly]

I love Louise's suggestion!

If you want to be trite and superficial, give Anna a pet (a furry one, not a snake or an iguana). She can reveal her inner soft side in conversations with Fluffy.

[Dana Cameron]

Sheila, it would take a whole dump truck full of kittens to work on this one!

And...I have to admit to being burned. When I finally gave Emma Fielding a cat, it turned out not to like her. :( She had to wait another couple of books before she got one who did.

Thanks for stopping by!

[krisneri]

I had to wrestle with that concern in the writing of my book, NEVER SAY DIE. Though I'd used the protagonist, Zoey, in a couple of published short stories, the novel was set before those stories, when Zoey was still quite damaged. On one hand, a deeply flawed character gives a writer a great opportunity to work with a strong growth arc, and I enjoyed that. But I continually wrestled with her likability.

But some of the great characters in this genre are quite flawed. Dave Robicheaux struggles with sobriety, Harry Boesch with anger, to name just two.

Wait! Those are men. Louise may have discovered something important.

[Dana Cameron]

Oh, absolutely, Kris, and I have no problem with her being flawed. Flawed characters can be BIG FUN to write! And I'm not so worried about her being incredibly likable, either, as long as I can nail down that ineffable something that makes her...engaging. Interesting. It's such a balancing act, especially for a main character.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Louise--that's wonderful.And scary.

Dana--maybe YOU don't like her, but maybe someone else would. Or maybe they used to like her.. Why? And who would that be?

[Dana Cameron]

You're right, Hank. It turns out there are people who've been with her for a long time, and that must be for some reason. I need to spend some time on that. Nice catch!