A likable person and a likable character are different. Learn what actually makes readers care and use my likability matrix to see where your story lands.
Another great article. I figured out a while ago that "nice" doesn't guarantee likable in a character, and it was a surprise at the time. Readers kept saying they liked O'Malley, but he's a terrible person. Violent, bad tempered, a murderer, arrogant, often mean to the main protagonist. He's not "nice" and definitely not someone you would want to meet in real life, but whenever he shows up on the page, readers can be sure that something non-boring is going to happen.
In the first book. (And the third, and several more after that.) That was from basically all of the early beta readers, from long before I published and was just showing the early first draft of the first book to friends, and it surprised me that so many said O'Malley was their favorite part. I didn't expect him to be likable because he's definitely not nice, but he is interesting, I guess.
Thank you for the article! Great point that a story works best with likable characters and a gripping plot, but a story can still work even if it only has one of those elements. Great point about characters becoming likeable when they feel real, too. (My favorite characters from fiction feel viscerally real.)
Although, I think a character feels real when it feels like he/she could be a real person, so I think writers should try to exercise caution with likability as a person vs. likability as a character. If "likeable" means interesting or well-written (like what's in the term "villains readers love to hate"), that's probably not problematic.
But if it means trying to make a villainous character likeable in and of themselves, that runs the risk of inadvertently saying it's all right to be evil if there's some agreeable quality in the person being evil. That's one reason I don't like writing or reading "sympathetic villains," because it usually blurs the line between right and wrong, and says readers should feel sorry for someone who chose evil because of what happened to them (incidentally, I notice those kinds of villains usually end up hurting people who had nothing to do with what happened to them).
I think that could be harmful to readers in abusive situations where they're already predisposed to think they have to excuse or cover up their abusers' harming them because maybe their abusers are only doing it because of something that happened to them. I think it's also insulting to readers who have survived bad things themselves and chosen to do good instead of evil. Whether or not writers intend for readers to translate what they read into their thoughts on real things, it can happen, so I think caution is in order when writing a "likable" villain.
I think that what you're saying is very important. My personal take is that fiction is safe place to explore both characters that "you love to hate" and also characters that are a "sympathetic villain".
Now, there are sympathetic villains that I don't like as well as villains that I don't really hate. But I'm going to be clear, I agree with you. The fact that a character is likable should never make their actions agreeable. Maybe we understand. But that doesn't make it okay. Because you're right. It can be harmful for readers in abusive relationships. And that's why it's our responsibility as authors to create content warnings and be very clear that what they're doing isn't okay.
I've read books that do a great job of leaving content warnings on the very beginning and in which the author stresses that the reader's mental health is important. We can enjoy these fictional characters all we want, to explore and create layered stories, but we have to keep a foot in reality.
I really appreciate your point about content warnings and making it clear that what the villains are doing is wrong. I don't think those things are as common as they should be. I think readers should be allowed to know what they're getting into when they pick up a book, but that's often not the case. And the ambiguity regarding right and wrong in so many books isn't going to help anyone--clarity is important in every aspect of a story.
I'm glad you've found books that are great about their content warnings that way! More books ought to use that method. A couple of my stories have trigger warnings at their beginnings and I'll likely end up listing trigger warnings for future stories with heavier topics. I very much agree about keeping a foot in reality!
I have to add a trigger warning in the beginning of the book I'm writing when we get there too. I don't intend to write a heavy book, but it should be a common practice!
Thank you for including one. I actually learned about doing that from seeing other authors' trigger warnings on their books. Yeah, my books aren't heavy in and of themselves, because I always end them happily (there are too many sad endings in real life without me putting them in fiction), but they do have heavier parts, such as tense chase, threat, or escape scenes that could be disturbing for some readers.
This is really helpful and well put together. I especially appreciate the point about how important plot/character elements are to different types of stories. I write a lot of character driven, but I don’t think I up my stakes enough for people to really feel invested, even if those stakes don’t have to be grand.
Thanks for reading Margo! I'm glad it was helpful. I feel also that my stories are mostly character driven and for a long time I thought that I had to spice up the plot, but then as I learned more, I found out that stakes can be internal and not something grand.
Very good points made here. Characters acting out of character is one of my biggest pet peeves (especially if I'd already started liking or caring about them).
Thank you for another great article. It's interesting how a person who is unlikable in real life can be likable in stories, to the point where you look forward to their scenes. I liked your example with Cersei Lannister. For me, Tony Stark is a prominent character who is very likable in stories, yet one I would probably detest in real life.
P.S. I get more inspired to write when I read your articles, so keep them coming! ☺️
I was going to ask you something along the lines of “but why Tony Stark?” then I thought about it and well, it makes sense 😅, but I’d still like to read your take.
And that P.S. is what I aim for with my articles :) the fact that it makes you feel like writing also works as fuel for me to keep creating these.
This distinction between a likable person and a likable character is spot-on. The Cersei Lannister example is such a great way to illustrate it. Really thoughtful article.
Interesting thoughts. On Cersei though, I disagree. When I read Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth and its sequels and prequels, I always had characters who I detested and was desperately waiting for them to get their comeuppance, but when the comeuppance came, it was never satisfying. Cersei like Joffrey felt like these kind of characters. To me they had few if any redeeming qualities, they were cartoonish because of that. Having a hated a villain who keeps you turning the pages to see them die is engaging, but the more interesting villains are the layered ones who aren’t evil for evil’s sake. I don’t like the term ‘Mary Sue and Gary Stew’ but I get why people don’t like these characters and I don’t like them. Rey in Star Wars is a classic example. When I watched the sequels, I felt like Rey’s victories weren’t earned. Her successes seemed too easy and I didn’t feel like there’d been sufficient characterisation to justify and explain her successes. The best villains are not purely evil for evil’s sake, they have a rational understandable motive and values which at least from their perspective are reasonable. The best heroes fail, and make mistakes, then learn from those mistakes. Take the antagonist in my 6th Novel ‘Ofelia’. They have a set of values and an aspiration. It’s not one that everyone would agree with - but it makes sense to them and people can empathise with them. They categorically don’t just go around doing evil because it’s fun. The villain in the sequel is complicated too. He does and has done unspeakable things, but he has a reason to, and he has a set of values he ascribes to. The second book has a different antagonist, she’s manipulated, groomed even and ends up in a very vulnerable state. Her win is very, very last minute, but it’s earned because the win is subtly woven into the subplot and foreshadowed, not such that the reader will see it coming, but that when the climactic event unfolds people will realise and the earlier chapters will suddenly take on new meaning. The protagonist from the first book makes an appearance, I spend significant time deepening her characterisation and filling in the gaps in her history that were left from book one. This is very do-able because the character in question is nearly 600 years old. Over that time though, she’s made mistakes, repeatedly. She’s got things wrong, but she’s learned from her mistakes. The sequel is interesting actually because she enters the sequel as more vulnerable than she was for the most of book 1, and she’s confident because of her long history and survival. However, she’s guilty of hubris and doesn’t really understand the nature of the threat, because it’s unlike anything she’s encountered before. I think the truth is villains and heroes, villains shouldn’t be 100% villainous and heroes shouldn’t be 100% heroic because that’s more true to life. It’s more real and people can understand and empathise with real characters - even if they have been living in the shadows since 1440!
On Cersei, I have to admit she's a debatable character. You're constantly understanding why she's the way she is and then she does... something 😅
In my article, I try to defend this idea that characters shouldn't be 100% good or 100% bad too :) If anything, I think that makes the good guys insufferable and the bad guys very uninteresting.
The antagonist in Ofelia, the second book, sounds the most interesting to me because of the win you're mentioning. Because it's very last minute, I wonder: did she plan the win like that? or is this one of those instances in which the very vulnerable character gets that win from a last stroke of luck and they have this "epiphany" in which they become, not evil, but maybe "morally gray".
I also like that she's confident but hubris is her downfall. I like characters that are layered in a way that, even if they've lived in the shadows since 1440, there's still space for human miscalculation.
The climax is foreshadowed from very early on, but it’s very subtle. It’s a victory that feels earned and it’s actually seeded from things the antagonist teaches.
Another great article. I figured out a while ago that "nice" doesn't guarantee likable in a character, and it was a surprise at the time. Readers kept saying they liked O'Malley, but he's a terrible person. Violent, bad tempered, a murderer, arrogant, often mean to the main protagonist. He's not "nice" and definitely not someone you would want to meet in real life, but whenever he shows up on the page, readers can be sure that something non-boring is going to happen.
Thank you so much for reading :)
In what book does O'Malley appears? And did readers just messaged you saying they wanted more from him or just comments in general?
In the first book. (And the third, and several more after that.) That was from basically all of the early beta readers, from long before I published and was just showing the early first draft of the first book to friends, and it surprised me that so many said O'Malley was their favorite part. I didn't expect him to be likable because he's definitely not nice, but he is interesting, I guess.
I'm like 35% through with the book, may have to advance further to meet him
His first appearance is Book 1, Chapter 7.
Thank you for the article! Great point that a story works best with likable characters and a gripping plot, but a story can still work even if it only has one of those elements. Great point about characters becoming likeable when they feel real, too. (My favorite characters from fiction feel viscerally real.)
Although, I think a character feels real when it feels like he/she could be a real person, so I think writers should try to exercise caution with likability as a person vs. likability as a character. If "likeable" means interesting or well-written (like what's in the term "villains readers love to hate"), that's probably not problematic.
But if it means trying to make a villainous character likeable in and of themselves, that runs the risk of inadvertently saying it's all right to be evil if there's some agreeable quality in the person being evil. That's one reason I don't like writing or reading "sympathetic villains," because it usually blurs the line between right and wrong, and says readers should feel sorry for someone who chose evil because of what happened to them (incidentally, I notice those kinds of villains usually end up hurting people who had nothing to do with what happened to them).
I think that could be harmful to readers in abusive situations where they're already predisposed to think they have to excuse or cover up their abusers' harming them because maybe their abusers are only doing it because of something that happened to them. I think it's also insulting to readers who have survived bad things themselves and chosen to do good instead of evil. Whether or not writers intend for readers to translate what they read into their thoughts on real things, it can happen, so I think caution is in order when writing a "likable" villain.
Thank you for the article!
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment Li🙌
I think that what you're saying is very important. My personal take is that fiction is safe place to explore both characters that "you love to hate" and also characters that are a "sympathetic villain".
Now, there are sympathetic villains that I don't like as well as villains that I don't really hate. But I'm going to be clear, I agree with you. The fact that a character is likable should never make their actions agreeable. Maybe we understand. But that doesn't make it okay. Because you're right. It can be harmful for readers in abusive relationships. And that's why it's our responsibility as authors to create content warnings and be very clear that what they're doing isn't okay.
I've read books that do a great job of leaving content warnings on the very beginning and in which the author stresses that the reader's mental health is important. We can enjoy these fictional characters all we want, to explore and create layered stories, but we have to keep a foot in reality.
Thanks for reading :)
Thank you for the thoughtful response, Jesse!
I really appreciate your point about content warnings and making it clear that what the villains are doing is wrong. I don't think those things are as common as they should be. I think readers should be allowed to know what they're getting into when they pick up a book, but that's often not the case. And the ambiguity regarding right and wrong in so many books isn't going to help anyone--clarity is important in every aspect of a story.
I'm glad you've found books that are great about their content warnings that way! More books ought to use that method. A couple of my stories have trigger warnings at their beginnings and I'll likely end up listing trigger warnings for future stories with heavier topics. I very much agree about keeping a foot in reality!
Thanks for writing. :)
I have to add a trigger warning in the beginning of the book I'm writing when we get there too. I don't intend to write a heavy book, but it should be a common practice!
Thank you for including one. I actually learned about doing that from seeing other authors' trigger warnings on their books. Yeah, my books aren't heavy in and of themselves, because I always end them happily (there are too many sad endings in real life without me putting them in fiction), but they do have heavier parts, such as tense chase, threat, or escape scenes that could be disturbing for some readers.
This is really helpful and well put together. I especially appreciate the point about how important plot/character elements are to different types of stories. I write a lot of character driven, but I don’t think I up my stakes enough for people to really feel invested, even if those stakes don’t have to be grand.
Thanks for reading Margo! I'm glad it was helpful. I feel also that my stories are mostly character driven and for a long time I thought that I had to spice up the plot, but then as I learned more, I found out that stakes can be internal and not something grand.
Very good points made here. Characters acting out of character is one of my biggest pet peeves (especially if I'd already started liking or caring about them).
Right? I just feel betrayed when that happens. Thanks for reading :)
Thank you for another great article. It's interesting how a person who is unlikable in real life can be likable in stories, to the point where you look forward to their scenes. I liked your example with Cersei Lannister. For me, Tony Stark is a prominent character who is very likable in stories, yet one I would probably detest in real life.
P.S. I get more inspired to write when I read your articles, so keep them coming! ☺️
Thanks for reading!
I was going to ask you something along the lines of “but why Tony Stark?” then I thought about it and well, it makes sense 😅, but I’d still like to read your take.
And that P.S. is what I aim for with my articles :) the fact that it makes you feel like writing also works as fuel for me to keep creating these.
This distinction between a likable person and a likable character is spot-on. The Cersei Lannister example is such a great way to illustrate it. Really thoughtful article.
I like that we can explore these kind of themes in fiction, on someone that is likable just because they're not real 😂
Thanks for reading :)
Interesting thoughts. On Cersei though, I disagree. When I read Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth and its sequels and prequels, I always had characters who I detested and was desperately waiting for them to get their comeuppance, but when the comeuppance came, it was never satisfying. Cersei like Joffrey felt like these kind of characters. To me they had few if any redeeming qualities, they were cartoonish because of that. Having a hated a villain who keeps you turning the pages to see them die is engaging, but the more interesting villains are the layered ones who aren’t evil for evil’s sake. I don’t like the term ‘Mary Sue and Gary Stew’ but I get why people don’t like these characters and I don’t like them. Rey in Star Wars is a classic example. When I watched the sequels, I felt like Rey’s victories weren’t earned. Her successes seemed too easy and I didn’t feel like there’d been sufficient characterisation to justify and explain her successes. The best villains are not purely evil for evil’s sake, they have a rational understandable motive and values which at least from their perspective are reasonable. The best heroes fail, and make mistakes, then learn from those mistakes. Take the antagonist in my 6th Novel ‘Ofelia’. They have a set of values and an aspiration. It’s not one that everyone would agree with - but it makes sense to them and people can empathise with them. They categorically don’t just go around doing evil because it’s fun. The villain in the sequel is complicated too. He does and has done unspeakable things, but he has a reason to, and he has a set of values he ascribes to. The second book has a different antagonist, she’s manipulated, groomed even and ends up in a very vulnerable state. Her win is very, very last minute, but it’s earned because the win is subtly woven into the subplot and foreshadowed, not such that the reader will see it coming, but that when the climactic event unfolds people will realise and the earlier chapters will suddenly take on new meaning. The protagonist from the first book makes an appearance, I spend significant time deepening her characterisation and filling in the gaps in her history that were left from book one. This is very do-able because the character in question is nearly 600 years old. Over that time though, she’s made mistakes, repeatedly. She’s got things wrong, but she’s learned from her mistakes. The sequel is interesting actually because she enters the sequel as more vulnerable than she was for the most of book 1, and she’s confident because of her long history and survival. However, she’s guilty of hubris and doesn’t really understand the nature of the threat, because it’s unlike anything she’s encountered before. I think the truth is villains and heroes, villains shouldn’t be 100% villainous and heroes shouldn’t be 100% heroic because that’s more true to life. It’s more real and people can understand and empathise with real characters - even if they have been living in the shadows since 1440!
Thank you for the thoughtful comment Martyn!
On Cersei, I have to admit she's a debatable character. You're constantly understanding why she's the way she is and then she does... something 😅
In my article, I try to defend this idea that characters shouldn't be 100% good or 100% bad too :) If anything, I think that makes the good guys insufferable and the bad guys very uninteresting.
The antagonist in Ofelia, the second book, sounds the most interesting to me because of the win you're mentioning. Because it's very last minute, I wonder: did she plan the win like that? or is this one of those instances in which the very vulnerable character gets that win from a last stroke of luck and they have this "epiphany" in which they become, not evil, but maybe "morally gray".
I also like that she's confident but hubris is her downfall. I like characters that are layered in a way that, even if they've lived in the shadows since 1440, there's still space for human miscalculation.
Thank you for reading 🙌
The climax is foreshadowed from very early on, but it’s very subtle. It’s a victory that feels earned and it’s actually seeded from things the antagonist teaches.