Writing Advice Needed (Making Characters Likable)

Hey guys, my name is Queen Freeloader & I am an aspiring writer. Though I recently started & surely have a lot to learn, I am determined to improve. I realized there are a lot of fantastic writers on this forum & I didn't see why I couldn't ask you guys for your advice on a problem I'm experiencing while writing.

My characters are often either unlikable or very hollow & one dimensional. After re-reading the short pieces I have written, I am unable to get into the stories due to the lack of caring about the protagonists. This has been my biggest weakness for as long as I can remember, and I am polity asking for any writers to help me out.

For example, in one fanfiction I've started on, one of the main characters is a vicious bully (who slowly grew out of her ways). One of the reasons for her hasty nature is her own dark past so my original plan was to play the sympathy card, but I have to admit, she's still not particularly likable. Even I, the author, wouldn't root for her if I was an average reader despite her being the heroine.

Anyways, that's about it! Thanks so much!

"Hollow and one-dimensional" is a far, far, far, far larger problem than "unlikeable." I'd focus on that first, both in the interest of improving your writing and producing characters people will have an easier time connecting with.

Readers don't need to like or be able to root for the protagonist, nor for any other character in the novel (though, yes, if your story is full of universally miserable bastards, a lot of people will find it a chore to read). Some of the most enduringly popular characters in fiction are villains and anti-heros: you might never want to meet up with them in real life, but encountering these kinds of characters in fiction can be fascinating and entertaining as well. It's much more important for a character to ring true than for them to be generically "likeable;" there's human interest in any character who seems human, whether or not they're within a stone's throw of being a good person.

There's also the problem that "likeability" is far from universal. If you ask people for their favorite character in a novel, you're sure to get a bunch of different answers, and lots of people are bound to vehemently dislike some character that's another person's favorite. There are any number of reasons for a person to like a character besides that they're good or nice or whatever--maybe they're even so hateable that readers enjoy watching them get kicked around by the plot! Again, as long as your characters feel realistically human, they'll collect with at least some cross-section of your readers.

With that in mind, I think that you want to try to narrow down your problem a bit more before looking for solutions. When you reread your story, why didn't you like your characters? It might simply be that you, personally, don't enjoy writing/reading about bullies. Which is fine, and might mean you ought to consider working with more virtuous characters in the future. But it might not have anything in particular to do with what sort of person the character is and instead have more to do with how they come across on the page. Consider if there are any somewhat-despicable characters that you enjoy in other stories (e.g. Draco Malfoy, almost anyone in the Game of Thrones series). What do you like about them? Do you find those elements in your own characters? How does the world around your character respond to their actions? Do they get treated reasonably based on what they do? Could you imagine someone like this actually existing?

Again, if you think your characters are ringing hollow, that would be what I'd look to work on first. (And again, try to be more specific: why do they seem hollow?)

Queen Freeloader said:

Hey guys, my name is Queen Freeloader & I am an aspiring writer. Though I recently started & surely have a lot to learn, I am determined to improve. I realized there are a lot of fantastic writers on this forum & I didn't see why I couldn't ask you guys for your advice on a problem I'm experiencing while writing.

My characters are often either unlikable or very hollow & one dimensional. After re-reading the short pieces I have written, I am unable to get into the stories due to the lack of caring about the protagonists. This has been my biggest weakness for as long as I can remember, and I am polity asking for any writers to help me out.

For example, in one fanfiction I've started on, one of the main characters is a vicious bully (who slowly grew out of her ways). One of the reasons for her hasty nature is her own dark past so my original plan was to play the sympathy card, but I have to admit, she's still not particularly likable. Even I, the author, wouldn't root for her if I was an average reader despite her being the heroine.

Anyways, that's about it! Thanks so much!

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If you ask me, the most important thing to do is set up a realistic personallity. They become more likable with a complete personally honestly...

I'm not an author - I'm just here looking for some poetry to read and stumbled across this. However, I do feel like I can offer some advice, being as I'm your target demographic (the reader of your story).

What makes me like a character, regardless of whether that character is the protagonist, antagonist, or some side character, is how real they seem. If the setting of the story I'm reading or watching is a setting in which I'm very familiar with, you had better do a lot of research when attempting to create characters, otherwise I'm not going to waste any more of my time with your story. If I'm reading your story and think a character should be more flirty or more standoffish or more intelligent, based on what I've read, regardless of whether I'm right in making those judgements or not I'm not going to find that character very likeable.

I don't know if that quite makes sense, but I guess the gist of what I'm trying to say is do your research. Find out how people in the location talk, find out what their traditions and beliefs are, find out if women are kitchen-women or working women, find out if there's one old man who runs the whole town. Do your research and you'll be able to make more realistic characters, and I'm much more inclined to like realistic characters than characters that are, while possibly far more interesting, not very realistic.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense I've had a few drinks.

Just a small little tip, as I think the advice provided here is pretty good.

Remember, these characters aren't characters, they're people. They're people with their own lives, inner struggles, insecurities, and strengths. It's so important to spend your time fleshing out your characters because if they don't seem real to you, then that'll translate to the page. One way to help is to act like them for a little while. Do it in your room, or heck, my coworker has had a couple conversations with my main characters, haha.

It's all about you getting to know the kinds of people you're writing about. If they seem flat, that's probably why they don't seem likable, or at least a large contributing factor. They're real people, not characters, and if you write them like that, it'll help a lot.

Chiming with agreement on your characters don't have to be likeable, but they have to feel real (but then you're already aware of this if you think a protagonist seems hollow and one-dimensional). The advice already offered here is fantastic, but I have one more little tip add, as perhaps a kind of starting point.

Think hard about what a particular character wants, overall or in the particular scene/chapter that you're writing. What are they willing to do to get that? What's in their way of getting it? Do they want to take over the world, but your average ten-year old with sex metal balls has thwarted their plans yet again? This likely reveals an incompetent character. Or do they simply want to talk to the attractive person across the room, but there's a crowd of people stopping them? Perhaps this character suffers social anxiety. What a character is or isn't willing to do to reach their goals often reveals a lot about their personality.

...but your average ten-year old with sex metal balls has thwarted their plans yet again?

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That is one superb typo. XD

*bows*

I never need to write another sentence of anything, now.

Hi there! =D I am very familiar with your problem. Developing characters is something I've had to learn myself over the years and it took a lot of internet searching and practice to get right. I absolutely love developing characters and I am more than willing to share some of the tips that helped me out.

Firstly - character questionnaires. This is a fantastic way of learning your own characters and makes you think more about them. A quick google search will pull up examples writers use, and they cover basic things from name, age, family background, to interesting traits, fears, and motives. Have a good look around, you'll be surprised how many they are!

Secondly - if you have a writing buddy, interviewing each others characters gets you into their heads. This is a lot of fun too!

If you're interested and really enjoy writing fluff, I have a character in my story who, to the other characters, is very unlikeable. I've worked on him a lot and know waaaay more about him than the reader ever will, so as such he's become likeable to me and very fun to write, and I believe other readers like him as well. So another suggestion, if it's your thing, is to write separate stories as character background.

Also - read. Read a LOT. You learn so much about writing from reading. My writing style was awful ten years ago. Reading, and talking to other writers and having proof readers, has helped a lot too.

Feel free to message me if you want any tips. I'm always happy to help out other writers! =D