In a recent blog post, writer Mary Carroll Moore offers advice for writing unlikeable characters.
Moore has spoken with both writers and readers who have difficulty sitting with unsavory characters – people who intentionally act against society’s standards or who may even veer into outright harmful or criminal behavior. Moore struggled with one such character – Melvin – but could neither write his story to her satisfaction nor get him out of her mind.
Moore solved her problem with some advice from a writing instructor who encouraged her to make Melvin worse – more self-absorbed, more cranky, less loyal – rather than more likable or well-rounded. Pushing Melvin to his extremes resulted in him committing terrible deeds, but also revealed surprising emotional depths and great emotional pain that explained his way of navigating the world. “I wanted to dump Melvin like a bad lunch date. But pushing him past my own boundaries of acceptable behavior let me get to know the true person inside the bad one,” Moore writes. “I saw how, just in real life, human beings in fiction have many sides, not just bad or good…Mel presented me with surprising shades of gray when I let him go.”
Are you struggling with a character your readers may find unsympathetic or even unreadable? Push them further to their worst extremes, and see if you can find the humanity beneath their exterior.
