Have you ever been in the writing or editing process and haven’t liked you main (or any) characters? Well, beginning to strongly dislike my Hero. I’m in the editing process of my first book and I’m wanting to delete him all together. He’s the main Hero, so this means creating a new character — maybe even a guy with a heart towards his pregnant girlfriend and the baby he helped to create!
Let me explain:
Nathan really is a nice guy. His girlfriend is pregnant and he doesn’t want to be a father. She wants to keep it, but he had major daddy issues. His dad wasn’t there for him, so he’s afraid of repeating the pattern. While he love Lucy (my Heroine), being a father part of the plan. Lucy prepares to become a mother on her own and she’s okay with that decision.
Nice guy, right? Ha! I know that this might be a realty for some, but this guy is a jerk! He’s a handsome jerk, one that could easily be described as an innocent Christian Grey of “50 Shades of Grey.” When I wrote this two years ago, the only conflict I could think of was pregnancy because I didn’t want to write about love triangles. (I have before in a book that I didn’t finish, but might continue with that sometime in the future). Maybe I don’t like Nathan because I have trouble writing from a male POV!
::::::Sigh::::::
Have you ever written a book, then want to get rid of a character because you don’t like him or her? What do you do to get your characters likable?
Oh, I so know what you mean! Some of my characters somehow turn out to be jerks, total clueless idiots, and, well, if they were real, I’d smack the crap out them! Thing is I get well into my writing and, oops, the character is just such an asshole – but it’s “too late” to change the tone of the character because it’s what’s making the rest of the story flow!
Oh, I forgot; I get them likable by using the Delete key a lot and recreating them if they’re really crappy people!
Thanks for your comments! Have a great day! 🙂
I don’t think that all characters must be likable; they do have to be interesting or even compelling. I can think of a few people I know who are not likable–but they are characters. I’m sure you know of a few jerks or buttholes who are able to capture people’s attention. HOWEVER…
If you have a character that you want to make likable, you can try a few things like giving him/her a sense of humor. You can make the person more human by having him be truly concerned about the homeless because he was once homeless. Or maybe he takes in stray animals. With your character, you could give some more backstory and let the reader understand why the guy is the way he is; go into some detail about his horrible father. Or show him in turmoil; he is agonizing over being a horrible father because he knows that children of abusers tend to abuse their children, and he doesn’t want to hurt his child the way he was hurt. Know what I mean? I’m just thinking off the top of my head.
Finally, I guess you can always kill him off! Your post reminds me of a comic strip I wrote. (I write a comic strip about the writing life.) You might find the strip funny! Here’s the link:
http://boscafelife.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/3829/#comments
This was a great post. It got me thinking–and commenting!
Thanks for liking my blog post and commenting! As writers I think it’s necessary to really like our characters, but find it difficult creating them.
I loved your blog and have subscribed to it! Great comics! 🙂
I have faith you will get through the tough and fluff concerning Nathan! Go ahead and develope another side story and go back to him later–there is a stud out there for him–and one for Lucy too–it happens when they least suspect it-a tragedy will strike one of them, but in the end they will both find a cherry tree in the midst and their lives will be fruitful!