Why Do People Suck So Much?
One of the biggest things you hear in the world of writing is to make your character likeable, which is great and all but gives you two questions:
- How. How do you make your characters likable?
- How do you make your characters likable when in real life people suck so much? There’s an entire Reddit thread called “Am I the A-Hole?”
We talk about the second question in our RANDOM THOUGHT in the podcast, so the writer-helpful stuff is here, now. Ready?
What Do the Bad Guys Care About?
Usually they are propelled by greed or power. In our society those things are usually indicative of a bad guy. Although, some segments of our society seem to laud those traits now.
What Do We Have to Do to Make Our Characters (or our selves) Not the Bad Guy?
People want to care about the character. You automatically think that means the character is nice, right? No.
Think about those Marvel movies. Iron Man’s kind of a jerk. Sherlock Holmes? Jerk. But we still like and care about them. Why?
Here is What You Need To Do To Make Your Character Not an Butt Face
The character has a big want and/or need.
Iron Man wants to save the world.
Sherlock Holmes needs to catch a murderer.
We connect with that because we all have wants or needs.
I want to make $5,000 a month. This possibly make me a bad guy because that seems to be about money BUT if I want to make $5,000 a month so that I can pay for my child with autism’s medicines? Not quite so awful, right? It’s all in the presentation and the reason.
Conflicting Wants are What Really Makes It Pop
When our character wants to save the world, but saving the world mean that he must sacrifice his entire business that he’s worked so hard to build up? That’s when our interest is super EXCITED. We’re all – Oh. Snap. What will he choose? What would I choose?
Caring About Others Who Are More Vulnerable
This is the big one, really.
In the Star Wars movies, Rey is super snarky with the little droid when we first meet her, but then she refuses to sell that little droid baby for scrap money and protects it. Bing. We love this resilient go-getter named Rey who now has conflicting wants of her own survival (needs money) and protecting the droid (probably going to cost her money and her life).
So, we care about Rey because she cares. She has empathy.
What are the characteristics people admire in others?
Authenticity
Caring
Kindness
Empathy
Bravery
Charisma
Loyalty
Give your character one of those if you can.
Give them a Wicked Sad, Sob-Story Life Before the Story
Harry Potter? Orphan.
Rey? Orphan.
Captain America? Orphan.
Iron Man? Orphan.
Luke Skywalker? Orphan.
Captain Kirk? Orphan.
James in James and the Giant Peach? Orphan.
Do you see a pattern? Characters WHO HAVE HAD a background full of grief or pain or sadness, we’re more likely to love them. You grieve for them. You want to feed them. You root for them.
Write in the First Person or the Close Third Person Point of View.
When we see what the characters do and why they do it, how they think, what they feel, then it’s easier to feel, think, relate and be like them.
WRITING TIP OF THE POD:
Make your character a lovable orphan who cares about others, basically.
DOG TIP FOR LIFE:
Move beyond your sad story. Realize that someone out there is going to make you the villain in their story and try not to care about that. Just do little moment of goodness. Do them over and over again.
Random Thought:
In the audio of the podcast, we talk about
- The bigger picture of being a part of a society that celebrates butt-hole people.
- Helping a friend.
- You get to hear a tractor
- Other random stuff like whether or not the word a** is explicit
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
WRITING NEWS
THE NETHERLANDS IS AWESOME
Steve Wedel and I wrote a super creepy book a few years back called After Obsession and it’s making a big freaking splash in the amazing Netherlands thanks to Dutch Venture Publishing and its leader Jen Minkman.
Check out this spread in a Dutch magazine. I met a whole bunch of Dutch readers last Friday and let me tell you? They are the best.
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IN THE WOODS – READ AN EXCERPT, ORDER NOW!
My new book, IN THE WOODS, is out!
Gasp!
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
ART NEWS
You can buy limited-edition prints and learn more about my art here on my site.
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WHAT IS PATREON?
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