I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve gotten the note: “Make your character less difficult. She’s not likable enough.” I didn’t do it on purpose; it’s just that my female characters tend to be complex, like the women I know. It happened when the female leads were opinionated. They had standards and held fast to them. They want. They railed against those who got in their way.
They were not compliant.
There aren’t that many female characters in literature or TV that can be considered difficult. Check out this list of unlikable characters from literature. There are female characters on there, yes, but the only female on it is Bella Swan of Twilight (a box I’d rather not open on this particular post).
Male characters with those difficult attributes are generally embraced by the public. Think Sherlock Holmes. A Man Called Ove. House. Sheldon Cooper. Nobody would ever call them compliant, yet they are beloved. Even those who may not be beloved (Dexter, Don Draper, Walter White) are still pretty darn popular.
What’s the Explanation?
Unlikable female main characters only seem to inhabit a limited number of genres. If you’re writing women’s fiction and not a thriller or literary fiction, you’re likely to find resistance with an unlikable female lead. Why is that? An editor might tell you that an unlikable female character won’t engage the average reader, and therefore not sell books. Upmarket fiction is a blend of literary and commercial: think generally the type of novel with a theme meaty enough for book clubs and enough plot to keep the average reader engaged. In this genre, I would bet that most female characters are likable.
Non-compliant women threaten to overturn our social norms. My guess is because although American society has made great inroads since women got the vote, it still hasn’t been all that long since women were considered property. Even those who consider themselves feminists are not always completely able to shake free of sexism. We don’t like it when women defy social norms. Celeste Ng’s terrific Little Fires Everywhere explores in part how the bourgeoise take down those women who defy unwritten cultural rules, fearing that their own lives will be called into question.
Also think of Elizabeth Strout’s character Olive Kitteridge. Nobody could call Olive likable. She’s thorny, with standards that others find it impossible to live up to. She messes up her relationships. And she doesn’t care what others think. Essays have been written about her unlikability. Same with Claire Messud’s Nora in The Woman Upstairs. Messud told Publisher’s Weekly, “If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t ‘is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘is this character alive?'”
Should Your Main Character Be Likable?
That’s up to you. Perhaps an unlikable narrator is just not right for your story. Or perhaps you’ve written a deliciously non-compliant difficult woman for a thriller, and you want to keep her that way. Whether or not your character is likable in the traditional sense, their actions must be borne out of a grounded place. And of course, even if your character’s unlikable, they must still be interesting.
But if it’s important to your story that the reader identify with your character and it’s bothering you that your main character is labeled difficult, then there are a few ways you could amend that.
What Makes a Difficult Character Likable?
Here are two TV examples of difficult women. Sophia in The Golden Girls is pretty crotchety, but hey, we can excuse her because she’s super old. And she loves her daughter, and her daughter’s devoted to her.
April Ludgate from Parks and Rec is also difficult. But she loves the resident doofus, Andy. And she secretly loves everyone. And by the end of the series, April has softened considerably.
Perhaps that’s the key—audiences like to see those difficult females actually do love certain people and transform. We know that Sophia’s not going to change because she’s too old, and her blunt snarkiness is key. But someone like April could change.
And this could be true with some of the male main characters I cited. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t really love anyone deeply, except maybe Watson—and he still abuses the poor guy quite a bit. But we forgive him because he’s a GENIUS! And in the newer BBC series, we do see a little character development with him.
In A Man Called Ove, Ove’s backstory slowly unspools. We learn of his despair since he lost his wife, and how important she was to him. There’s a warm cast of characters who believe in him despite his gruffness. He changes, too. He also saves and then cares for a stray cat.
So if you want readers to like your difficult character:
• Make someone else see the good in them.
• Give them something to love. A plant, a pet, a sibling she saves from death (Katniss!), a lost love.
• Add humor. A difficult character with biting wit is more fun to read than one who’s not only difficult but humorless.
Has anyone told you to make your female main character more likable? Do you think the “likability factor” holds true for gender non-binary characters as well? Do you think an upmarket women’s fiction book market would support an unlikable female main character? What are your favorite books, films, and TV shows featuring unlikable main characters?
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About Margaret Dilloway
Margaret Dilloway is the author of the new middle grade series MOMOTARO: XANDER AND THE LOST ISLAND OF MONSTERS (Disney Hyperion) and three women’s fiction novels. She lives in San Diego with her family and a big Goldendoodle named Gatsby. She teaches creative writing to middle schoolers and does developmental editing.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman has a unlikable main character but he is interesting as are the other characters. A main point of the series is his growth as a person and by the end is likable.
Additionally the MC of the Seventh Decimate is a bit of a jerk, but that is because he has grown up in a insular kingdom and finds the world is much bigger and his kingdom is just a small part of it.
One example that I’m sure has jumped to mind for a number of Unboxers – “The Girl on the Train” sold over 2 million copies in the first three months.
Gone Girl. No nice characters there.
I think the key to readers liking my characters is more complex than just liking or disliking them. For that, I think, can be quite subjective.
I think a reader needs to relate to a character. Especially a protagonist. The reader doesn’t need to like them, just understand where they are coming from, how they got there, and why they do the things they do.
Oh, and your points on amending a character’s connection to a reader are great. Every person has good and bad in them. Even awful people make kind decisions once and a while. As writers, we have the responsibility to show all sides of a character, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Everyone is loved by someone.
Great post!
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT (Gift of Travel)
I find this subject really fascinating, in part because as I’m trying to think of female characters as examples–Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window–I realized that all of the characters in those books are disturbed in some way. Amy’s a straight-up psychopath, and both the MCs in the other two are drunks. But 3 of those difficult men you mentioned are just ‘geniuses.’ Now I’m wondering if, as readers, we more easily excuse male anti-social behavior because of intelligence, or the implication of what they have to offer society, but for females we think we need a better excuse. Like drinking, or drugs, or some kind of trauma in their past. This question has definitely got me thinking. Great post – thank you!
Love this post. I agree with the concept of is the character “alive.” Real people are complex, grey, multidimensional. I think the main character needs to be not so much likeable, but relatable or redeemable in some way, as you said. Just watched Three Billboards – Mildred the mother and Officer Dixon are not the most likeable folks. And how about the classic Murphy Brown?
I had a female protagonist who had an edge and, early on, a crit group partner told me that she didn’t like the character. I responded that there’s a character arc and she has to start on the negative side so that she could change. My crit partner said, “That may be true, but I just don’t care about her.” Which meant that she didn’t want to read about her, either.
I added a scene where the character helps out a child in the opening and, while she still had an edge, she became connectable. So, yes, giving them something to care about is a key tactic. Well done.
Some people would call any woman who puts her own concerns first, unlikable.
A rigid code of ethics, followed even when it damages her, can make a character unlikable. Think Jane Eyre.
A woman who doesn’t ‘get right to it’ in the sexual arena would be unlikable to some.
It’s a matter of degree. But women without agency are cardboard cutouts, and make very uninteresting characters to read (to me – thrillers seem to treat many women as disposable but required). And it is in who is doing the liking that wide divergences will be seen.
I found Ove completely unlikable, and the whole story ridiculous. My husband and I watched the movie in a complete haze of ‘that would never happen.’
I keep coming back to your definition: Upmarket fiction is a blend of literary and commercial: think generally the type of novel with a theme meaty enough for book clubs and enough plot to keep the average reader engaged. In this genre, I would bet that most female characters are likable. I believe in torturing your readers with female characters (male, too, but especially female) who make decisions that are not what the reader wants for them, but in such a way that the reader has to ultimately agree with the decisions. And then rewarding the readers periodically with some resolution. But then I’m writing a literary commercial epic love story. Those who like it, love it. And some people don’t like it. Fancy that.
In thirty-eight years as an agent, I have never known an editor to say, “Can the author make that heroine more compliant?”
Or, “I wasn’t going to offer on that novel, but I’ll pass because the heroine is non-compliant.”
Never. Once.
Likeable has nothing to do with being complex, opinionated, non-compliant or any other kind of strong. Nor does likeable mean nice. Nor does it mean saving the cat. What causes us to care about a protagonist has no correlation to whether they are pleasant, empathetic, yearning or anything else we imagine a protagonist “must” be.
Psychological research shows that what readers want to know about protagonists–and they form this judgment almost instantly–is whether a protagonist is good. If so, readers will invest a little time. They’ll ride the arc for a while. They will hope.
Do not–DO NOT!–fall into the trap of believing that there is an inherent bias about female leads; that they must somehow conform to “feminine” “norms”. That is not true. Heroines do not have to be simple, agreeable, caring, nurturing, or strong of body or spirit.
There are far, far too many examples proving otherwise. In fact, we can be captured by protagonists due to nothing more than their insistent narrative voices. Listen! they say. And we do.
But above all is this: We do not care about protagonists who do not, somehow, signal to us that they are, in some fashion, good. We sense it even when it’s invisible. Save the cat if you want to, but more than that we readers cue on authors’ own beliefs about their characters.
When an author knows there is goodness, it seeps in. Call it the Ove Effect, perhaps. The Gone Goodness, maybe. If we care, it’s there. Maybe invisible, but it’s there.
Put differently, when critique friends say, “Make your heroine more likeable” they don’t mean make your heroine nicer. What they mean is make this a character whom we can judge to be worthy.
That’s very different.
I’d love to chime in on this, but I just submitted a Writer’s Digest piece on exactly this topic and they always get annoyed when they find I’ve stolen my own thunder here at WU.
However, I can say that each of the tactics you mention, Margaret, are included in those I propose in the article. So: agreed!
I see where Don is going with “good” but I’d put it differently. If the character isn’t likable she needs to be compelling, even fascinating. Blanche Dubois. Maggie the Cat. Tennessee Williams gave us plenty such characters–tawdry, amoral, but compelling. I’m not sure either is “good” (certainly not Blanche) but both are vulnerable in a harsh, unforgiving world, and we root for them.
As for “Save the Cat,” just read that to mean we care about someone who cares about others. It’s not a bad approach, but I agree it’s hardly enough. It needs to be rooted to the core of the character’s nature, a flicker of sympathy trying to glow more brightly, not a one-time bit of nicey-nicey.
This topic is always interesting, and seemingly inexhaustible. Thanks!
I might put it differently too. Admirable, advanced, big, brilliant, captivating, devilish, fervent, game, honorable, ironic, mature, quirky, riotous, reverent, steamy, unique…off the top of my head.
I’m only reporting what research tells us. “Good” is a broad term encompassing much that we find compelling. If I had to choose one encompassing term, it might be “worthy”. The topic is worthy of more discussion, certainly, so looking forward to your piece.
Oooh looking forward to reading that, David! Thanks!
I think that’s kind of a cop out. No one expects you to make your female lead June Cleaver, but readers do need to care about her and that’s the difference. Humor, taking care of someone else, etc as you say.
Writers think they need to portray strong women by them emasculating men, making the “edgy”. They just make them witchy and there’s a difference. Strong women don’t need to tear someone else down to be strong. Lady rodeo champions years ago were well respected by both men and women because of their ability and they did it with class. They didn’t have to out drink, out cuss, out smoke men.
I had an editor look at the first 50 pages of my historical. “Oh, a Victorian woman wouldn’t do this or that. Go read an etiquette book and get familiar with the period.”
Yes, well during the Civil War, women did a lot of things that weren’t in the etiquette books, so, sorry, I’ll stick with the letters, memoirs, journals for reference on what women did. These women did some pretty remarkable things and were unbelievably strong without being witches.
The word character, as in “that person has character” might be another way to know that the person on the page is worth reading about. We all have flaws, but who wants to read about the perfect person. The deep undeniable traits that make your MC hold the reader to the page are what we need to flesh out. I might question my MC now and again, but I know her and I believe she’s worth reading about.
Margaret–I think you’re right when you say the following: “Perhaps that’s the key–audiences like to see those difficult females actually do love certain people….” Donald Maass calls it goodness, but convincing evidence that a negative character–male or female–is capable of love makes that character believable. It doesn’t have to be conventional or even overt love, but it needs to be perceived as real. Any character devoid of this capacity must necessarily come off as stunted and incomplete. In most cases, they are cartoonish instruments of plotting, not characters in the true sense.
Thanks for taking up this subject. It deserves every writer’s thoughtful consideration.
“Sophia in The Golden Girls is pretty crotchety, but hey, we can excuse her because she’s super old.”
What?? Being old (especially super old) makes an otherwise unlikable characteristic excusable?
I think that was the case for that character.
She was old, yes. But I think the main reasons we like her are because she is 1.) hilarious and 2.) does what she pleases. Dorothy can be exasperated with her on our stodgy behalf, but beneath our objections to her behavior or her blunt talk is an admiration of someone who flouts convention and makes us laugh by doing so. :)
I like the slider method from the folks at Writing Excuses.
Basically they say for a reader to follow a character, that character needs to have at least one, but preferably two, of the following three characteristics:
• Sympathetic
• Active
• Competant
Sympathy (or empathy, depending on your perspective) means probably what people mean with “likable,” and it generally means relatable more than likable. I’d argue that a great many women identify with being isolated or feeling like their voices aren’t heard or having traits that large swaths of society find “unlikable.” That doesn’t necessarily make them unsympathetic. A sympathetic, inactive and incompetent character, IS Holden Caulfield, I would argue.
As for active, that just means they protag: they have a desire that they’re aiming at, willfully. An active, but unsympathetic and incompetent character, would be The Joker: we show up just to watch him do things.
And the competent side means that the have specific skills. A competent, inactive and unsympathetic character would be Tony Stark in the first Iron Man film.
Jessica Jones (played by Krysten Ritter) is one of the most unlikable female characters I’ve ever seen. I would definitely not allow someone like that in my life. But I love the TV show. It’s thought provoking and entertaining.
A beta reader of my WIP loves my villain. Perhaps it’s because, even when you first meet her as a 14-yr old living in a dark alley trash heap, she’s indomitable, bold, and a survivor.
She doesn’t save the cat. Her first act, after being found under that trash heap by a group looking to torment the down-and-out for fun, is to slip out of the grasp of one of the two men undressing her, take his gun, and shoot both of them.
She then backs down before the leader of the gang, correctly reading that he doesn’t intend her harm. Over the years they fall in love, though neither would ever use the word, and together inflict pain, death, and eventually war on anyone they take a dislike to, including the MC, who the girl comes to hate with a passion (for good reason in her eyes.)
The beta reader would love her to be the MC, and she’d be easy to write. But I prefer to leave her as the antagonist.
An “unlikeable” character I have loved (but who didn’t get a second season because audiences found her unlikeable) is Sophia of Girlboss. She was such a terrible person in so many ways, but she was also damaged and vulnerable, which should have made audiences give her a little behavioral leeway. Throughout the season, we could see small improvements here and there, she had a great voice, she was powerful and weak at the same time, and she was hilarious because she said things the rest of us only think. I think if audiences had given her a second season, they would have seen her grow more. I was really disappointed that show had only one season.
Also, Chloe in Don’t Trust the B**** in Apt. 23.
And the entire cast of Arrested Development.
And, at various times, the entire cast of Breaking Bad.
Matt LeBlanc in Episodes.
Etc.
I tend to really like those “unlikeable” characters.
This dates me, but my most memorable unlikeable female character is Maj. Margaret Houlihan from the TV series MASH. It was only in later episodes that her vulnerability (she was an ex-Army brat still driven to earn her father’s love; she believed that maintaining discipline and exercising authority meant alienating herself from the other nurses and accepting help from no one) that her humanity came through. That’s one advantage for TV writers. They have more liberty to make it up as they go along, while novelists need a clearer idea of their character’s arc early in the creative process.
I don’t care about “likeable” or “compliant” but I don’t want to go through an entire novel with a hard-edged pointy character who is ALWAYS a hard-edged pointy character. But, a Strong Woman doesn’t have to be an asshole.
And that’s any character, male, female, or otherwise.
To carry me through an entire novel with the main character, they have to have something that captures my attention, yes, but also makes me care enough to know what’s going to happen to them. Show some vulnerability somewhere underneath that Strong Independent Kickass armor.
Margaret, Thank you for this relevant piece. My male main character is so much like Heathcliff (one of the unlikable characters mentioned in the link you posted) and my female main character is much like Anna Karenina – readers have written they sometimes were yelling at them. I do think upmarket women’s fiction book market supports these characters. I found when typically romance readers read my book they struggled with it, but some found it refreshing.
I’m fairly new to WU and am grateful for the quality of posts and comments here. As an isolated writer, I’ve found a conversation I can dip into while taking a break from my WIP. I also find myself saving bits of treasure that has already improved my writing. Thanks to all.
Welcome, Cheryl!