Making a Main Character Likable

Sometimes, you can start out your story with a main character who isn't very likable, but a character must bcomee likable or, at the very least, relatable for the reader.  Here are ways to show more than the prickly outer elements of her personality.

If you give the main character a worthy goal in the first pages of the novel, then you give yourself time to make a seemingly unlikable character grow on the reader.

By worthy, I mean something the reader will want that character to succeed at-- rescuing children, helping a nice person find happiness, etc.   Even if the character starts out doing it for a base reason like money, the reader will still want him to succeed.

Simple things can help make a character start to grow on the reader.  Pets are always a good option.  Either he has one, or he can't resist the heroine's kitten, or something like that.  Having him interact positively with a child is also a good likability quickie.  

Recently, I read a short story in which the heroine breaks into the apartment of a possible villain-- a hard-ass security agent.  A teddy bear is sitting on his couch, and he later admits it belongs to his nephew.  With that simple stroke, the author made a seemingly unlikable bad guy a much nicer person.

Giving a character a vulnerability that the reader can relate to is also a good likability quickie.  It can be as simple as a chick lit heroine having a bad hair day and the boss from heck, or the bad ass hero getting into a small plane and freaking out because he finds a snake.  

Eventually, more likable elements of that character's personality will have to be shown, though, so the bad parts of her personality don't overwhelm the reader.

In some genre fiction like thrillers, the immediate likability quotient doesn't have to be high at the beginning, particularly if the character is strong and effective in what he needs to do.

But in a romance, the hero or heroine should be likable from the very beginning.  The other main character can become likable as the book progresses, but he should not start as totally horrible.  Some character traits like cruelty can't be forgiven or changed because, in real life, they never are.  

It's the Romance, Stupid

In the 1992 campaign against George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and his advisers realized that the economy was Bush’s weak spot so they decided to focus on that subject.  Around Clinton’s headquarters, the sign, “It’s the economy, Stupid,” was posted to remind everyone to stay focused on that issue.

In the same way, a writer needs to hone in on the targeted audience of her book.  

When you are writing and you get a clever idea about the romance heroine’s business problems, you need to decide if that has anything to do with her relationship with the hero.  If it doesn’t, out it should go.  

Particularly at the beginning of the novel, that target audience should be kept in mind.  The reader wants girl to meet boy as soon as possible so the heroine’s backstory and anything else must be second in importance in those first pages.  

In the same way, the mystery reader wants the murder to happen, the science fiction reader wants some brand new scientific idea or world to startle him, and the horror reader wants his pants scared off of him.

When you are rewriting, always remind yourself that “It’s the romance/mystery/sf/horror, Stupid” and focus your book to that kind of reader.

How Many Point of Views?

 QUESTION:  How many viewpoint characters can I use?  And must I have the bad guy’s point of view?

The point of view character or POV is writing jargon for the person whose head you are inside during a scene in fiction.  With the exception of omniscient viewpoint novels, all current genre novels have only one character’s POV at a time.

The number of point-of-view characters you use in a novel depends on genre needs as well as the story you have to tell. If your choice of POVs isn't mandated by the market, you use the number of POVs you need.

In STAR-CROSSED, I used six POVs because my story was so complex, and the novel was big enough at around 130,000 words to allow so many characters.  One of the POVs was my villain.  

I have also created complex suspense plots with only one or two POVs because the plot was so tightly connected that those POVs were enough.  None of those had the antagonist's POV.  

If the antagonist doesn't have a POV, the reader will still get a sense of the person because of what he does.  

The main characters are also discovering who or what this person is by following the clues of the crime or the situation.  As the characters learn about this criminal so does the reader.  

If this person's crimes are methodical, this gives the reader a bit of information about him.  If he cuts off the victims' fingers with a surgical knife, the reader learns something else about him.  

By the time the bad guy is unveiled, the reader should have a very good sense of this character without a POV.  At the moment of unveiling, the reader will usually be given the final pieces of this character's emotional puzzle.

Some writers have trouble writing the bad guys because they are concentrating on the good guys and the plot needs of the novel.  I always suggest that a writer write a summary of the plot from the point of view of the bad guy starting with the crime, if there was one, and move from that point to the final unveiling.

The bad guy's choices and his story must be as logical for his personality as the plot choices and story of the main characters.  

Marilyn Monroe and Writing

 After film beauty Marilyn Monroe was dressed for going out and finished with her makeup, she'd study herself in a full length mirror, then turn her back and glance back at herself. Whatever element of her makeup jumped out at her, she'd make less noticeable.  She'd do this until she had a complete look.

I've always thought this story is an excellent metaphor for writing genre fiction.  Anything like overwriting, fancy words, and moments of being too clever need to be toned down.

That doesn't mean that a viewpoint character can't be clever or use an occasional big word if it fits his personality, but it should be the viewpoint character, not the author.

During the rewriting process, be sure to look for things that stand out too much and remove them so the story is what is important, not your writing.