Rogue Characters: The Secret to Compelling Fiction

by Ruth Harris

From the fairy tales read to us when we were children to the latest bestselling thriller, rogue characters are what keep us enthralled.

• From the Wicked Witch to the Superhero.
• Cinderella to Gone, Girl.
• Christian Grey to Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo.

The Black Swan—or the Black Sheep.

He/she/they/it will never do the expected. They will zig when others will zag. They’re the black swan—or the black sheep. Rogue characters can be good or evil—or better yet, somewhere in between, because every villain must have a weakness.

Protagonist or antagonist, hero or anti-hero, the rogue character is the engine that provides forward momentum, the jolt of energy that revs up a plot.

The reader wants to do what they will do next. They’re over the top, the drama kings or queens that keep us turning the pages.

Breaking the Mold: Guys, Girls and Others.

• Jane Tennison, the cop in television’s Prime Suspect, played by Helen Mirren, is a “woman of a certain age.” Her love life (such as it is) is on the gritty side. She drinks too much, she is flinty—not flirtatious. The men she works with give her a hard time and she isn’t shy about pushing back.
• Hannibal Lector, the erudite cannibal and discerning gourmet, in Silence Of The Lambs, is one of fiction and film’s most compelling characters. He will charm, horrify, and appall as he chows down with liver (human), fava beans and a fine chianti.
• Nurse Ratched, in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Wikipedia describes her like this: “the ward is run by steely, unyielding Nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who employs subtle humiliation, unpleasant medical treatments and a mind-numbing daily routine to suppress the patients.”
• Jack Reacher, the rugged loner, who travels with only a foldiing toothbrush and the clothes on his back, is big, bold, and mostly silent.

• ***

• Annie Wilkes, a former nurse, cuts off her favorite writer’s foot with an axe and cauterizes the wound with a blowtorch. Played by Kathy Bates in the movie, Annie is the unforgettable, over-the-top rogue character in Stephen King’s bestseller, Misery.
• Taylor Mason, the non-binary character in Showtime’s Billions. She uses the pronoun “they,” and turns the tables on her ex-boss.
• Mrs. Danvers, the creepy housekeeper with no first name in Rebecca, is dedicated to her dead employer, the first Mrs. Maxim de Winter. She is sinister, intimidating, manipulative and willing to drive the second Mrs. DeWinter to suicide.
• James Bond, the suave, sophisticated spy who works in posh casinos, not seedy, back alleys. He sips champagne, gets out of hair-raising situation without a wrinkle in his impeccably tailored suits—and he always gets the girl.
• Alex Forrest. Glenn Close plays this murderous seductress in Fatal Attraction. She lives alone, has no family that we are aware of and is psychopathically determined to get what she wants.
• Carrie, in Stephen King’s bestseller, discovers her powers of telekinesis and turns high school into a (literal) killing ground.

Rogue Characters Can Be Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, or Others.

The rogue character can be an animal.

• Jaws, anyone?
• Or what about Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer?
• Snakes. On a plane.

Vegetable.

• Audrey, the voraciously hungry plant in The Little Shop Of Horrors. “Feed me!”
• Poison Ivy could certainly come in handy. (In fiction, that is. Real life? Fuggedaboutit.)

Mineral.

• The killer graphite in HBO’s Chernobyl.

Others.

• Rogue characters abound in myth and folklore.
• Dragons, Zombies, Boy Magicians. Fairy godmothers. Evil Step-sisters.
• Deadly diseases and environmental scourges. Ebola. Climate change. Marberg. Measles! Leprosy. Mosquitos. Tsetse flies, and other assorted wildlife run amok.
• Dinosaurs.
• The Undead.
• Freaky tropical diseases no one ever heard of—until your character is stricken.
• Sociopaths, sadists, psychopaths, narcissists—the DSM offers plenty of inspiration.

S/he/they is the character who doesn’t fit the mold.

S/he/they…

• live in the “wrong” neighborhood—or, like Jack Reacher, nowhere at all.
• drink too much—Girl On The Train—or try not to drink too much like any number of alcoholic PIs.
• have sex with the “wrong” partners—and wake up in the wrong bed, which can (and will) cause all h*ll to break loose.
• will not take her kid or the neighbor’s kid to Disney World but to a WWE event one day, the ballet the next.
• teaches said child how to run a bulldozer, how to cook perfect corn in the microwave and how to rob a bank.
• will never do the expected or the conventional. S/he/they will not give up a career or a promotion for Mr. or Ms. Right. And certainly not for Mr. or Ms. Wrong.
• Except, hmmmm. Maybe? Why not? Nothing wrong with a character’s lousy decision giving new energy to a old plot, is there?
• will not fall madly in love with the handsome/beautiful cookie-cutter hero or heroine but the dorky but brilliant code jockey or absent-minded professor.
• will be a (believable) nuclear physicist (Ulana in Chernobyl), petroleum engineer or cat burglar (à la Cary Grant).
• If s/he/they is a dutiful secretary or timid accountant, it’s because s/he/they has a dramatic secret or amazing secret superpower that will give your fiction—and you—a buzz.

Every writer needs one: rogue characters to the rescue, when…

• your book is stalled.
• you’re blocked.
• the character(s) are so boring even you yawn.
• you can’t drag yourself to your computer, but don’t know why.
• the plot sags and drags.
• your muse goes AWOL.

The rogue character can—and will—do the shocking, the unexpected and, as a consequence, will give your story—and you!—an immediate jolt of energy.

Ask Me How I Know.

A living terror named Chessie Tillman bailed me out of a dead end in Brainwashed—it’s a historical thriller that takes place in the sour, paranoid 1970’s of Watergate and Vietnam War. Because the book is a historical political thriller, I needed a politician and I had one. I thought. Except rich, handsome, cookie-cutter Senator Blah was so stupefyingly boring he brought the plot, the book—and me—to a dead halt.

I fretted and stewed. Bitched and complained. I was blocked and couldn’t figure out what happened next or who did what to whom. Color me one very unhappy writer. Then, after the obligatory period of suffering, popping out somewhere from the murk of my misery, along came Chessie and a literary sex change. Handsome, cookie-cutter Senator Blah was transformed—and so was I.

Chessie to the Rescue!

“Senator Chessie Tillman’s parents wanted a boy. What they got was her. She was short, dumpy, and dressed like a rag picker. She smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, swore like a sailor. Had been married three times, each husband richer and more handsome than the one before.

“A roof-rattling orator and take-no-prisoners arm-twister, Chessie Tillman had mowed down men twice her size. In a series of headline-making speeches, she expressed the nation’s disgust with the sleazy goings-on of the Watergate scandal. In Senate hearings she faced down the beribboned generals who were bullshitting the public about the alleged “progress” being made in the high-body-count, vastly expensive, and increasingly pointless war in Vietnam.

“She was blunt, fearless, and had a big mouth. When something bothered her, she didn’t give up and she didn’t give in. America had never seen a politician like her. Right now, sitting behind the desk in her shambles of an office in the Senate office building, she had a new bug up her ass.”

Until Chessie came into my life (and into my book), I hadn’t realized so vividly until then the transformative power of the rogue character.

Lesson Learned.

What do the tough, determined, bossy, or downright crazy rogue characters have to offer?

In a word: salvation. S/he/they can be stubborn, pathological, repellent, impossible, disgusting, terrifying and otherwise no one you would ever want to spend time with. Unless, of course, you’re a writer. Because the rogue character is the one who will rescue you from the plot blahs and help you break through a block.

When in deep writing doo-doo, don’t forget: s/he/they—and let’s definitely not forget It—can—and will—come to your rescue.

by Ruth Harris (@RuthHarrisBooks) June 30, 2019

What about you, scriveners? Do you have rogue characters in your WIP? Have rogue characters ever showed up to save the day when your book was lagging? Who are  your favorite rogue characters in fiction?

This month on her book blog, Anne talks about the, um, “glamorous” life of a full-time author.

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With a plot that hurtles forward at electric speed, BRAINWASHED takes place on the beautiful islands of the Caribbean, in Damascus and Ireland, the Philippines, Canada, Washington, DC— and in an underground torture chamber located on Victor Ressid’s secluded private estate.

“BRAINWASHED delivers the goods: thrills, gut-churning suspense, nightmarish terror. Ruth and Michael Harris have delivered another great read and sure bestseller. I dare you to put it down!”— Bob Mayer, former Green Beret and million-copy bestselling author of AREA 51

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