by Anne R. Allen
One of the things that will get you an automatic rejection from most agents—and a swift toss to the DNF pile from a lot of readers—is an unsympathetic character. Especially an unsympathetic protagonist. Personally, I have to admit if there’s nobody in a story I care about, I’m out of there after ten pages or so.
But what do we mean by a “sympathetic character?” What makes us care?
The truth is the protagonists of our most popular books, plays and films are often people we wouldn’t like to hang out with in real life. Some are pretty toxic.
From “wily” Odysseus to Don Quixote, to Heathcliff, Becky Sharpe, Scarlett O’Hara, Dexter Morgan, Walter White, Lisbeth Salander, and the “Girl on the Train,” we are fascinated by morally ambiguous characters who make bad choices.
But don’t these successful works negate the dictum that a protagonist must be sympathetic? Nobody wants these people as their BFF.
The Unsympathetic Character vs. Likeable Character
Here’s the thing: there’s a difference between likeable and sympathetic. Sidekicks can be likeable because they’re friendly and fun, but protagonists need to be something more.
A protagonist needs to do or say stuff that makes us feel sympathy and care what happens to them. That can be with resilience, kindness, intelligence or wit. We also need to trust they’re going to be strong enough to make good companions on our journey through the story.
They shouldn’t be overtly evil, and they should never kick a puppy or abuse a horse, but they don’t have to be perfect or consistently fun and jolly.
Sympathy Comes from Presentation
A lot of reader interest and sympathy comes from how the author first presents the character.
In the Sopranos TV series, we meet Tony when he’s talking to his shrink about his panic attacks, not when he’s getting somebody whacked.
We first see Walter White as a downtrodden teacher who desperately needs money for his wife’s cancer treatments, not when he’s dissolving a rival meth dealer’s body in acid.
Jeff Lindsay presents Dexter as a killer, but he’s a killer possessed by a “Dark Passenger” he can’t control. And he’s a killer of bad guys. Guys readers want to be dead.
We don’t like these characters exactly, but we feel sympathy for them in these situations. I think that’s the key.
Sympathy vs. Pity
On the other hand, we have to be careful not to make our protagonist a victim. Even though Walter White is unable to care for his sick wife; Lisbeth Salander has been horribly abused; and Dexter has the most traumatic childhood imaginable, we don’t see these characters as pathetic.
They have strength, resilience and/or humor that draws us to them and makes us want to see how they fight their way out of a bad situation.
That means the writer has to tread a fine line. We want readers to feel sympathy, but not pity. If your protagonist seems weak and pitiable, readers won’t engage. A hero/heroine needs to either act or say something funny, not simply whimper.
Protagonists need to do something to help themselves—or at least do something the reader finds emotionally engaging—or the story falls flat.
A Perfect Mary Sue Can be an Unsympathetic Character, Too.
You don’t want your characters to be terrible human beings, but on the other hand you don’t want them to be perfect. A hero needs a “tragic flaw” or two. What Aristotle called Hamartia.
In fact, perfection can be more annoying to a reader than moral turpitude. Star Trek fanfiction gave us the term “Mary Sue” to mean the character that’s just too perfect. She’s a stand-in for the author’s idealized self. Here’s my post on why we don’t like her: “Say ‘Bye Felicia to Mary Sue.”
Mary Sue kicks every ass, solves every case, and saves every day. No dragon is too powerful for her to slay—and absolutely no hero is too hot or high up the food chain to fall madly in love with her.
Mary Sue can be either gender—although the male version is sometimes called “Gary Stu.”
A Gary Stu is the middle-aged academic who has hot, quirky young art students throwing themselves into his pale, unbuffed arms. Or he’s the dorky teen who’s flunking 10th grade math, but somehow manages to figure out how to save the world from the asteroid when nobody else has a clue.
And the reader isn’t likely to find them sympathetic.
Sympathetic Characters and Unsympathetic Behavior
We also don’t want our protagonists to go over a certain line.
For most readers, characters can get away with certain things, but not others, depending on circumstances. (And genre: see below.) I’ve seen authors take their characters so far over to the dark side that I’m no longer interested in the story. But the very actions that turn readers off can seem heroic in other circumstances.
Our sympathy depends on the motivation for the character’s behavior.
The truth is that reckless behavior is often exactly what makes a character heroic. Running toward danger is what heroes do. But their motives need to be something we can relate to.
If a character jumps into a raging river to save a puppy, he’s sympathetic. If he jumps into the same raging river to show off what a macho man he is, not so much.
In the same way, if a neglected, abused spouse goes out looking for affection in all the wrong places, we can feel sympathy for her. But if her spouse is faithful and loving and she only picks up guys in dive bars because she’s bored, the reader doesn’t care much when she’s the serial killer’s next victim.
So the same behavior can make a character unsympathetic or sympathetic depending on how the author frames it.
Who Defines an Unsympathetic Character?
In pretty much every critique group or workshop, there’s somebody who tells you your character “wouldn’t” do something. Or they say “nobody” would make such a bad choice. This can be infuriating because they’re claiming to know more about your character than you do.
But what they’re really saying is the character isn’t sufficiently like themselves.
Recently I heard from a young gay man who was told by a critique group of older straight people that nobody “would” do what his (young gay) character did.
I told him these people weren’t telling him anything about his writing. They were telling him about themselves.
They were also telling him they aren’t his audience.
One of my comic mysteries got a review that said, “she slept with a man who can’t pay his bills! I stopped reading.”
Yes, I thought, if you believe women should only sleep with men who have money, this book is not for you. The reviewer was saying more about herself than she was about my book. (As reviewers and critiquers often do.) A reader looking for a book in the “Billionaire Romance” genre is not going to enjoy my satiric mysteries, so she was doing readers a service.
What this all means is the label “unsympathetic” depends a whole lot on who is doing the labeling.
Genre Matters.
It also depends on genre.
Romance readers want a heroine they can identify with closely. She needs to be smart, empathetic, and self-respecting.
But a thriller reader mostly wants a main character who’s tough, resilient, and ready to fight.
Comedy, however, depends on characters who bumble cluelessly into hilarious adventures. How long would I Love Lucy have been on the air if Lucy always made good choices? Would anybody have been interested in Bridget Jones’ diet diary if she’d actually lost weight? And would the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy have become a timeless classic if Arthur Dent had been a swashbuckling hero instead of a befuddled Englishman searching the galaxy for a nice cup of tea?
Mysteries, too, often have less than admirable protagonists. Blame Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock was a model of smug, anti-social behavior. The genre continued with a parade of quirky, unsociable sleuths from the laughably vain Hercule Poirot, to nosy Miss Marple, cynical Sam Spade, brutal Mike Hammer, and trigger-tempered V.I. Warshowski.
None of the above characters would cut it in a Romance novel.
Then there’s literary fiction. Literary readers will accept a seriously flawed protagonist as long as the writing is compelling. Some famous literary characters are way more than “flawed.” Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert comes to mind. And I remember slogging through John Fowles The Magus identifying with no one. Then there’s American Psycho. Not my personal cup of tea.
But I’m not everybody.
These are recognized works of art. Their protagonists are certainly not what people would call “sympathetic.” But the authors wrote strongly enough that readers connected with their stories. (If you write characters like these, make sure you’re writing for a literary audience.)
The Redeemability Factor
In a great blogpost from about a decade ago, then-literary agent Nathan Bransford wrote about what can make the difference between the sympathetic and unsympathetic character. He said it has to do with whether that character can be redeemed.
Nathan says, “Redeemability involves more than just actions…[characters] have to be brave or brilliant or hilarious or charismatic or strong or all of the above. The redeemability meter often dips below zero when a character does something that’s wrong and there is not sufficient explanation for their actions. They weren’t misguided or deluded or well-intentioned-but-astray…They just went and did it, and the reader concludes: they’re just evil.”
Although sympathetic/unsympathetic labels have a good deal to do with who is doing the labelling, there are some basic rules here. If your character is just plain evil, chances are the reader is not going to want to hang around. There must be a chance for the character to improve if his circumstances change.
But s/he must have some underlying good qualities from the beginning. If your protagonist is whiney, abusive, or selfish, you’re probably not going to have the reader’s sympathy no matter what the genre.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) May 2, 2021
What about you, scriveners? Do you worry about whether your protagonist is sympathetic? Do you stop reading a book if there’s an unsympathetic character? What makes a character sympathetic for you? Does your opinion change by genre?
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Anne—This is an excellent post! Thanks. Answers many questions & raises a few intriguing side issues.
Do you consider “sympathetic” as the same as “identifiable?” If the reader sympathizes with the character, does s/he also ID with that character?
Also, where does the “compelling” character like James Bond or Hannibal Lector fit in?
Ruth–I had trouble fitting everything into this post. I had a paragraph on Hannibal Lector, but had to cut for word count. He’s not actually the protagonist of Silence of the Lambs, so I think because the reader sympathizes with Clarice, they see him through her eyes and slowly come to respect him. James Bond, like Jack Reacher and so many other thriller protagonists, isn’t “likeable” but has the resilience and toughness that thriller readers are looking for.
I think Romance and Women’s Fiction readers want a protagonist they can identify with, but thriller and mystery readers, not so much.
Silence Of The Lambs came to mind as I read this, Anne. (Good job on a good topic, BTW) I’d say Clarice is likeable and sympathetic in spades, but Hannibal? I don’t think you can slot him as either sympathetic or unsympathetic. His character is so large that it fits in an uber-fascinating space of its own. Strangely, he is the type of guy I’d like to hang around with – provided there’s a foolproof and fully-functioning lock on his cage door.
Garry–As I said to Ruth, I didn’t include Hannibal because he’s not the protagonist. We sympathize with Clarice and then we see Hannibal though her eyes. As she learns to respect him, so do we.
Hi Anne,
One of the key things about this that doesn’t get mentioned is that the character shouldn’t be born on page one. That’s apparently a common problem in the Writers of the Future Contest, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in a lot of novels. It’d be pretty hard to get a sympathetic character if the reader doesn’t get any sense that the character existed outside of the story.
Linda–I haven’t run into the “birth of the hero” on page one in contemporary novels, so it’s interesting to hear it’s become a problem. It certainly was a convention in 18th and 19th century fiction. Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy spend a lot of time being born before the stories start. But those early novels were all about voice, not plot. I wonder if these writers are working so hard to avoid flashbacks that they start the story way earlier than it needs to.
I think it’s not a convention so much as writer inexperience. They think about what happens in the story and make the character fit the story, then forget that the character should feel like they existed before the story.
Linda–Now I understand. You’re talking about a character without a backstory. That can be worse than too many flashbacks to show backstory. That’s a writer who’s probably focused too much on plot and not enough on characterization.
Another great post, Anne! Off it goes to all my current writer clients… :O)
As I read along, I thought of the Nike slogan: Just Do It and realized that my favorite aspect of any protagonist is that idea: they ‘just do it’. Their heroic act/behavior turns out to just be a gut reaction, something truly basic and fair that allows them to react without thinking, thus revealing their ‘good’ core, which to me means no matter what they say or dispute, they are ‘good’ people. The deepest fears or wounds we carry may be a steering part of us for decades and I can easily feel sympathy for the protagonist who is driven to poor decisions by such fears and wounds.
Very thought provoking post — and, silly though this will sound, I trust you to remind me what day of the week it is. Ann’s post pops up — it’s Sunday!! I rarely know what day of the week it is anymore… :O))
Maria–I’m glad to hear I serve as a reliable calendar reminder! 🙂
You make a good point that if we understand a character’s fears and wounds we’re much more likely to sympathize with them, even if they make unwise decisions. But they must act (just do it) or we lose that sympathy.
Some said the main character of my trilogy started off unlikable, but I must’ve gotten the sympathy part right for so many to have read the books.
Great examples, too. If I don’t like or have sympathy for any character, I stop reading as well.
Alex–Something I didn’t get into here is the character arc. A protagonist needs to learn and change during the book(s) so if he’s perfect at the beginning, there’s no place to go. Sounds as if your guy has gone lots of places!
Hello,
As far as unsympathetic characters go, I definitely prefer characters who have something I for which can care about them. I think of my experience reading A Song of Ice and Fire. George R.R. Martin is a superlative writer. He creates characters that jump right off the page. I should be so excellent in my writing of characters.
The problem is that *every* character I encountered, who survives at least, is a terrible person. I got into the third book as far as what happened to Sansa Stark, and I couldn’t read any more, because she was surrounded by people who only wanted to use her. That was my opinion of the entire cast of characters. If I found anybody remotely likable, something bad would happen to him or her. It just made me depressed.
My sense of empathy works overtime. I walked out of Titanic because I was so distressed by how badly Rose’s family treated her. Yes, I know she overcame that; but it was terrible to watch. I can’t watch things about The Holocaust, not even Schindler’s List, because watching deliberate cruelty pushes all my buttons.
Anyway, this is about your post, not about me. So that’s all I’ll say. Thanks for reading this far.
Jack–I share a lot of the feelings you express here. Many of us do suffer from too much empathy. I cannot watch a horror movie of any kind. One of the reasons I didn’t talk about Hannibal Lecter here is I couldn’t read more than a few chapters of the book, even though I liked Clarice. And I stopped watching Game of Thrones after the 4th beheading, which was about 5 minutes into the show. And Holocaust stuff causes me so much pain it’s like opening an old wound. There is no pleasure in reading about real-life suffering for me.
And that reaffirms my point that “sympathetic” is a subjective judgement. We should write for our audience and not try to please all the people all the time.
This is a great article. I especially loved the separation of “sympathetic” and “likeable.”
A sympathetic character, for me, has to have some kindness in them, somewhere. Either a hidden soft spot or something that he or she is willing to protect at all costs. Without that, I lose interest. I’ve noticed this is true no matter what genre I’m reading.
Beyond that, not much else matters. (That’s my view these days, anyway.)
Amy–Kindness is the essential quality for me, too. But not everybody feels that way. Some readers want courage above all, or intelligence. Luckily there are books for all of us.
I immediately thought of Alicia Sliverstone’s character in Clueless. At first, she’s that snooty, shallow, popular girl nobody likes. So ignorant and oblivious to her ignorance. But we gradually see her showing compassion and concern for her father and other kids. She grows up and discovers her true love. I haven’t seen it in a long time, but I think we see her showing concern for her father early on. We also like her from the start because she has so much positive energy. An example from the opposite end of the spectrum from Breaking Bad :-).
Anna–The Clueless character is based on Jane Austen’s Emma, who has the same “unlikeable” qualities at first, before she’s redeemed by love. That’s a classic character arc, and people who expect a character to be without flaws at the beginning of the story are going to have to stick to very shallow books. 🙂
Great stuff, Anne,
As you know, my WIP involves a prickly dude with a temper & attitude problem. Could easily fall into the unsympathetic category, but I’m having a grand time giving him a hopefully sympathetic vulnerable underbelly.
Keep up the good work.
CS–I think your prickly dude sounds like a very “redeemable” character. Showing his vulnerability at the beginning of the story will make most readers sympathize in spite of the prickles.
Great post. Both Becky Sharp and Scarlett O’Hara come across as sympathetic even if we don’t like or approve of their behaviors. I think has a lot to do with their motivations. We can understand why they are driven. I’m trying to do the same with the Rival in the Regency Romance I’m writing. I think deliberate unnecessary cruelty dooms any character’s chance for being sympathetic. As for being redeemable, I find that a particularly American preference. I’ve read a number of British literary and crime novels that were later made into American films. What these works have in common is that in their British versions the characters were not redeemed at all, while the American films omitted or added at least a hint of possible redemption. This isn’t limited to book to film. Comparing English and American film versions gave the same result.
Imadden–Women of that period needed to be devious to survive, didn’t they? So I think we can see they often have no choice but to do dodgy things. It’s not like they can go off and get a job at Walmart. 🙂
You’ve made an interesting point about US vs. UK versions. I think I agree! The Office is a great example. Steve Carell’s Michael Scott is so much sweeter and more vulnerable than Ricky Gervais’ character. Personally, I prefer British comedy to American, and maybe that’s the reason. The characters don’t have to get “better.” They can keep being hilarious and we don’t have to forgive them for it.
Exactly. Exactly, and exactly. I love a broken character seeking redemption.
Laurie–Broken characters are so much more interesting, aren’t they?
The editor of the first drafts of my current thriller (which will be published Spring 2022) wrote that my main characters were “relatable” if not always “likable.” And, I think there’s a nugget there which essentially states that a character does not always have to be likable so long as we understand why she wants what she wants.
It’s a very fine line to walk when you’re writing genre fiction in which too often editors will discard a novel because the heroine is not “sympathetic.”
Joanna–“Relatable” is a great word! It’s so true that editors who are used to editing romance or popular women’s fiction (as opposed to literary) are hardwired to want every protagonist to be Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice, not Catherine Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights. They want good girls. The old Harlequin guidelines seem to be imbedded in the psyche of a lot of publishing professionals. But as you say, people will read about characters they can relate to, even if those characters are not always admirable and morally upright. Luckily it sounds as if you’ve found a good editor.
Well put, Anne. Like someone said about Mills & Boon(UK counterpart of Harlequin) heroines: “they have to be bland enough not to offend millions of readers, and they have to be interesting enough not to offend millions of readers.”Ha!
And, yes, I respect my editor so much, I devoted a whole blog to her recently. I hope we’re going to have a long, productive relationship.
A most interesting post, Anne! It got me thinking: I am currently reading The Thursday Murder Club, which is quite a humorous mystery. Problem is, the viewpoint bounces between chapters to several characters, and I can’t figure out who the protagonist is supposed to be. Because I can’t find a protagonist, I can’t find someone to root for. It’s the strangest eye-opening experience. I find the book amusing, but I can put it down quite easily, and have done many times. Not sure I will bother to finish it, as there doesn’t appear to be anything at stake for a protagonist. Interesting, eh?
Melodie–I’m glad to hear you feel the same way! It’s one of my pet peeves. I always say a novel needs to have a protagonist. Just the one. Even in an ensemble cast, there’s one character we root for. If that character is AWOL, you don’t have a novel. You have a collection of vignettes. They may be lovely, but readers aren’t compelled to find out what happens.
We are all looking forward to your visit to us next Sunday when you tell us the five things we need in a Mystery Novel!
Anne: I miss you. I’ve squandered my life reviewing contracts and believing in love. Thanks for your reliable wisdom. -Kristi Johnson
Hi Kristi–Great to hear from you! I just checked out your blog and it looks great! The world still needs a good cheese book. Sounds as if the pandemic year has hit you hard. Do get in touch.
Excellent advice, Anne. I once had a Kensington editor say readers would hate my MC because she keeps one foot on both sides of the law, that if I made her more “likable” she would offer a contract. What she failed to see is the MC only targets embezzlers. I politely declined the editor’s offer. And that series went on to win several awards. She’s one of my most popular characters. But, as you mention in your post, she’s “relatable.”
Sue–It’s amazing how fearful some editors can be. As if bland characters would guarantee sales. I’m glad you proved her wrong so definitively.
Excellent points!
Thanks, Mike!
This post really made me think about sympathetic versus likable. In my opinion, a superb example of “sympathetic” is shown in Jodi Picoult’s “19 Minutes”. I haven’t read it in years but as I recall, I truly sympathized with the mass killer (!!) by the end of the story. The manner in which Jodi Picoult wrote about that character was extraordinary.
Patricia–An author who can make you relate to a mass murderer is one who really knows her stuff. I wouldn’t recommend a first=time novelist try that, but it sure worked for Jodi Picoult! She managed to draw the reader’s sympathy in spite of the protagonist’s actions. Jeff Lindsay did that with Dexter, too. So it can be done!
Love this post! And I bought your book. Thanks for all you do.
Many thanks, Rachel!
Not only is this a valuable, information-filled post, but the comments are most certainly something from which I can learn volumes. I could spend hours and hours in here!
An excellent post. Anne. I’m considering rewriting my first novel with a change of protagonist because I feel, from what I’ve been told, that one of the secondary characters is more charismatic and sympathetic.
VM–Interesting! I’ve read books where I was more interested in a secondary character than the protagonist, but I haven’t talked to an author whose secondary character actually took over the book. It sounds as if that’s what is happening with you. I’ll bet you’ll end up with a much more compelling novel.