Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Is it good to hate a character?

It depends a lot on the plot, the "genre" (I don't like this word too much, but there is a difference between pulpy science fiction and literary fiction), and other dynamics. For genre fiction (=s...

posted 8y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:18:09Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/22225
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:18:09Z (almost 5 years ago)
It depends a lot on the plot, the "genre" (I don't like this word too much, but there is a difference between pulpy science fiction and literary fiction), and other dynamics.

For genre fiction (=science fiction, horror, fantasy, detective, etc.) stereotypes are generally expected. This means, characters should be rather clearly offered as good/evil, smart/dumb, etc. Check about character theory: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character\_theory\_%28media%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_theory_%28media%29)

For Literary Fiction ( **or** if you want your genre story to be more complex - "high-brow"; at your own risk!) the exact opposite should happen:

- A character cannot be evil; s/he can be misguided 
- A character cannot be omniscient; s/he must have doubts
- A character cannot be omnibelevolent; s/he must have some dark side (or, at the very least, some fundamental character quirk that assigns a flawed quality to his/her ethics

And so on

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-06-02T08:12:06Z (over 8 years ago)
Original score: 0