Post History
You'll find a lot of good answers here: How do you make a story succeed in spite of an unsympathetic main character? On top of that: If your character is a misanthrope out of disappointment, that...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T12:00:43Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26943 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T06:10:32Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26943 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
You'll find a lot of good answers here: [How do you make a story succeed in spite of an unsympathetic main character?](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/2323/how-do-you-make-a-story-succeed-in-spite-of-an-unsympathetic-main-character) On top of that: If your character is a misanthrope out of _disappointment,_ that's your hook. Disappointment means that the person once had hope. So you play on that past hope. Was he an optimist? A starry-eyed idealist? A romantic? A decent man who was taken advantage of? An ordinary bloke in an abusive relationship? A middle manager keeping his head down who watched fellow citizens vote a tyrant into power? Figure out what broke his heart. Find a way to convey that backstory to your audience (not immediately — somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the way). A cabbagehead, newbie, or Watson are some traditional vehicles for this kind of exposition; you can also do it via a third character or a flashback. Additionally, if he can retain some of that hope, even in flashes (think the grouch with a heart of gold), the reader can see that the misanthropy was situational, or earned, and that there's some good underneath which just needs uncovering.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-02-26T22:19:46Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 7