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You want a character to be engaging, not necessarily likable. Breaking Bad doesn't have a likable or even sympathetic protagonist; it has a competent one and an engaging mystery. An unlikable chara...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T08:18:04Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34264 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Kirk
·
2019-12-08T08:18:04Z (over 4 years ago)
You want a character to be engaging, not necessarily likable. Breaking Bad doesn't have a likable or even sympathetic protagonist; it has a competent one and an engaging mystery. An unlikable character is a handicap, so everything else you write will have to carry the dead weight; but it is possible to turn that dead weight, that liability, into an asset. The seven deadly words of a book are: "I do not care about these people." Note, it's not "this person", but if a reader doesn't care about anyone in the story, they are likely to put it down and often correct to. Engagement/Caring doesn't mean like; but you should be answering the question "Why does the reader care?" often and strongly. Books that undersell often have this problem.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-03-13T21:38:14Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 5