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

66%
+2 −0
Q&A How can I write a dark protagonist for whom there is no hope?

In my ongoing effort to weed out every beginner-related problem I might have before I write my novel (what do you mean? I'm not delaying at all), I have now come to a dreaded area: dark protagonist...

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Thomas Myron‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by icanfathom‭

Question characters
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Thomas Myron‭ · 2020-04-08T23:29:33Z (almost 4 years ago)
In my ongoing effort to weed out every beginner-related problem I might have before I write my novel (what do you mean? I'm not delaying at all), I have now come to a dreaded area: dark protagonists. 

I once wrote an answer on SE concerning dark protagonists. I said that if you provided hints and glimpses that the protagonist was not as dark as they seemed, then all would be well. The reader would be able to glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel, and continue to root for the protagonist to reach that light. 

I still believe that's a solid method. It has a problem though: it deals with a character who is not entirely dark, or who IS entirely dark, but enters the light during the course of the story. 

I am now dealing with a protagonist who starts out in the light, and falls to darkness over the course of the story. I can't very well offer the reader false hope that there's light at the end of the tunnel, because, well... there isn't. Things only get worse. 

I know that such a dark character seriously threatens the reader's desire to keep reading about said character. I am wondering what devices or strategies others might have found to help write such a character. 

Am I forced to adopt a different PoV to tell this story? Or is there some trick I can do with the character? 

Note: I'm not asking how to *change* the character. I'm purely asking how to *write* such a character so that the reader will keep reading.