How Unsympathetic Can a Protagonist Be?
There’s something that’s been bothering me for years. (I can carry a worry longer than anybody. I am the Olympic gold medalist in worry and guilt carrying.) So I thought I’d throw the question out here and we could talk about it. I don’t need anybody to tell me I was right or wrong, it’s a judgment call. I’m just trying to get some clarity on the issue.
I had a student who was a very good writer in one my (many) romance writing classes. She turned in the first scene for her novel and it was brilliant, fantastic scene setting, great characterization, vivid action and dialogue. And I loathed her protagonist, even though I should have liked her because she was sharp and strong and determined and active with a great goal: She wanted to get out of her one-horse town and go somewhere else for a good reason. So what was the problem? She was dealing prescription drugs.
The book opened with her putting pressure on a kind of sad sack guy to get her more pills to sell, and he was resisting, telling her his cop brother would kill him if he went back to doing that, that his brother had finally gotten him clean and straight, but she’s determined to get out of town and she’s really putting the screws to him when his brother walks in and confronts her. Okay, I’m actually good with all of that in literary fiction or in a noir where I’m not supposed to identify with her, and I should mention that this was years ago before the opioid crisis was getting the attention that it is now. And I really don’t trust my own instincts on this because I know too many people who have addictions to prescription medications and who are making their own lives and the lives of the people who love them absolute hell. So, huge bias here. But the final trigger for me was that this was a romance novel, and the heroine and the cop were going to end up together.
What I told her was that I didn’t think a drug-pushing heroine would work in a romance novel. I think I suggested she write it as literary fiction, but I don’t remember for sure. She said that it was just pills so it was no big deal. I tried to explain what “just pills” can do, but she was angry and she left the class. Which means I failed her utterly because it’s none of my damn business what my students write, only how they write it, and even that is up to them, I’m just there to point out weaknesses and teach theory and its application. I can’t get past the feeling that I screwed that one up. But I’m not sure I was wrong.
Here’s my theory about protagonists: They don’t have to be likable, but they do have to be fascinating and, I think, admirable in some way, I think readers have to want to spend time with them, get involved in their struggles. I think you can have a hooker as a protagonist, a conman, a thief, maybe even a murderer depending on who and why the character murdered, but I think you have to stack the deck so that person is not a predator. That is, your thief is Robin Hood, your murderer kills bad guys (hello, Dexter), your conman fleeces only people who deserve to lose their money. Leverage was pretty much built on the idea that bad people doing good things are fun to watch. I think once the protagonist begins to prey on people, hurt people, for his or her selfish ends, the story becomes unreadable, no matter how great the writing is.
But I also know that’s in the eye of the beholder. There are a lot of people who do not like Davy Dempsey because he’s a crook. I can understand that, that’s not their story. But it’s different when you’re a teacher because it doesn’t matter if it’s your kind of story or not, you do not mess with the story itself. Which is why, although I still feel that the pill-pushing protagonist was not going to work in a romance (opinion, not fact), I also still feel that I failed that student.
I’m not asking for people to tell me I was right (feel free to tell me I was wrong, though), I’m just trying to figure out what a too-unlikable protagonist is. And determined to never critique a protagonist again in the future. Argh.
What do you think?
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The unlikable protagonist has taken on an upswing since Gone Girl and Girl on a Train, etc. But, there are many kinds of readers - some are looking for characters, but others are looking for the plot. It is possible Romance is not the right genre for a pill-pushing heroine, but I think boundary stretching is to be allowed. Personally, I am mostly concerned with the characters and want to feel invested in them while reading. But, yet, I finished Gone Girl knowing I had read the first book I ever enjoyed with nasty characters, none of which I liked. It was a revelation to me that it could be done.
A redeemable quality is a must, in my opinion. I feel physically suffocated when the MC is a "bad" person, as in, when she does something that I wouldn't. I guess that's because whilst reading, I imagine myself in her shoes so, for example, I just finished reading a book in which had all the main characters were cheating on each other and I felt grossed out and terrible because that's the ultimate no-no for me, and hence, because of that (and also the fact that the novel was boring af) I did not enjoy it. That being said, I kinda hate it when the authors try too hard to give their characters a reedemable quality just for the sake of it. Don't do that. Let them be terrible human beings, let them be themselves, don't shove a good Samaritan down their throats and gag them ffs.
The bigger sin, for me, is not badness, but if the character is not compelling. I am not a a fan of unlikeable protagonists (I've read both Gone Girl and Girl on a Train and despised everyone in the former and wanted my time back and just shrugged about the latter --- not my cuppa). But in a ton of literary fiction I have to want to understand the character, there has to be a break in the armor that I am interested in, even if they are vile. Humbert Humbert in Lolita is compelling and vile because what makes him tick is disturbingly interesting,
I think your comments were spot on for that writer. The fact that she couldn't deal with comments--left the class--is actually a problem for her in that the publishing world is full of hard knocks. If you don't learn early to deal with that, you need to stay out of this business (or it's either going to kill you or kill your ability to write).So if she stopped writing because of your comments, you may have done her a huge service. Doesn't matter what talent is--if you don't have the thick skin to go with, you will not make it (even with self-publishing). Because everyone's got an opinion.
Years ago a writer gave me the advice to learn how to take criticism and then judge its value--and take it or not, but don't take it personally. Or stop writing and submitting and save yourself the headache.
My take...she should have smiled, thanked you, figured out if she wanted to take your comments or not, and kept on trucking. Either with or without your advise.
And...I agree utterly. You can do stuff with literary that you cannot do with romantic genre. Genre by definition has certain requirements--it is a box to write in. If you don't want to be in that box, go do something else.
The issue, surely, is genre. An unsympathetic or unpleasant protagonist in a romance is novel is in the wrong book (unless redemption is part of the story - and even then, wrong, since the whole point of romance is to take us out of the unpleasantness of everyday life into a happier world). I won't watch 'Weeds' or 'Breaking Bad' or most modern TV because life is just too short to waste precious hours on such people. Which is why I hated 'Girl on a Train'. 'Gone Girl' is different - so compellingly written, so clever, and not a romance, anyway. But for me, even thrillers usually need at least one character agreeable enough to be worth spending time with.
