...But It Might Be This Guy
Deliberately creating a character in some variation of the 'loser' mold can yield good comic and dramatic results. Accidentally writing an incompetent and possibly unlikeable character, not so much.
Ironically, the leading source of these characters appears to be authors attempting to create protagonists who are easy to relate to and/or awesome. Having created (and deleted) a good number of annoying characters myself, and encountered a surprising number in mainstream works, I think there are a variety of precipitating factors, which may occur alone or together:
The author is attached to their characters and can't bear to allow them to mess up, or excuses all of their actions;The author has been bombarded from every creative writing manual/class/blog ever with the message that characters must have flaws... and overdoes it;The author wants to give the character a rich internal life and overshoots the mark, giving disproportionate emotional responses to ordinary life events*
While a old-fashioned Mary Sue can be simply bland-- examples include characters who are totally defined by their superpowers or their love interests or their generic 'good guy-ness''*--these characters are actively grating. And unlike deliberately written obnoxious characters, the consequences of their behaviour doesn't drive the plot-- in fact, they're usually given a pass for no apparent reason. Other key characteristics include (but are unfortunately not limited to):
Double standards for bad behaviour, which are enforced by the story's 'objective' reality;Lack of concern for the well-being of other characters who are supposed to be their friends;Entitlement;Is a burden for the other characters by causing trouble, needing to be rescued, etc;No sense of perspective (ie, their trivial problems outweigh the real problems around them);Unpleasant attitudes about other characters that aren't justified by the secondary character's actions;Lack of discernible useful skills
The first and last items are particularly important. We can enjoy watching a fictional jerk get a comic comeuppance out of sheer schadenfreude, our innate sense of justice, or because we can enjoy their misfortunes without guilt due to their bad behaviour. There is also a level of wish-fulfillment attached to seeing a character do the amusing but unacceptable things we secretly wish we could get away with, such as witty insults or mean pranks directed at the people who get under our skin on a daily basis. We can also invest in a character who is antisocial but incredibly skilled, be they villains who make evil look oh-so-cool or anti-heroes who do good while snarking the whole way. But if a character is the trifecta of anti-social, incompetent, and a karma houdini, they will rub lots of readers the wrong way.
*If your character has a personality disorder, is in a high-stress environment, or for whatever other reason is a drama llama (as acknowledged by other characters), don't mind me.
**One reason I can't really muster a rant about James Fenimore Cooper is that while the concept of a white Gary Stu among Native Americans is offensive, in reality Natty is just a rather forgettable cookie-cutter good dude, if a bit long on the super-special skills.
Ironically, the leading source of these characters appears to be authors attempting to create protagonists who are easy to relate to and/or awesome. Having created (and deleted) a good number of annoying characters myself, and encountered a surprising number in mainstream works, I think there are a variety of precipitating factors, which may occur alone or together:
The author is attached to their characters and can't bear to allow them to mess up, or excuses all of their actions;The author has been bombarded from every creative writing manual/class/blog ever with the message that characters must have flaws... and overdoes it;The author wants to give the character a rich internal life and overshoots the mark, giving disproportionate emotional responses to ordinary life events*
While a old-fashioned Mary Sue can be simply bland-- examples include characters who are totally defined by their superpowers or their love interests or their generic 'good guy-ness''*--these characters are actively grating. And unlike deliberately written obnoxious characters, the consequences of their behaviour doesn't drive the plot-- in fact, they're usually given a pass for no apparent reason. Other key characteristics include (but are unfortunately not limited to):
Double standards for bad behaviour, which are enforced by the story's 'objective' reality;Lack of concern for the well-being of other characters who are supposed to be their friends;Entitlement;Is a burden for the other characters by causing trouble, needing to be rescued, etc;No sense of perspective (ie, their trivial problems outweigh the real problems around them);Unpleasant attitudes about other characters that aren't justified by the secondary character's actions;Lack of discernible useful skills
The first and last items are particularly important. We can enjoy watching a fictional jerk get a comic comeuppance out of sheer schadenfreude, our innate sense of justice, or because we can enjoy their misfortunes without guilt due to their bad behaviour. There is also a level of wish-fulfillment attached to seeing a character do the amusing but unacceptable things we secretly wish we could get away with, such as witty insults or mean pranks directed at the people who get under our skin on a daily basis. We can also invest in a character who is antisocial but incredibly skilled, be they villains who make evil look oh-so-cool or anti-heroes who do good while snarking the whole way. But if a character is the trifecta of anti-social, incompetent, and a karma houdini, they will rub lots of readers the wrong way.
*If your character has a personality disorder, is in a high-stress environment, or for whatever other reason is a drama llama (as acknowledged by other characters), don't mind me.
**One reason I can't really muster a rant about James Fenimore Cooper is that while the concept of a white Gary Stu among Native Americans is offensive, in reality Natty is just a rather forgettable cookie-cutter good dude, if a bit long on the super-special skills.
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