Does the Reader Need to Like Your Main Character?

Of course not. How could you possibly write a character everyone would like? No one likes everyone they meet, and the fact a given person doesn’t like another person isn’t even necessarily a commentary on that second person’s character. It’s just that some personalities are incompatible. It boils down to personal preference. 

I saw this question debated in a fantasy writing forum, spawned off a conversation I had on Twitter following a #writetip I posted. I was sad to see most of the writers who commented did so on the basis of their own personal experiences, characters they did and did not like, and how that impacted their liking of the book, instead of taking a more objective and analytical view.

I suggest this is the wrong question. The right question is ‘does your character need to be likeable?’.

How do we distinguish a likeable character from one we like?

Liking someone (including a character) comes down to your own personal preferences of qualities and characteristics you find desirable in a person. Essentially you are asking would this character be your friend, if they were real. Likeable, on the other hand, means capable of evoking empathy or sympathy.

One commentator on the forum observed they didn’t like Frodo. I can’t say as I especially like Frodo either. If I listed my all-time favourite characters, Frodo wouldn’t be on that list. Does that mean he’s not ‘likeable’?

I don’t think it does. Frodo’s character isn’t repellent, disagreeable, nasty, or otherwise have elements which would make a reader actively dislike him. In general, his character has the potential to be liked. Whether you do or don’t like him comes down to your personal preferences. Given the definition of likeable I’ve mentioned above, to avoid confusion it may even be better to say ‘relatable’.

When we rephrase the question ‘Is Frodo relatable’ I think the answer is a resounding yes. He’s a little guy, bowed down by the weight of the world’s problems, venturing out from the only safe home he has known, to do battle with demons he can’t comprehend. You can easily take the fantasy out of the context by making the demons and the problems figurative instead of literal. Who can’t relate to that? To some degree, nearly all of us will have some sympathy for his plight – even if we don’t like him, personally.

Why is it important to make your character relatable?

Bearing in mind I am only talking about genre fiction here (literary fiction being a different kettle of fish), your character should be relatable because they are driving the action. In many cases, the reader keeps reading because they want to see what the character does next, how they solve their problems, how they overcome conflict, how their decisions make things better or worse.  If we don’t have empathy or sympathy for the character, if we don’t care at some level what happens to them, if we aren’t invested in that character, then why would we keep reading to learn any of these things?

The short answer is, for most, they wouldn’t. Once upon a time, I probably did, and I learned I wasn’t the standard, but nowadays my time is too precious. If I don’t care, I won’t bother to find out.

The problem is exacerbated if the main character is actively unlikeable, pathetic, whiny, or any one of a number of undesirable qualities, because really, who likes to spend any amount of time in the company of someone like that?

A few case studies to consider:

• Dexter – basically a serial killer, but we like him, or empathise with him, why? Because he has ‘The Code’. He only kills people who deserve it. Vigilante justice, but ‘good’ resonates more with us than ‘lawful’ in many cases. What he’s doing may not be strictly right, but we understand it, we relate to it, and, secretly, we probably applaud it;
• Rincewind from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld – a pathetic, useless and cowardly wizard who can’t perform magic or, for that matter, even spell the word ‘wizard’. Why do we like him? His cowardice is brutally pragmatic, and when you listen to him, he starts to make you question the intelligence of all those ‘heroes’ who rushed in against insurmountable odds to rescue the princess. Not only is Rincewind often right, but he’s funny – his insights are clever, and entertaining. Everyone likes the funny guy – even if often Rincewind is the butt of the joke;
• Riddick in Pitch Black – this one is a little less obvious, and harder to explain. Riddick is very much a ‘dark hero’. Why do we relate to him? A little bit, because we understand where he’s come from, and the tough circumstances he’s had to survive. A little bit, because he could have killed the other survivors at any time – and he didn’t. Surely he would have had a better chance without them, so why did he ever saddle himself with the burden of saving their lives? We have to ask the question, and suspect an answer. Even at the end, when he did make a break for it, and looked out for himself, he couldn’t go through with it. It’s that part of him, the good buried deep inside, that we relate to, and we follow the story to find out which side of him wins out.

As well as being relatable, no character should be irredeemable. Would Riddick work if we believed he was a bad apple all the way through, if he had abandoned everyone to die? No, of course not. Would Rincewind work so well if he didn’t save the world? Though he may be dragged to it, and forced against his will, at the end Rincewind accepts his fate with weary resignation and does what he can, little though it may be. If neither character showed any compassion or concern for others, they would fail completely.

You don’t need to like a character. But I do believe you need to understand and relate to characters in genre fiction, and most especially the protagonist. 

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Top Five Major Discworld Characters

I love the Discworld books. Always a good rollicking romp, and sometimes a welcome relief from the intensity of ‘the world is ending’ in other fantasy. I like to read Discworld between The Wheel of Time and The Sword of Truth and all the other books filled with intense heroics and life-changing events.

Which is not to say the Discworld books don’t tackle serious issues, because they do, but in a comedic way that allows them to get away with it, and in a way that is nevertheless entertaining. So here are my top five major Discworld characters.

5. Vetinari

Is this an odd choice? And if it is, do I like Vetinari because I’m like Vetinari? Or at least, so say the Discworld quizzes which tell you the characters you are most like, and if there is any truth to it, perhaps I should be afraid... On the other hand, Vetinari is, as dictators go, a most benevolent dictator, and I should like to think I would be, too. Benevolent, I mean. I can do the dictator part standing on my head.

Vetinari is a fascinating character. He is always one step ahead of everyone else – even when you (and everyone else) thinks he isn’t. You can’t fool him, no matter how hard you try. I would hate to play chess against him! Or poker, either, I expect. He rules the city by playing faction against faction and knowing how each will respond – even before they do! He is held in contempt by several Ankh-Morpork factions, but mostly because they fear him, hate him, envy him or are just too plain stupid to realise how cleverly dangerous he is!

It is said Vetinari failed his stealth class at the Assassins’ College, even though he attended every class, because the master never saw him there.

“Don’t let me detain you. What a wonderful phrase Vetinari had devised. The jangling double meaning set up undercurrents of uneasiness in the most innocent of minds. The man had found ways of bloodless tyranny that put the rack to shame.”

4. Death

Opposite to Vetinari, he totally doesn’t understand people. But his quest to try and understand us is hilarious, and he has some of the best cameos in the entire series. And I just love the way he talks LIKE THIS.

Death has a daughter (adopted, of course), a white horse called Binky, and a scythe that can slice anything in half. I don’t recommend cutting yourself by accident on that scythe.  

“The Rite of AshkEnte is the most serious ritual eight wizards can undertake. It summons Death...

The wizards stared into the magic octogram, which remained empty. After a while the circle of robed figures began to mutter amongst themselves.

'We must have done something wrong.’

‘Oook.’

‘Maybe He is out.’

‘Or busy...’

‘Do you think we could give up and go back to bed?’

WHO ARE WE WAITING FOR, EXACTLY?"

3. Mistress Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax

Head of her coven of witches in the Ramtop Mountains in the miniscule kingdom of Lancre. Like Vetinari, Granny has a very good grasp of people (although she calls it ‘headology’, or akin to psychology I expect). I’m not sure if they have ever met, but if they did, I expect there would be a certain amount of mutual respect and wariness. 

Like Vetinari, you can never get one over on Granny, even when you think someone has. Unlike Vetinari, though, Granny can’t fall back on being a tyrant – although she can and does fall back upon being a witch – in some parts just as bad or worse than tyranny – and is more or less a law unto herself. What Granny wants, Granny gets. She is, though, always conscious of the risk of ‘turning bad’ and cackling (a sure sign a witch has gone bad). 

Granny likes to always be right (forget admitting she is wrong) and she doesn’t much like losing. Perhaps that’s what I like about her... According to the quiz, there’s a dose of Granny in me as well!

“‘Blessings be upon this house,’ Granny said. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people’s minds on what other things might be upon this house.”

2. Sam Vimes

Once head of the night watch, and more recently risen to Commander of the Watch and Duke of Ankh, Vimes is very different to the three preceding characters. He’s cynical and very much against privilege and wealth and all about the common man, even if the definition of ‘man’ does keep getting shifted to include other species, which he’s not too keen about, and even if he has now been lifted to rank and privilege, which he’s also not too keen about.

Justice is important to Vimes, and legality, as he tries to shake off the spectre of his ancestor who was a regicide. It annoys him quite a bit when ‘Old Stoneface’ is declared a hero, because he believes you can’t just rewrite history and change the facts. The means does not justify the end where Vimes is concerned, but sometimes he is caught between what is right and what is legal.

Vimes is the Sherlock Holmes of the Discworld and he always gets his man. As you progress towards the end of the series, there are whole countries that shake in their boots when they hear Vimes is on the case.

Vimes is most concerned with ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ - who watches the watchers?

“'I’ve been running around looking for damn Clues instead of just thinking for five minutes!’ said Vimes. ‘What is it I’m always telling you?’

‘Never trust anybody, sir?’

‘No, not that.’

‘Everyone’s guilty of something, sir?’

‘Not that, either.’

‘Just because someone’s a member of an ethnic minority doesn’t mean they’re not a nasty, small-minded little jerk, sir?'

‘N- When did I say that?'

‘Last week, sir. After we’d had that visit from the Campaign for Equal Heights, sir.’”

1.  Rincewind

Of all the characters here, Rincewind is the only one completely unlike me, and yet also my absolute favourite. He is either impossibly cowardly or incredibly pragmatic, and yet somehow he still manages to save the world. Over time, this develops into a certain sense of fatalism about how events will unfold.

Technically a graduate of Unseen University, Rincewind is still undeniably a failed wizard and we never see him of his own free will cast a spell. He even has ‘Wizzard’ written on his hat, just so people don’t mistake him for something else. Like magic, spelling clearly is not his forte.

Rincewind provides, in my opinion, some of the funniest moments, along with his luggage... er, Luggage, which carries itself around on hundreds of little legs and has homicidal tendencies. As he staggers from disaster to disaster, accidentally staving off certain death for the world along the way, we just can’t help but laugh... and laugh... and laugh. 

“'But there are causes worth dying for,’ said Butterfly.

‘No, there aren’t! Because you’ve only got one life but you can pick up another five causes on any street corner!’

‘Good grief, how can you live with a philosophy like that?’

Rincewind took a deep breath. ‘Continuously!’

Who are your favourite Discworld characters? Would you list any here, or others? There were plenty of more minor characters I would love to have listed, but then the list would have grown rather unwieldy.

I’m considering doing a series of these posts. What other Top 5 Discworld posts would you like to see? Or are there other fantasy Top 5 posts you are interested in? I’d love to hear your suggestions. 

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to check out my previous posts if you haven't already. If you're finding yourself here often, you might like to join as a member, sign up to the blog through RSS or email, or subscribe to my newsletter.

Don't forget to share the love and spread the word on Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon (or other social networking site of your choice) if you know other people who might also enjoy this.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with us!

 

All quotes from 'The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld' by Terry Pratchett. 

An Introduction to the Discworld: Part 2

If you missed ‘Hear Me, Heretic! An Introduction to The Discworld’ you can find it here. 

Are you desperately hoping Rincewind isn’t a heel? Or do you already know the truth?

Sad to say, our man Rincewind abandons the naïve tourist and makes a bid to flee the city. 

The Discworld

How can the protagonist be such a coward, leave a poor guy in the lurch and yet we, the reader, still identify with him? Indeed, Rincewind is my absolute favourite Discworld character of all time yet I had to stop and consider why when there isn’t a lot I can say to recommend him. 

Rincewind is completely shameless. He knows he not brave or reliable or heroic (which suits him fine, cause you know heroes end up dead on swords or smote by gods, right?) but he makes no apologies for who he is. And I wonder if that’s the key. He’s not evil. He’s just cowardly, but he’s brave enough or honest enough to admit it. He doesn’t pretend to be something he’d not. 

Anyway, Rincewind ends up staying on to help Twoflower out. Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, tells Rincewind that he must stay with Twoflower – on pain of, well, pain. 

It is worth mentioning that the Lord Vetinari we meet in these first two books is a much flatter character than the later, well-rounded Vetinari – who is also infinitely more subtle. The Vetinari of later Discworld books, for example, would never do something so crass as to threaten someone in such blunt terms. He is the master of innuendo and implication. The best Discworld books for a look at Lord Vetinari are the city watch books. Interplay between Vetinari and Sam Vimes is often priceless.

Rincewind’s encounter with Vetinari ends with this exchange, as Vetinari tells Rincewind not to consider fleeing the city as he has advised all the rulers of the neighbouring cities of the situation. 

‘I assure you, the thought never even crossed my mind, my lord.’

‘Indeed? Then if I were you, I’d sue my face for slander.’

A small joke, but a funny one. Or is it only funny to lawyers?

The Luggage

I promised to introduce you to the Luggage in this post. The Luggage is made of a magical wood called sapient pearwood and it is more or less sapient. The box has its own legs and pretty much decides where it goes. It belongs to Twoflower but is inherited by Rincewind. My favourite thing about the Luggage is its homicidal tendencies. 

The lid snapped shut. Gancia vanished.

And just in case Weems thought it was accidental the Luggage’s lid snapped open again, just for a second, and a large tongue as red as mahogany licked across broad teeth as white as sycamore. Then it slammed shut again.

This thing will hunt you down. And it tracks better than a bloodhound.

The other two characters worth a mention are Death, the Librarian and Cohen the Barbarian. 

Death is your typical death – skeleton in a black robe. This is explained on the Discworld as an anthropomorphic personification. Natural forces, like death, essentially become personified. People think death is a skeleton in a black robe, so that’s what he looks like. And he talks LIKE THIS which sounds like crypt doors slamming. Death and Rincewind don’t really get along, mostly on account of Rincewind’s refusal to die. This is a scene where the Disc’s oldest wizard attempts to cheat death by locking himself in a box where Death can’t reach him. 

He has just set the complicated clockwork of the lock and shut the lid, lying back in the knowledge that here at last is the perfect defence against the most ultimate of all his enemies, although as yet he has not considered the important part that airholes must play in an enterprise of this kind.

And right beside him, very close to his ear, a voice has just said: DARK IN HERE, ISN’T IT?

Cohen the Barbarian. Fearsome.

The Librarian is the wizard who runs the library at the wizards university. He is accidentally turned into an orangutan and resist all attempts to be changed back. Just don't use the 'm' word. What m word? Monkey. 

OH SHIT.

Cohen the Barbarian is like Conan the Barbarian, only old… and stringy…. He’s about ninety in the shade and has no teeth. An old barbarian is very good at his job. You can tell because he’s not dead yet, see?

So now that you’ve met the characters, what’s the story about? You already know that Rincewind has been instructed to keep Twoflower alive, in the interests of avoiding international conflict between the city of Ankh-Morpork and the very old, powerful Agatean Empire. This is complicated by the fact Twoflower has no sense of self-preservation at all. 

Things come to a head when a red star growing in the sky signals the end of the world – unless the Eight Great Spells can all be spoken at the right time. The problem is, one of them is missing, hiding in Rincewind’s head. This is the reason he is such a failed wizard. He’s never been able to memorise another spell because ordinary, garden variety spells are too afraid to stay in his head with a Great spell. The other wizards know where the missing Great Spell is and are determined to hunt Rincewind down. Not all of them have the best intentions.

Don’t even mention the fact that the fate of the world rests on Rincewind’s shoulders. He doesn’t want to know. Someone else can have the job. 

It’s a fun ride and things only get better from here!

Lord Vetinari. Maybe this is why I had trouble finding dates?

As a matter of interest, you can find various Discworld quizzes on the web that will tell you which Discworld character/s you are most like.I’ve done this previously but I forget the results so I just did it again and here are my results:

You Scored as Lord Havelock Vetinari

You are Lord Vetinari! Supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork! Cool, calculated, and always in control. You graduated from the assassins guild, but failed a course on stealth and camouflage, because the professor never saw you there (even though you attended every class). You always seem to know what everyone is thinking, and after a conversation with you, people feel that they have just escaped certain death.

Lord Havelock Vetinari

75%

Carrot Ironfounderson

56%

Death

56%

Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax

56%

Greebo

50%

I find the results slightly worrying. Carrot is an anomaly in there with all those other characters, but that’s my sense of honour coming out. 

If you’d like to know who you are, check it out here! 

All quotes are from The Colour of Magic and the Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

There's A Black Hole In My Parent's Backyard

I am guest blogging today at Simon Tall's blog. Simon Tall is a lovely (you guessed it) tall English writer…amongst other things… He can be contacted in the Twitterverse: @simonpoore.

My post is titled 'There's A Black Hole In My Parent's Backyward'. This is more properly science fiction than fantasy, but hey, there's a bit of overlap between genres. I am not averse to a little science-fiction myself.

If you're a little confused about genre definitions and which genre you read (is this high fantasy or urban fantasy? Oh hell, it's all just fantasy!) you might like to check out the list of genre definitions compiled by my friend D.C. McMillen here.

And here is today's obligatory dragon. Isn't he cute?

Look out for Part 2 of the Introduction to the Discworld later this week to find out if Rincewind really is a heel.

Hear Me, Heretic! An Introduction to the Discworld

It has come to my attention there are heretics among us. Yes, heretics. Some of you have not read the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett!

*Pause here for shocked gasps*

If you’re sitting there thinking ‘I haven’t read it’ or ‘What the hell is the Discworld?’, then yes, I’m talking to you, heretic!

Don’t feel too bad. My Dad is also a heretic. It has become one of my life’s ambitions to convince him to read just one Discworld book. Just one. The Australian one didn’t work. I’m currently trying the science angle. 

The original and subsequent covers in Australia and the UK

If you don’t know the greatness that is Terry Pratchett, then you don’t know what you are missing. It is one of the world’s greatest tragedies that Mr Pratchett is suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s. The loss of his genius will be a cruel blow to literature. Go forth immediately, infidel, and beg, borrow or steal (or hey, even buy!) a copy of The Colour of Magic. It’s got dragons. I promise.  

I am here to introduce you to the magical wonders of the Discworld series via the first two books, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. Since there are two books, I’ll be doing this over two posts.

Unlike the rest of the Discworld books, you really do need to read both of these together. You don’t get a real conclusion to The Colour of Magic without reading The Light Fantastic. And, like many other series I’ve read, I didn’t start with the first book. Are you surprised? No? Didn’t think so. Someone bought me The Light Fantastic and in ignorance I read it and had to backtrack to The Colour of Magic. One day, we will find a series where I started at book one. What a novel idea...

Here’s the blurb from The Colour of Magic.

On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There’s an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE of the planet...

Rincewind

OK, that’s maybe not how I would have put it. The Discworld really is a disc, carried on the backs of four elephants, standing on the shell of the giant turtle swimming through space. The wizard is Rincewind, who is my most favourite Discworld character of all-time. He’s a wizard, but he is well and truly inept. He wears a pointy hat that reads ‘Wizzard’ just so people know what he is. He only knows one spell (but obviously not how to spell, ha ha) and he can’t use it. As for the luggage on ‘dear little legs’... Possibly my second favourite character. A box? Yes. However, if I had to describe the Luggage, I would probably have said ‘walking sentient box with homicidal tendencies’.  The word ‘dear’ wouldn’t feature.

This is our introduction to Rincewind, fleeing from a burning city and waylaid by two barbarians. He has just called one of the barbarians a ‘shadow-loving fleabag’ and the barbarian objects. How does Rincewind respond?

‘You don’t understand at all,’ said the wizard wearily. ‘I’m so scared of you my spine has turned to jelly, it’s just that I’m suffering from an overdose of terror right now. I mean, when I’ve got over that then I’ll have time to be decently frightened of you.’

That’s Rincewind, our friendly cowardly hero. He’d really prefer you dropped the ‘hero’ part. He introduces his companion as Twoflower, the man who started the fire. The barbarians ask if he is an arsonist.

‘No. Let’s just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, then Twoflower’d be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting “All gods are bastards”.’

Twoflower. Typical tourist, right?

I have to say that is a pretty fair description of Twoflower. Everywhere he goes, he draws trouble without meaning to. For example, he introduces the citizens of Ankh-Morpork (the burning city) to the idea of insurance (or in-sewer-ants as the locals say it). In his well meaning fashion, Twoflower insures the local pub, not realising all the pub owner understands is if his pub burns down, he gets gold. Do you start to see how the city caught fire? Not so good for Rincewind, who would like a quiet life followed by a quiet, painless death. 

Twoflower is a tourist from ‘the Counterweight Continent’, so-called because it has so much gold it makes up the weight of all the other continents combined. Needless to say, gold there doesn’t have quite the same value it does elsewhere, and Twoflower flashes far too much of it for his own safety. He is also looking to experience ‘authentic’ heroes and describes the pub as ‘a genuine Morporkian tavern.... All these quaint old beams’. 

Rincewind glanced around quickly, in case some leakage of enchantment from the Magicians’ Quarter across the river had momentarily transported them to some other place. No – this was still the interior of the Drum, its walls stained with smoke, its floor a compost of old rushes and nameless beetles, its sour beer not so much purchased as just hired for a while. He tried to fit the image around the word ‘quaint’. His mind reeled back from the effort.

You can see that Twoflower’s perception of things doesn’t really match reality. A very dangerous tendency. He also doesn’t speak the local language. Rincewind, poor wizard that he is, happens to know multiple languages and signs on as his tourist guide. Although he does so purely for the massive amount of gold Twoflower is offering, Rincewind is, at heart, a nice enough fellow trying to get Twoflower out of trouble. 

‘Stranger,’ said Rincewind levelly. ‘If you stay here, you will be knifed or poisoned by nightfall. But don’t stop smiling, or so will I.’

OK, himself as well. 

When Rincewind starts to discover how much gold Twoflower really has he knows he’s gotten himself into trouble.

Artist's impression of the imaginary dragons

As a student wizard, Rincewind had never achieved high marks in precognition, but now unused circuits in his brain were throbbing and the future might as well have been engraved in bright colours on his eyeballs. The space between his shoulder-blades began to itch. The sensible thing to do, he knew, was to buy a horse... But what would happen to Twoflower, all alone in a city where even the cockroaches had an unerring instinct for gold? A man would have to be a real heel to leave him.

Look for Part 2 to meet some more of the characters (including an up close and personal encounter with the Luggage!) and to learn if Rincewind is, in fact, a heel. 

What do you think? If you’ve read the books, don’t give it away for those who haven’t!

All quotes are from The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. Go buy a copy or follow Terry Pratchett on Twitter @terryandrob