Characters you didn't like in stories?

Hello, all, I'm relatively new to posting, but a long-time reader. There are some characters in stories that are...not well-liked, to put it mildly. What are some characters you didn't like in stories you read?

To start, mine would be Breanna in Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules. God, what an unlikeable b****; let me put it this way, if she were in a slasher film or murder mystery (like in Murder, She Wrote or Midsomer Murders), she'd be the first one to die horribly. Unlike one reviewer, I don't hate RetroFan for creating the character; I praise RetroFan for managing to create such a hateable person (and I have to ask if Breanna was based on anyone the author knew)...

Likable characters are not a requirement for high-quality stories. Unlikable characters do require high-quality readers, though, to be enjoyed/appreciated.

KeithD said:

Likable characters are not a requirement for high-quality stories. Unlikable characters do require high-quality readers, though, to be enjoyed/appreciated.

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I'm not so sure about that. Incest readers love stories with loutish, unlikeable dads, so the strapping son can be a hero when he moves in on mom.

Not to knock those readers -- I love 'em -- but I'm not sure they're all "high quality."

You may be talking about stories in which the protagonist is unlikeable, in which case you probably are correct, especially here at Lit.

Basically, I think that readers who insist on only likable characters and happy endings are shallow readers. Not who I write for.

If we're talking here, unlikable characters may have a negative affect on score. I think a lot of people here vote with knee jerk reaction rather than thinking it through in the sense of the guy was an asshole, but wow, the author did a good job with that asshole.

Lot of votes here are emotional over intellectual.

I don't mean to insult the readership with that comment, its just how I see it.

I can only think of one or two characters that the authors (apparently) intended to be likeable, but that I took a dislike too. As I recall those stories had pretty good scores, so I may be in the minority. I can think of a few antagonists I didn't like too, but in those cases, the author didn't want me to like them.

In general though, there are types of characters I don't care for. I don't like bimbos. I don't like cuckolds; I do recognize a distinction between men who get off on humiliation, and those who are simply too weak to stand up or walk away. I can handle the former, I don't like the later. I also don't like arrogant, alpha-males.

Once it becomes obvious such a protagonist will be central to the plot, I usually won't read more than a page before I drop the story. There have been good authors who have eventually drawn me into characters I disliked at first, but it's rare.

But love-to-hate is a very difficult emotion for writers to cultivate, and not everybody reacts to rotten bastards the same way. So a writer can fail to quicken love-to-hate in readers, and instead just make a character that readers hate, period.

Some SoIaF fans, for example, loved-to-hate Geoffrey, but plain hated Ramsay.

Everyone is unlikeable in some of my stories. It comes with the plumbing.

Most of the characters I most love to write aren’t meant to be liked, and few get redeemed. Same with many of the ones I like to read.

I find noble people less interesting than smarmy ones.

If you translate your question over into history, some of the most wicked, most disposable and dislikable people are often remembered more often than say the people that opposed them. Prime example: I bet more people in America can rattle off more things about Hitler and Joseph Stalin than say Winston Churchill.

It’s not so much what we like about the good characters compared disliking the bad characters. As a reader, I know I want to see someone rise to the occasion and make the story interesting. Kant

I have a very unlikeable character in one of my novels. There are several lesser characters that are unlikeable too. I want them to be that way.

One of the things I struggled most with in my writing was the characterization of Nicky in My Fall and Rise. It was very difficult to portray him in a manner that people would understand that I truly loved him while at the same time revealing him to be such a toxic person, and ultimately, the "villain" of the story, if anyone could be said to be that. I think I succeeded somewhat, but not entirely.

It is understandable that so many actors would always portray the bad guy if given their choice. The roles are so much more complex and nuanced.

Unknown81 said:

Hello, all, I'm relatively new to posting, but a long-time reader. There are some characters in stories that are...not well-liked, to put it mildly. What are some characters you didn't like in stories you read?

To start, mine would be Breanna in Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules. God, what an unlikeable b****; let me put it this way, if she were in a slasher film or murder mystery (like in Murder, She Wrote or Midsomer Murders), she'd be the first one to die horribly. Unlike one reviewer, I don't hate RetroFan for creating the character; I praise RetroFan for managing to create such a hateable person (and I have to ask if Breanna was based on anyone the author knew)...

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I am the author who created Breanna from the Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules fetish series. Fortunately while I have met very unpleasant people I haven't met anyone quite like Breanna, and I wouldn't want to either. When I thought of her I simply envisaged about the most offensive things a girl could do (while staying within Literotica's rules) and developed the character around that. My biggest disappointment with this series is that I developed writer's block after Chapter 6 and didn't write any more Breanna stories, but I have written some more which hopefully I will post soon. However, I don't think a lot of people would miss Breanna all that much if I didn't.

Besides Breanna, I have written quite a lot of unlikable female characters in my stories such as:

Spoiled Princess Hates Camping - Madison is a spoiled brat with some serious entitlement issues. Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules is actually a sequel to the stories about Madison and involves the same family (poor them).

The PTA Queen Bee & the Teen Rebel - Allison (the Queen Bee) is a domineering alpha bitch bully, who works as a real estate agent and has very questionable business practices. Basically, she is a crook. Jenna (the teen rebel) is a heavy metal loving rebel who swears like a sailor and has been sent to a Catholic girls' boarding school for her terrible behavior.

The Coal Miner & the Conservative - Felicity Thornton-Browne is a stuck up, smug English girl, a rich bitch always with plenty to say

Bridget the Bossy Bridezilla - Bridget is a spoiled Daddy's girl with quite a nasty streak who cheats on her fiancée Ben out of pure spite. Some other female characters such as Ben's shrill sister Charlene, domineering cougar client Tracy and grunge girl university student Casey aren't all that nice either.

My Best Friend's Crazy Fat Sister - Zoe, the crazy fat sister from the title, is a former (fictional) Australian tennis player who let her promising career slide through diva antics, drinking and promiscuity and years later is really fat. Her parents raise her kids (their grandkids) because their train wreck daughter can't be bothered or trusted to do so. Her brother Adam's fitness fanatic wife Emily is very bad tempered and isn't shy about letting her feelings known to anyone who crosses her.

Shy Steve Meets Sexy Stacy - College girl Stacy is a bitch and a bully.

RetroFan said:

I am the author who created Breanna from the Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules fetish series.

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I haven't read any of your work RetroFan, but it sounds like you make an effort to make your characters unlikable and are successful. That seems very different to me from an author who wants likable characters but fails. I've seen more two-dimensional caricatures than I can count. I've also seen authors attempt flawed, imperfect characters that just didn't come off as sympathetic as the author hoped. Your work is clearly in a different category.

What do you think it is about your stories that appeals to people? Are they cathartic? Do the horrible people in the stories get what's coming to them in the end? Or is it more of a fantasy for your readers to imagine what it would be like to get away with that kind of behavior? Or are the title characters merely the antagonists that other more likable characters have to deal with?

LoquiSordidaAdMe said:

I haven't read any of your work RetroFan, but it sounds like you make an effort to make your characters unlikable and are successful. That seems very different to me from an author who wants likable characters but fails. I've seen more two-dimensional caricatures than I can count. I've also seen authors attempt flawed, imperfect characters that just didn't come off as sympathetic as the author hoped. Your work is clearly in a different category.

What do you think it is about your stories that appeals to people? Are they cathartic? Do the horrible people in the stories get what's coming to them in the end? Or is it more of a fantasy for your readers to imagine what it would be like to get away with that kind of behavior? Or are the title characters merely the antagonists that other more likable characters have to deal with?

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I like to write comedy and you often find unlikable characters in my comedic stories, especially satire and shock comedies. Some get what's coming to them, more often they get away with their bad behavior. 'Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules' is a shock comedy, and Breanna immoral, obnoxious, abrasive, vindictive and violent. She is truly an awful person, but no nice, normal girl would behave like her sexually or non-sexually. Breanna is probably a sociopath, although I never reference her as such.

It is easier to write flawed female characters and still have them hot and interesting and engaging to read about. For example in 'Spoiled Princess Hates Camping' lead character Madison is a spoiled and selfish Daddy's girl, who is made to go camping in the New Jersey Pine Barrens with her aunt, uncle and three cousins. She is an entitled and ungrateful brat who complains constantly, frequently bursting into tears to try and get her own way. Could you write a story about a spoiled Mama's boy in the same situation who behaves in a similar way and still make him hot and engaging to readers? Possibly, but it would take an author way more talented than me to accomplish it.

Some of my other stories have characters who are perfectly likable and good people, but in bad situations. For example my lesbian story 'April Leads Julie Astray' is a comedy-drama. It has funny moments, but overall the story is a serious one. The two female leads are nice girls and very likable, but both had difficult childhoods (to put it mildly), April a victim of physical and emotional child abuse and Julie catching polio and crippled in one leg as a result.

Like all fictional works, my stories may appeal to some readers and not others. Some people may like my funny story 'Leanne the Lusty Lifeguard' but not my sad Romance story 'Learning to Love Louise' or vice versa. But I know I always make an effort to write interesting and engaging characters and plots in my stories.

RetroFan said:

I like to write comedy and you often find unlikable characters in my comedic stories, especially satire and shock comedies.

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Ah! Comedy. Serves me right for getting most of my laughs from stand up albums and specials. "Good Omens" is probably the last comedy I read. I had honestly forgotten that Humor & Satire is a category here. I'm gonna have to check it out.

LoquiSordidaAdMe said:

Ah! Comedy. Serves me right for getting most of my laughs from stand up albums and specials. "Good Omens" is probably the last comedy I read. I had honestly forgotten that Humor & Satire is a category here. I'm gonna have to check it out.

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“Good Omens” is as good as satire gets. I’d imagine if Gaiman and Pratchett had posted it here as “Anathema Uses Her Device,” it would get few views and low votes.

I think many of my stories are funny, and my readers agree. But I’d NEVER post them in humor/satire for the simple reason that, when I was an anonymous reader for nearly ten years, I never once visited there. I think of myself as my own best focus group; I write what I’d want to read, so I seek a reader like me.

MelissaBaby said:

One of the things I struggled most with in my writing was the characterization of Nicky in My Fall and Rise. It was very difficult to portray him in a manner that people would understand that I truly loved him while at the same time revealing him to be such a toxic person, and ultimately, the "villain" of the story, if anyone could be said to be that. I think I succeeded somewhat, but not entirely.

It is understandable that so many actors would always portray the bad guy if given their choice. The roles are so much more complex and nuanced.

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The film HIGH NOON is an excellent tutorial for depicting excellent heroines and villains
, thttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3WMCKNTfohough Grace Kelly needs the whole film to redeem her character. A bitch almost to the last scene.

FEELINGLUCKYPUNK said:

The film HIGH NOON is an excellent tutorial for depicting excellent heroines and villains
, thttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3WMCKNTfohough Grace Kelly needs the whole film to redeem her character. A bitch almost to the last scene.

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High Noon is interesting because the entire town is, essentially, unlikeable, but we admire the marshall for sticking around to fight the villains.

I wouldn't agree that Grace Kelly's character is a bitch; she's a Quaker and a pacifist, who is trying to stay true to her principles, but it's hard not to cheer when she stays with her man and shoots one of the bad guys.

One of those bad guys, by the way, was played by Lee Van Cleef, who went on to play a great villain in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, which features three unscrupulous characters who are all appealing in different ways.

Sometimes you can have a lot of fun writing about antagonists in stories.

For example, in my story 'Sexy Savannah at Number 9', the main male character Dino has an authoritarian father called Salvatore WHO SHOUTS ALMOST EVERY LINE OF DIALOGUE HE SPEAKS, and calls his son a loser, a spastic, a retard and a sissy. I made this character such a large ham that while he is the main antagonist in the story, he is so over the top that he is funny.

Then there's Todd, the fat bully from my 'PTA Queen Bee & Teen Rebel' stories, who is so stupid that he thinks about himself in the third person. So while Todd is an antagonist who bullies special needs kids among many of his antics, he is a buffoon and so cartoonish that he comes across as an object of ridicule, rather than one to inspire hatred or loathing.

Yeah, while Todd IS a bully who deserves his comeuppance in the second chapter of your story, his attempts at bullying ALWAYS backfire, like all of Cartman's schemes in South Park. He also exemplifies the trope Did Not Think This Through, like his scheme to hide in the girls' bathroom in the second part of your story (that was so darkly hilarious)...

OTOH, Dino in Sexy Savannah at Number 9, who could be a Jerkass Woobie in other stories with that premise, is so unlikeable that you can't like him.

BTW, RetroFan, have you seen the series Mad Men? One of the main characters in that, Roger Sterling, is pretty much a narcissistic asshole (then again, almost all of the main characters are unlikeable to some extent), but his one-liners and some of his actions are so (darkly) funny that you can't help but like him AND want to hit him at the same time (it helps that John Slattery, the actor who plays Roger, is good in portraying this, IMO)...

THAT is how one can write an unlikeable character, for starters...

Unknown81 said:

Yeah, while Todd IS a bully who deserves his comeuppance in the second chapter of your story, his attempts at bullying ALWAYS backfire, like all of Cartman's schemes in South Park. He also exemplifies the trope Did Not Think This Through, like his scheme to hide in the girls' bathroom in the second part of your story (that was so darkly hilarious)...

OTOH, Dino in Sexy Savannah at Number 9, who could be a Jerkass Woobie in other stories with that premise, is so unlikeable that you can't like him.

BTW, RetroFan, have you seen the series Mad Men? One of the main characters in that, Roger Sterling, is pretty much a narcissistic asshole (then again, almost all of the main characters are unlikeable to some extent), but his one-liners and some of his actions are so (darkly) funny that you can't help but like him AND want to hit him at the same time (it helps that John Slattery, the actor who plays Roger, is good in portraying this, IMO)...

THAT is how one can write an unlikeable character, for starters...

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I've never seen Mad Men, but I'll have to check it out. I like TV shows with deeply flawed characters, like King of Queens and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

As for Todd from my PTA Queen Bee & Teen Rebel stories, he definitely doesn't think things through and he fails to learn from his mistakes. He'd be 48 years old now (if he hasn't already eaten himself into an early grave) - I wonder if he ever worked out why there are no urinals in female bathrooms, or what the mysterious blue bins seen in female but not male bathrooms are for?

The characters should primarily be interesting and if they are likeable or unlikeable that’s just an additional part of their personality.

RetroFan said:

As for Todd from my PTA Queen Bee & Teen Rebel stories, he definitely doesn't think things through and he fails to learn from his mistakes. He'd be 48 years old now (if he hasn't already eaten himself into an early grave) - I wonder if he ever worked out why there are no urinals in female bathrooms, or what the mysterious blue bins seen in female but not male bathrooms are for?

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I see Todd as a teenage Chris Farley (without Farley's drug use), only lazy and without any charm or talent (Farley's being the class clown in high school is what first got him noticed). I bring up Farley because, in 1987-1988, Chris Farley was similar in size to Todd (and was only a few years older than Todd is in your story); indeed, he would be overweight all of his life.

On a side note, as someone who was friends with special needs kids in high school (and beyond) and who is also autistic (high-functioning), I had no sympathy for Todd when David's big and tall older brother (and a couple of others, IIRC) smacked Todd around, RetroFan (really, the Todd-Cartman from South Park comparison is apt here)...

Unknown81 said:

I see Todd as a teenage Chris Farley (without Farley's drug use), only lazy and without any charm or talent (Farley's being the class clown in high school is what first got him noticed). I bring up Farley because, in 1987-1988, Chris Farley was similar in size to Todd (and was only a few years older than Todd is in your story); indeed, he would be overweight all of his life.

On a side note, as someone who was friends with special needs kids in high school (and beyond) and who is also autistic (high-functioning), I had no sympathy for Todd when David's big and tall older brother (and a couple of others, IIRC) smacked Todd around, RetroFan (really, the Todd-Cartman from South Park comparison is apt here)...

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Todd not only got himself beaten up by the older brother of skinny Jewish boy David, but two jocks as well - Brad, Courtney's twin brother and Jeff, Courtney's boyfriend. As well as being Courtney's brother, Brad is the boyfriend of Amy, another cheerleader whose privacy was also invaded by Todd hiding in the girls' bathroom.

Todd did at least come to the conclusion that he was 'partially' to blame for the situation and tried to apologize to Courtney, but doing so when she was very ill in the hospital waiting room holding a bucket on her knees and having a high fever wasn't exactly the best timing.

It's doubtful Todd learned anything from the experience. He never learned from his mistakes, and persisted in teasing his temperamental twin sister Jenna about her periods despite her punching him in the face whenever he did so. And he loved stirring up one of his younger brothers Andy, despite the fact that the kid is clearly psychotic, has an explosively dangerous temper and is a person to hold a grudge.