1st Person Antihero

[JasonClearwater]

So, recently I started writing a series, based on what I'd intended to be a one-off nasty little piece of sadistic stroke that took off better than expected.

Problem is, this means the story is told from the 1st person perspective of a guy who's a complete arsehole.

I expect some of my audience to enjoy this, but it was pointed out to me that a good deal of readers might wonder at this abrupt shift in tone, so I've added a note '(Yes, he's a prick, don't worry, I'll sort him out).

Do you enjoy reading stories from the bad-guy's POV? Or do you instantly switch off and move to something else?

My thinking is, if you build up your Joffrey enough, people will love it when he finally falls. As long as they stick it out...

 

[Handley_Page]

I'm old enough to think of an "anti-hero" to be more of an individualist, not liked by "the establishment" or even the management, who employ him because he actually does do the job.
Think "Harry Palmer" (the Ipcress file) and similar.

 

[rae121452]

i have a series going in which at the end of the first chapter you discover that the main character is an anti-hero. i've gotten good feedback on it, people write to me that they really love the character and want more of him and his deeds. so far, he's a double murderer and arsonist and really enjoys beating people up, all with a heart of gold. i have 3 more chapters (and more victims) waiting to escape my head and i have no intention of him coming to a bad end.

 

[SimonDoom]

Do you enjoy reading stories from the bad-guy's POV? Or do you instantly switch off and move to something else?

I wouldn't say I "instantly switch off." But I can't think of any examples off the top of my head of stories told from a really bad person's first person POV that I enjoyed. The better option, I think, is to tell the story from a third person omniscient point of view, getting into the bad guy's head but not limiting yourself to that perspective.

The choice of POV depends upon what story you are trying to tell.

 

[KeithD]

My protagonists often are bad boys--and often are present in first-person POV. I'm aware that some readers don't like that. Fuck them. They should read something else then.

 

[JasonClearwater]

I'm old enough to think of an "anti-hero" to be more of an individualist, not liked by "the establishment" or even the management, who employ him because he actually does do the job.
Think "Harry Palmer" (the Ipcress file) and similar.

Yeah, I might be using the wrong term.

 

[JasonClearwater]

I wouldn't say I "instantly switch off." But I can't think of any examples off the top of my head of stories told from a really bad person's first person POV that I enjoyed. The better option, I think, is to tell the story from a third person omniscient point of view, getting into the bad guy's head but not limiting yourself to that perspective.

The choice of POV depends upon what story you are trying to tell.

Yes, hindsight (in this instance) is a great thing.

Still, I like the raw intensity of writing someone who's truly irredeemable, to see if I can get anyone to follow the path to his redemption. It's a long way down, have to say, but it should be satisfying.

 

[RetroFan]

I've written some stories with lead characters who are bad people, with varying results.

For example, in 'Sexy Savannah From Number 9' the lead character Dino is a self-pitying, selfish, loser slacker. Awful things happen to Dino, not least that his authoritarian father makes him go back to high school at the age of 19, but you don't feel any sympathy for this character.

In 'The PTA Queen Bee & the Teen Rebel' most of the characters are bad people, and those characters who aren't bad people get screwed over by the bad people.

In 'My Best Friend's Crazy Fat Sister' - the four lead characters - Sean, Zoe, Adam and Emily - have flaws in their personalities as wide as the Grand Canyon. Sean is a pervert (although at least he feels bad about it), Zoe is as crazy as the title suggests and such a bad mother that her parents raise her kids, Adam is weak and doesn't stand up for himself and Adam's wife Emily is a bitch and a control freak.

The rich girls Bridget and Felicity from 'Bridget the Bossy Bridezilla' and 'The Coal Miner & the Conservative' respectively raised the ire of one reader, who advised me to write about 'anything but spoiled rotten bitches'.

My most evil protagonist though would be Breanna, from 'Trailer Park Trash Teen Hates Rules', a shock comedy series. In the stories, 18-year-old sociopath Breanna uses the toilet with the door open to shock and offend people, throws her used sanitary pads onto the floor instead of throwing them away, plays mean-spirited pranks on people to amuse herself, is physically violent, steals money from charity and shoplifts incessantly, has a variety of sexual escapades, mocks disabled people, hates gay men despite being bi herself, and swears like a sailor in every sentence she speaks. Breanna was written to be obnoxious, abrasive and violent, but I got quite a lot of negative feedback about her, one reader saying she was the most vile and hateful literary character ever and that he hated me too for creating her. Considering that literature contains characters such as Curly from 'Of Mice and Men' and the Nurse from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', this is quite an achievement on my part.

 

[TxRad]

A few years ago i decided to write a story that would make people feel sorry for a computer in one of these self drive cars. It worked, even if it was in non-erotic.

Now the question is, can I bring him back as a bank robbing asshole instead of the nice, everyone loves me, little robot that everyone is used to in stories.

One day I'll learn to leave the shiny penny laying on the ground. But what is the fun in that.

 

[JasonClearwater]

I've written some stories with lead characters who are bad people, with varying results.

For example, in 'Sexy Savannah From Number 9' the lead character Dino is a self-pitying, selfish, loser slacker. Awful things happen to Dino, not least that his authoritarian father makes him go back to high school at the age of 19, but you don't feel any sympathy for this character.

In 'The PTA Queen Bee & the Teen Rebel' most of the characters are bad people, and those characters who aren't bad people get screwed over by the bad people.

In 'My Best Friend's Crazy Fat Sister' - the four lead characters - Sean, Zoe, Adam and Emily - have flaws in their personalities as wide as the Grand Canyon. Sean is a pervert (although at least he feels bad about it), Zoe is as crazy as the title suggests and such a bad mother that her parents raise her kids, Adam is weak and doesn't stand up for himself and Adam's wife Emily is a bitch and a control freak.

The rich girls Bridget and Felicity from 'Bridget the Bossy Bridezilla' and 'The Coal Miner & the Conservative' respectively raised the ire of one reader, who advised me to write about 'anything but spoiled rotten bitches'.

My most evil protagonist though would be Breanna, from 'Trailer Park Trash Teen Hates Rules', a shock comedy series. In the stories, 18-year-old sociopath Breanna uses the toilet with the door open to shock and offend people, throws her used sanitary pads onto the floor instead of throwing them away, plays mean-spirited pranks on people to amuse herself, is physically violent, steals money from charity and shoplifts incessantly, has a variety of sexual escapades, mocks disabled people, hates gay men despite being bi herself, and swears like a sailor in every sentence she speaks. Breanna was written to be obnoxious, abrasive and violent, but I got quite a lot of negative feedback about her, one reader saying she was the most vile and hateful literary character ever and that he hated me too for creating her. Considering that literature contains characters such as Curly from 'Of Mice and Men' and the Nurse from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', this is quite an achievement on my part.

Very interested about this... what prompted you to write Breanna, especially? What's her arc? Or is the arc that she does what she does?

My evil bastards usually exist to learn a long and often painful lesson that eventually makes them better people. While giving me an excuse to write some very bad behaviour along the way. I don't want to punish them, per se, I want them to learn to be better (it's my own arc in some ways).

Is is fun to write bastards sometimes though. In this case, I had a request, and couldn't figure out a way to fulfill it in a way that appealled to me.

 

[JasonClearwater]

My protagonists often are bad boys--and often are present in first-person POV. I'm aware that some readers don't like that. Fuck them. They should read something else then.

I quite like your approach, from the handful of stories I've read. I like your darker stuff. The more tension and detail, the better.

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

Depends on what kind of a bastard he is. If you mean a brooding, dominating, devastatingly handsome Fifty Shades of Grey-scale kind of bastard then you should be golden. If you mean an obnoxious, overweight, Ignatius J. Reilly a la Confederacy Of Dunces bastard, it could be more problematic.

 

[RetroFan]

Very interested about this... what prompted you to write Breanna, especially? What's her arc? Or is the arc that she does what she does?

My evil bastards usually exist to learn a long and often painful lesson that eventually makes them better people. While giving me an excuse to write some very bad behaviour along the way. I don't want to punish them, per se, I want them to learn to be better (it's my own arc in some ways).

Is is fun to write bastards sometimes though. In this case, I had a request, and couldn't figure out a way to fulfill it in a way that appealled to me.

I kind of misread the title of this thread, Breanna isn't written in first person but third, but she is an evil little bitch nonetheless.

To my great frustration, I developed writer's block with the story series and have never completed it, maybe I will in the next few weeks. Whether I do or don't I don't think anybody will care that much, given how much readers hated her.

Basically, the stories she appears in 'Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules' are shock comedies written to be as offensive as possible about her atrocious behavior, either sexual or non-sexual. Breanna learns nothing from her mistakes, and continues on with her disgusting and promiscuous antics.

 

[JasonClearwater]

Depends on what kind of a bastard he is. If you mean a brooding, dominating, devastatingly handsome Fifty Shades of Grey-scale kind of bastard then you should be golden. If you mean an obnoxious, overweight, Ignatius J. Reilly a la Confederacy Of Dunces bastard, it could be more problematic.

Hmmm. No Christian Greys in my fiction. Usually good-looking, spoiled, damaged, well-off kids who need to grow up. And if they're really obnoxious, they're usually not very bright, and end up learning the hard way.

 

[JasonClearwater]

I kind of misread the title of this thread, Breanna isn't written in first person but third, but she is an evil little bitch nonetheless.

To my great frustration, I developed writer's block with the story series and have never completed it, maybe I will in the next few weeks. Whether I do or don't I don't think anybody will care that much, given how much readers hated her.

Basically, the stories she appears in 'Trailer Trash Teen Hates Rules' are shock comedies written to be as offensive as possible about her atrocious behavior, either sexual or non-sexual. Breanna learns nothing from her mistakes, and continues on with her disgusting and promiscuous antics.

Ah, comedy, yes. And that's a good point too. I hope people see the dark comedy in what I write. It's always there.

Black comedy's the best, isn't it?

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

Hmmm. No Christian Greys in my fiction. Usually good-looking, spoiled, damaged, well-off kids who need to grow up. And if they're really obnoxious, they're usually not very bright, and end up learning the hard way.

Sounds like half the guys I dated in college....

 

[Voboy]

I love writing disagreeable assholes in FP. Love it.

Just about nothing makes me happier. I mean, all my narrators are damaged goods, but some of them really suck. In all ways.

My favorites are a couple of horrifically cruel vixens (Nikki and my new Kelly) and a corrupt cop. The cop was FUN.

 

[TANSTAAFL58]

I don't know about anyone else, but I always wondered what say Sauron in LOTR or Flagg in the Stand / the Dark Tower or the Emperor in the Star Wars trilogy saw themselves as. They have a plan, skilled minions, and see their position as just / right. We see them as unredeemably evil that must be destroyed.

Looking forward to your story.

 

[Hypoxia]

Does wanting to fuck the brain-damaged make one an anti-hero(ine)?

 

[JasonClearwater]

Does wanting to fuck the brain-damaged make one an anti-hero(ine)?

... yes.

Dear God.

 

[SamScribble]

Depends on what kind of a bastard he is. If you mean a brooding, dominating, devastatingly handsome Fifty Shades of Grey-scale kind of bastard then you should be golden. If you mean an obnoxious, overweight, Ignatius J. Reilly a la Confederacy Of Dunces bastard, it could be more problematic.

Alice! How dare you speak ill of the Blessed Ignatius!

 

[JasonClearwater]

I don't know about anyone else, but I always wondered what say Sauron in LOTR or Flagg in the Stand / the Dark Tower or the Emperor in the Star Wars trilogy saw themselves as. They have a plan, skilled minions, and see their position as just / right. We see them as unredeemably evil that must be destroyed.

Looking forward to your story.

Those would be interesting stories, actually. Especially as Sauron was once a friend of Gandalf, wasn't he?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Those would be interesting stories, actually. Especially as Sauron was once a friend of Gandalf, wasn't he?

Both of them were Maiar (basically, angels) who'd been around almost since the creation of the universe, so it's quite likely that they knew one another before Sauron's corruption. But I don't recall anything in canon that mentioned them being particularly close beyond that. They didn't serve the same gods.

You might be thinking of Gandalf and Saruman? They definitely were close allies before Saruman's own corruption; they were sent to Middle-Earth together, along with Radagast and two other Maiar, to combat Sauron.

 

[JasonClearwater]

Both of them were Maiar (basically, angels) who'd been around almost since the creation of the universe, so it's quite likely that they knew one another before Sauron's corruption. But I don't recall anything in canon that mentioned them being particularly close beyond that. They didn't serve the same gods.

You might be thinking of Gandalf and Saruman? They definitely were close allies before Saruman's own corruption; they were sent to Middle-Earth together, along with Radagast and two other Maiar, to combat Sauron.

Ah, yes, that's the chap.

Such a sad end.

https://youtu.be/KaqC5FnvAEc

 

[Bramblethorn]

Ah, yes, that's the chap.

Such a sad end.

https://youtu.be/KaqC5FnvAEc

...I hate you.