A disagreeable character (bear with me...)

[flawed_ethics]

I'm was making good headway in my latest storyline I intend to post on Lit. The main characters were meshing together well and the plot was flowing smoothly.

Then the storyline hit my auxilary character. She's supposed to be a flirt, a tease, and purposedly sets out to get under my characters' skin. Although she is a friend of a character in the story, they will all come to hate her by the end (my characters aren't talking about it yet, but she's committed a rather heinous act).

My problem is, I don't like her either! My writting comes to a halt in the scenes she appears in. I managed to trudge through the first, although I dread editing it once I'm done. I'm on her second act, and she's such a bad seed that I'd rather jump to letting her get slapped in the face and dismissed. That would be too cheap and easy, not to mention a waste all the tension I've built up around her.

She is essential to the story though. Any suggestions about how to write for a character you take no joy in writing about?

 

[Seattle Zack]

That is the joy of writing in a nutshell for me, when characters become so real that you can't control them. I've tried all sorts of things -- reworking the whole story from the beginning so they're not included, summarily ejecting them (although promising them their own starring role in another story), morphing or "compiling" them into another more acceptable character...

Nothing works.

If it's a character that commands that much attention, then the reader will surely feel that same compulsion to find out more about him/her, even if it's tinged with revulsion.

If you've got a character that evokes that kind of emotional response, go with it is my advice. It may not be the story you envisioned, but it may be a better story when the dust settles.

 

[Green_Gem]

Just do it!

I couldn't agree more with Seattle Zack. Just go with the flow!

You've obviously created a real live one there and she is so real, so imposing that she yearns to be heard. Let it happen and if she is so compelling for you as the author, imagine how she will capture the attention of the readers. I've had one or two 'strong' characters like that, who want to go places you weren't even thinking when you started writing. They get under your skin, almost taunt you, but that's the excitement of it all. I also resisted a little, became consumed by it and then just gave in to the words and emotions that were firing out. It works and be thankful. It's sooo much better than writer's block.

Good luck Flawed, and let us know when it's up.

Green_Gem

http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=183586

 

[Icingsugar]

Do you mean that you don't like the character, or that you don't like the character? I mean, are you having negative feeling for the person as a person or as a fictional device? Sure, she may be disagreeable, annoying, even evil, a oerson that you would kicki n the teeth in real life. but that is a good thing. Yu have yopur villain, and she is so disagreeable that even her creator doesn't like her.

I rather have characters that are so spiteful that I get rallied yp about them than characters that are so bland that I don't care about them either way. Rather aversion than apathy.

/Ice

 

[Colleen Thomas]

In Riding for the Brand I created the character of marsha. She is the only character I have ever crated who recieved her own hate mail. A character for whom people suggested being run over by a bus, trampled by her own horse, or maimed by a charging bull being to good for her if I should write a sequel.

Writing a character you truely dislike is a delicate matter, simply because you know what a SOB they really are. It is especially difficult if you want to use their bad character as a plot device of betrayl later in the story so you have to write them as nice and avoid heavy handed foreshadowing because you despise them.

For me I wrote her scenes with an eye to disquising her negative characteristics, but I was dis liking her so badly I gave myself some relief by letting a drunken character reveal to themain character what a bitch she was. I then allowed the main character th shrug it off and proceeded with the story. I don't know if that will work for you, but you could write suche a scene and if it gives you the outlet you need, finsish the story and then delete it

-Colly

 

[Sabledrake]

My character Robert deGranville from "The Ravishing of Constance" got some hate mail, but the one I personally had trouble writing was Chet from "The Neglected Son." He started out as a relatively decent kid, maybe a tad bitter and resentful, and over the course of the story turned into a total psychotic creep.

Writing from his first-person POV got to be a nasty experience, but by the time I really came to despise the crazy little boogersnot, I had already committed to finish the series so I just had to soldier on.

The scariest part was then getting feedback wondering if those stories were autobiographical ...

Sabledrake

 

[Guest]

The best stories for me have the element of surprise. And the best surprise in a story fro me is when your expections and prejudices about characters are overturned.

Doesn't matter, good people or evil people. We all know that this sort of oversimplification doesn't work in real life.

And it doesn't work in serious fiction. Well, for me, it doesn't. The motherlode in story telling as far as I'm concerned is to show reality in a surprising , (funny, shocking, terrifying, sad, ridiculous) way.

 

[SadieRose]

She is essential to the story though. Any suggestions about how to write for a character you take no joy in writing about?

Ahhh.... I'm in that seat right now.

I've discovered that I cannot, in all honesty write a character that does not twig me in one way or another. You have got to find something in this character that you can associate with, even if it's a part of your own personality that you really wish wasn't!!

I started off writing a villain called Zelarin, whom I did not like one iota. And the result was that he was two dimensional and utterly insignificant come the end of the first draft.


So I had to redraw him to give him some body. It took a lot of playing around to discover his motivation, but once that was set in stone I could embroider it. His ambitions and lusts are childish, but at the same time realistic because all tyrants are utterly thwarted children (we're back with Gauche's theory that 'nothing's new' here) *sigh* But it is the simplistic lusts that drive him which make him ultimately believable for me.

I wanted him to be horrific and the best way for me to do that seemed to be to set him a commonplace situation and have him behave like a child for the sake of knowing that he could and would get away with it.


Not pretty, not nice. But effective.


Best of luck.

Sadie. xxx

 

[dececious]

Lots of people write in reverse order or out of order, maybe if you write her come-uppance FIRST the hatred for her will be out of your system a bit and you can move back to the earlier stuff

D

 

[flawed_ethics]

I had thought of writing about her come-uppance first. However, I was finding that the story was writing itself better as I continued from the beginning. If I were to jump ahead, I might be punishing myself later when I would have to connect the two slightly varying directions together.

I think SadieRose touched on it though - her motivation is suspect. Whereas the other characters have an ample amount of backstory to drive them, she's just a meanie because that's all she was ever created to be (she is a character from an existing story - she has little background because for the pervious story, she really didn't need any). That's probably why I'm having trouble - I don't know really know what she would do or say.

I guess I'll just have to get inside her head and eventually better-relate her side of the story through bits and pieces throughout the plot.

My only problem now is that her involvement is supposed to come as a surprise. Not only is the main character shocked to learn her true intentions, but the reader discovers at the same time said character does. So I can't dish it out beforehand - maybe in the aftershock that follows...

I just hope readers don't think I put a cheap twist in the story to help it along.

Thanks everyone!

 

[wildsweetone]

just an idea...

...I don't know really know what she would do or say.

I guess I'll just have to get inside her head and eventually better-relate her side of the story through bits and pieces throughout the plot.

...

One thing I've picked up along the writing route is to write side stories (that needn't be publically published anywhere) that involve the difficult character. Putting them in different situations other than your original story idea, can help you get to know them better. My theory is that if you know your character inside-out, then the words will fall from your fingertips.

Some things to try...

Write a few paragraphs about your character's last birthday. Was there a party, was it a surprise, did she do something outrageous or just hide away?

Write about one event that could have helped form her into one nasty piece of work.

Write something she did that was totally out of character for her. Did she look after a neighbour's pet, a child, an ill friend?

Writing novels for each of these events is not the idea. Just simple basic stories or vignettes to help you learn more about your character. Getting to know your character really well will help you deal with what she wants to do in your main story.

Hope that helps.

wso