Your take on "wimpy" characters

[WeShallUnclench]

I am thinking here of characters that are not necessarily subby, but exhibit traits like cowardice, indecisiveness, who have a preference for stepping back and letting other characters take the reins. That sort of thing.

Do you ever have fun with characters like that?

Do you ever make them the protagonist?

Do you ever deliberately write them as sexy and desirable, despite or because of their nature?

What does a character like that require to become a character you enjoy writing or reading about?
What would be a red line that makes them insufferable?

 

[nice90sguy]

A "passive" MC won't drive the narrative, but with absolutely no agency at all, they become mere voyeurs on their own story. Of course weak, indecisive, cowardly characters can be attractive, elciting either sympathy, or schadenfreude from the reader.

Most of my main characters are "losers" -- I'm not interseted (neither when reading or writing) in imagining myself as a hero, but as a victim of my own flaws.

 

[HyunnaPark]

exhibit traits like cowardice, indecisiveness, who have a preference for stepping back and letting other characters take the reins.

Do you ever make them the protagonist?

Yes, I do this all the time. It's probably my single biggest blind spot as a writer. I'm thinking of asking the building across the street from me if I can hang a big banner visible from my window that says "Don't Make Another Observant, Reactive Narrator With An Awesome Best Friend."

You can get away with it if you're writing the next Gatsby. But I'm not that good.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

, who have a preference for stepping back and letting other characters take the reins.

This is the most common protagonist on lit, and despite the fact that he is extremely unsexy, he is a perfect match for the unicorn that fucks him for no good/plausible
reason.

Do you ever have fun with characters like that?

Not yet, but I do have plans for one that is fairly far on the back burner.

Do you ever deliberately write them as sexy and desirable, despite or because of their nature?

No. There really isn't anything inherently sexy about a character that sits there and waits for someone to shag them.

 

[RocketGrunt]

I write haremlit, and there is a certain section of the fanbase that is absolutely enraged at the "wimpiness" of the MC if they so much as ask one of their harem members what they want.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've used weak or cowardly characters for various comic or dramatic purposes in stories.

My main characters don't usually fit that description, because I like them to have agency, most of the time.

 

[TheLobster]

One of the traps of pantsing that I unfortunately still fall into sometimes is to unwittingly translate my own hesitation as to what the next course of action should be into indecisiveness and lack of commitment on the part of the character. Thankfully, a lot of it can be mended by excising weak words like “somewhat”, but not everything is fixable in such simple way.

Occasionally, thoigh, I do write a character that’s deliberately hesitant or even passive, and is supposed to be unlikeable because of that. In my 2025 Summer Lovin story, the MMC self-describes as a slacker, and he’s understating it if nothing else. He’s not seen initially as very desirable by the FMC, but he “earns” the happy ending partially by getting scared shitless and suffering some humiliation, and although he might be seen as slightly submissive throughout that ordeal, by the end he most definitely is not.

The story seemed well-liked (I believe it had a shot at placing if I submitted it closer to the deadline), so it all apparently worked out well.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

This is the most common protagonist on lit, and despite the fact that he is extremely unsexy, he is a perfect match for the unicorn that fucks him for no good/plausible
reason.

I gotta ask, since the abundance of the he/him version of this trope is a pet peeve of yours - if you come across a story where the gender roles are reversed - super dynamic assertive guy, shy and passive girl with no characteristics - does that bother you in a similar way?
Do you think there are better narrative ways to make the latter one work out?

Not yet, but I do have plans for one

Both excited and a little bit scared. Either way, this I gotta see

No. There really isn't anything inherently sexy about a character that sits there and waits for someone to shag them.

One angle I could think of is to bully them until they do something interesting. You may say that doesn't count because they still didn't do anything without an external stimulant.

Either way I confess I have a certain soft spot for weakness. ANY character is frankly more endearing to me if there at least one aspect that makes them a "loser".

For a wimpy character, there is a sort of treshold where they are SO wretched that they get interesting again, then appealing, then "yeah actually let's put a finger in them, or something".

Conversely, for me the worst wimpy characters are those who serve as a self-insert for the reader without any attributes, but crucially also no NEGATIVE traits besides the passivity, so they are still somehow "dignified". Nah. If you cast yourself as a wet noodle, the very least I expect is you don't hold back. Worse than a wet noodle is a wet noodle who can't even be vulnerable.
That's my broad aim, anyhow.

 

[MaudeBlack]

Personally, I like my protagonists to have an element of indecisiveness, fear or making a bad call, whether it's in my own work or reading others.
To me it's human. "to err is human" as the saying goes.

I find it unbelievably dull when a MC wins without conflict or achieves without friction. Born winners are dull, un-fancied underdogs are hot.
Active and uninhibited MCs are cartoonish adverts for Huel.

I think my line is a character that can't get past or move to the next step in the story - feel the fear and do it anyway - and not, feel the fear and vacillate for 20k words.

Xx

 

[EdwardsOtherSide]

I have a WIP where the FMC is shown what the macho guys of her youth have grown into and decides her skinny, nerdy long-term boyfriend is pretty frickin' awesome.
Mostly, I lean into his nerdiness, and his focus on his job and her.

He might be wimpy, but he genuinely cares about her and isn't a narcissistic or entitled asshole, so she digs him.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I'm not sure those words really fit.

Often the men were more or less in the background though. Even when a guy was the main story teller, he was telling her exploits as an observer.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm not sure how "wimpy" they are, but the male characters in my strokers are generally quite passive. If I had to think very hard about this, I'd probably have to say that it's because the women are more interesting to write, and for me a confident and sex-positive woman who takes control is very sexy.

(My username here is at least partly a reflection of this: the Goddess of Love in my original stories was modelled strongly after my redhead, and like the male narrator in those stories, I'm astonished that she picked me.)

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Do they ask for a hamburger today for which they will gladly pay tomorrow?

 

[StrentWriter]

I hate labels like “wimpy” for characters.

All of my characters have flaws and respond to their situations differently. Nobody is fully one thing or the other: that’s way too 2-Dimensional.

Some characters are going to be bold in some ways and frightened in others.

E.g. : a character being confident on a night out bragging to a girl at the bar, but feeling nervous when it’s the girl he met aged 16 and fell in love with, without managing to ever truly be with her properly.

Sometimes those characters that appear most placid or timid also turn out to be absolute units in the right time, right place. I know this to be true - I’ve witnessed it.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

I've had passive male characters for sure, and I think that stems from my own hesitance to intrude, on anyone. But also, the version of masculinity I know best is stoic - he gets the job done and doesn't step outside his lane, doesn't ask for more than he needs. Sometimes it is the role of the FMC to show him that he needs more than he thinks. I wouldn't classify any of my MMCs as wimpy at all, but they're aware of the boundaries and are generally unwilling to cross them, regardless of what they may want themselves.

 

[RetroFan]

Some members of the Loving Wives club have declared war on wimps and simps. They will scour every word of every story posted there to identify any wimps or simps sort of like a modern day version of a witch hunt, and then angrily condemn these characters, stories and authors when - perhaps not surprisingly - they find them.

I had this experience with my LW story set on the Titanic. Narrated by the cheated upon husband John, I wrote him to be a really nice guy. However some readers were not impressed by the character, condemning him for not taking any action - i.e. violence - when he discovered that his wife is cheating with an obnoxious wealthy playboy travelling on the ship at the same time. John's reaction is one people might encounter of suspecting something is happening, but not being sure what to do when these suspicions are actually confirmed. Also they are thousands of miles out at sea, travelling with the wife's blue-blood family and it is set over 100 years ago in polite upper-class East Coast American society, so the way these characters behave and react would be different than today.

And unfortunately, even John staying on the sinking Titanic until close to the very end helping to throw deckchairs and other furniture overboard and only surviving by the skin of his teeth by clinging to an upturned raft after being swept overboard into the cold dark North Atlantic ocean didn't spare him from being branded a wimp.

 

[dirk2024]

I am thinking here of characters that are not necessarily subby, but exhibit traits like cowardice, indecisiveness, who have a preference for stepping back and letting other characters take the reins. That sort of thing.

Do you ever have fun with characters like that?

Oh yes, I have one secondary character who I had fun with, even naming him Chad.

Do you ever make them the protagonist?

No I didn't in my published story. Not sure I would in any story.

Do you ever deliberately write them as sexy and desirable, despite or because of their nature?

Mmmmm...maybe. Chad certainly thought he was sexy, but I didn't give him a physical description in the story. Just his personality, which was a jerk.

What does a character like that require to become a character you enjoy writing or reading about?

The enjoyment comes from him being a foil for the protagonist. It helped move the story along and set up scenes. My attempt at including humor around him, at his personality deficits, made it fun for me and hopefully fun for the readers as well.

What would be a red line that makes them insufferable?

Too much mysogany?

 

[NuclearFairy]

Some of my favorite characters are cowards, Rincewind, Ciaphas Cain. But I wouldn't consider them wimps. Rincewind and his half-brick in a sock. Ciaphas Cain going one on one against a space marine.

I don't think I've written any wimps or cowards. Although, I'm sure some people would consider Mathias a wimp and a coward. I think he's a survivor though, and while survivors can be cowards, they're rarely wimps. And if he was a coward, he would've fled long before he did.

 

[Britva415]

What would be a red line that makes them insufferable?

Just getting lucky and not growing from the experience or not growing into it by investing in making it happen.

When I see a story like this, "getting lucky" usually looks like randomly becoming the target of some unrealistic nymphomaniac for no good reason at all.

And this isn't a gender thing at all, to me. I don't like stories where the woman is this kind of character either.

What does a character like that require to become a character you enjoy writing or reading about?

Everything opposite from the above.

"Wimpy" is not exciting, sexy or attractive, and the only way to make a wimpy character exciting, sexy or attractive is to make them not wimpy. Like, that can be a story. I like when a character deserves to "get lucky" by finding the brass to make their own luck and dare to exercise some agency and take some chances.

"Wimpy" to me is not simply quiet, subtle, introverted, following a leader, being a gentle person. Sometimes a person doesn't have to be performatively assertive because they're already secure. That isn't wimpy.

 

[StillStunned]

I was reading my latest instalment of "The Rivals" to my wife the other day. Most of you won't have read those stories, so here's the gist: they're sword & sorcery tales about a warrior woman called Avilia and a scholar, thief and womaniser called Sligh. She's an adrenaline junkie, he gets his kicks from being cleverer than everyone else. She does the fighting. He's not a coward, but he lets her take the lead if there's any physical danger.

And yet my wife interrupted me to exclaim how sexy Sligh is.

 

[Britva415]

@StillStunned Do you think he's wimpy?

 

[YmaOHyd]

Cheerleading needs bases just as much as it needs fliers, and I tend towards male bases and female fliers.

 

[StillStunned]

@StillStunned Do you think he's wimpy?

No, but other characters in the stories perceive him that way. He's definitely not a typical "masculine" sword & sorcery protagonist.

 

[StillStunned]

No, but other characters in the stories perceive him that way. He's definitely not a typical "masculine" sword & sorcery protagonist.

For instance, from Goldflower:

Lesla stepped closer, reaching up to touch his face with the fingers of one hand. "My father thought you were soft. I knew better, though. I can't imagine the pain you're in. And yet not a trace of it on your face."

And from The Oath and the Fear:

A sour look crept over his face, and he rose. "Very well. But you'll look foolish when you fail, like all others. Particularly with your droopy companion here. What kind of fighter is he anyway? Sitting frozen when a threat walked in."

"I saw you walking up to the inn." Sligh's voice was quiet, almost apologetic. "I didn't perceive you as a greater threat than Avilia could handle."

 

[Ianus4]

How can a womanizer be wimpy? Isn't the point that he gets women to do what he wants?