How to Fix a Broken Protagonist Everyone Hates

A Protagonist can be extremely tricky to write. They are the captain’s of the cruise ship and on their shoulders rests the fate of your novel. Sometimes author’s like to take gambles with their protagonist and try to show their ugly side before revealing their good side. This is a dangerous slope because an ugly hero will crash the ship into the iceberg of hate.

 

For my debut novel, I tried to be bold and wrote a character that I thought was an ultra realistic and non clichéd female protagonist. Sadly, she ended up becoming overly emotional, angry, selfish, immature, whiny, a puppet to the plot, and completely irrational in all her actions.

 

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. A novel can do well with a protagonist having all these negative traits but there needs to be two things for it to work. Hope for redemption or the protagonist evolves and leaves these traits behind.

 

Well that didn’t happen in my first book because I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. Had I been a master storyteller like Stephen King or George R. R. Martin, then there would have been a chance that I could have made it work.

 

Take our friend Joffrey up there for instance. He’s a twat. A spoiled little brat from Game of Thrones. Though he never does anything to redeem himself, the way the character is dealt with is extremely satisfying. That’s masterful storytelling right there, because hating a character can be just as good as loving a character. Except when you’re writing a protagonist.

 

Anyway, when I attempted something similar to this. My reviews went a bit differently:

 

“I wanted to finish this book but I just couldn’t stand the main character.”

“If you weren’t my friend I would have stopped reading the book because I hate Cindy.”

“Cindy’s hard to like which makes it doubly hard to get through the book.”

“If this is the future of female protagonists, count me out.”

 

Granted these are paraphrased but you get the gist of it. Since I was fresh off finishing the book when I received these critiques, I found myself screaming at the screen. “You don’t get it! None of you get it!” Then time passed, clarity returned, I re-read some of my passages and said, “Oh . . . my . . . God. They were right. She’s a horrible pain in the ass!”

 

Book 2, I took a different approach. I dialed back the emotions, the selfishness, and all the other exaggerated traits Cindy had. The end result was that she had become rather . . . vanilla, milquetoast, the Seinfeld in Seinfeld. Although readers liked her a little bit more, they were far more interested in her sister and the villain Alexis. Cindy turned into a supporting character when she was supposed to be the star of the show.

 

I had to figure out what I was doing wrong. Little did I know that I would find the answer to this question in a most unusual place.

 

An erotica novel.

 

Oh yes, I read one of those. Not really my cup of tea but I had been reading all these reviews that said that the characters were soooo awesome and so relatable. I had to see for myself and it didn’t matter that the book was all about “smex.” A good book is a good book regardless of genre and if I could learn about character development, then why not?

 

. . . Boy did I learn.

 

I’m not going to name the book or the characters because the author threw a tantrum over my review and quite frankly doesn’t deserve any free publicity by my naming it. (It’s not in my GR shelves so don’t try to be clever and snoop through my reading history. Even a bad review is great for a book, something the author didn’t understand.)

 

Anyway, this female protagonist who I will call, “Jane.” Was this frumpy, unattractive, ordinary woman who had gotten out of a bad relationship. From the start of this book we’re introduced to Jane who is already crying and feeling depressed about not being with her ex anymore. She sits on her ass through most of the novel just crying and whining until her best friend decides to help her get a job at a bookstore.

 

Jane is then introduced to John (also not his real name) and John is stereotypically handsome, rich, a sex addict, and smitten with Jane.

It is immediately clear that this book is a fantasy by having Mr. good-looking fall in love with her. Not because Jane’s unattractive or ordinary but because of how f-ing annoying she is!

I could not last a minute in a room alone with her and I’m pretty sure Mr. perfect wouldn’t either if he wasn’t a slave to the plot.

 

She’s mean, ungrateful to her best friend who got her the job, cries in front of her boss on the first day of meeting him, never actually does her job, her ideas to improve John’s business are terrible and stupid, doesn’t follow through on said ideas, and then constantly needed rescue by John and her friends because she was too worthless to do anything herself.

 

Jane was useless, obnoxious, irritating, selfish, mean, unintelligent, and socially inept.

 

Surely Cindy wasn’t anything like–oh wait.

 

(P.S. George R. R. Martin makes this same mistake with some of his female characters in Game of Thrones. The difference is, their worthlessness feels intentional due to the setting. I still thought it made for boring reading but at least his was a decision based off research. Unlike the book I’m talking about.)

 

Yeah . . . I had a problem. Jane was a P.O.S. character and Cindy was in the same boat. It didn’t matter that Cindy knew how to fight and had cool super powers, she was a wretched person, just like Jane.

 

So this is how I fixed it:

 

1.) Even If you want your character to be an a-hole. They still need to have redeeming qualities, have influence over the plot, and be good at what they do. Jane would have been much more tolerable if SHE approached John, if SHE got the job, if SHE made a better life for herself, if SHE approached him for sex. Her lack of action made her useless and worse than unlikeable. I hated her. The similarities she shared with Cindy were revolting.

2.) Having protagonists that are too emotional can be frustrating to read for extended periods of time. A character that cries, gets angry at the drop of a hat, cries again, whines, will get old really fast. Dial back the emotions and save the extremes for critical moments in the plot. A death, a catastrophic failure, the destruction of a good thing, you get the idea.

3.) If your protagonist isn’t the one making the wise-cracks, jokes, smart ass remarks, then your protagonist better be incredibly skilled at what they do. Whether it’s solving math problems, unraveling mysteries, or beating the sh** out of someone with both hands tied behind their back, your hero needs to be great.

4.) Being great does not mean perfect. When the situation gets tough, your character should never give up. Remember that you need to create challenges that will put the skills of your protagonist to the test. Even Batman needs to be outmatched once in a while.

5.) Your character’s motivations need to be logical (to the reader). Period. If she wants to kill someone, the why better make sense. No one likes a hypocrite and no one likes reading about them either.

 

With The Silver Ninja 2.0, Cindy’s been upgraded to have more direct control over the plot. She’s willing to sacrifice her pride and dignity for the greater good, will stand up for what she believes in even if it means destroying her career, is thoughtful and considerate of other people and puts their needs before hers, is less prone to emotional outbursts, and when the situation arises she can kick a lot of ass.

 

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her problems though. Cindy can get jealous, can be extremely impatient, will ignore others to get what she wants, and still struggles with body issues despite being in the best shape of her life.

 

She’s not useless, she’s not whiny, and best of all she’s not a puppet to the plot. I think you’re going to love the changes to Cindy which hopefully means that you will love the book.

That also means we’re getting close to the end. Just a few more chapters to go before I activate editing mode and then put the book up for pre-order. Pretty exciting times.

Next week I will have my scathing review of Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising. You won’t want to miss this.

 

Have a great weekend.

Wilmar Luna

Wilmar Luna

Couldn't be a superhero in real life so he decided to write his own. When he's not creating empowered female characters he can be found watching films, reading books, and playing lots of video games. Buy his books here: https://www.thesilverninja.com/purchase/