Likeable? Strong? Bringing Both Traits to Your Characters

 

When I was starting to write plays, one of my main aims was to write strong women characters. What I ran into here and there were a lot of people saying, "Don't you want your character to be likable?"

This drove me crazy, because why do women always have to be likeable? Can't they be "like" everyone else?

What I found though, was that if my heroines were considered "too" dark or angry, the plays didn't go anywhere. This also drove me crazy, but then I started thinking on it a little.

What I arrived at, eventually, is that when people open a book or see a play or movie they are kinda-sorta looking for someone to identify with as a kindred spirit. Someone in that book/play/film is the stand-in for who they see themselves to be--or want to be.

I don't know if that's what we're looking for in leaders, or great supreme court justices (cue the crowds chanting RBG's name). But in fiction, we are, and if we don't get it--we can be pretty unforgiving about that.

I decided to keep writing strong women characters, but add a little more kindness or perception or sensitivity or humor or something to them--whatever I wanted to see in a friend. When I did that, it seemed to make a difference in how the play I was writing was received. That difference was positive, so I thought--hmm. Yeah. Okay.

When I think about this now, I wonder if the word likability is misplaced. Maybe what we are really looking for is connectability--someone we connect with on a deep enough level to carry us through an entire book/film/story. Someone who would do the things we would--if we only could.

Creating main characters that people can connect to emotionally is crucial if you're going to succeed in writing. They don't have to be perfect people--in fact it's better if they're not--but they do have to be compelling enough so even if they do something "bad," you can still relate to them.

For more on this, I found a few resources:

What Makes a Character Likable?

The First Rule of Creating Likable Characters

How to Make Unlikeable Characters Likeble

Photo of young woman (maybe Ruby)? by Christina Welsh