If you have any of these characters that I’m going to list below in your stories please recreate your character to make them feel more life like or relatable, or maybe at least let me be able to sympathize for them.
The Average High School Crowd:
Picked on Teenager
Typical picked on teenagers usually have parents that don’t understand them. The specially picked on teens have extremely strict and completely unreasonable parents who may or may not be verbally abusive. You know, the type that makes a 15 year old go to bed at seven? None of these parents are alcoholics; alcoholic parents bring on another subject.
They also may be the student in school who gets straight B’s and has only one to zero best friends and generally has a quiet voice and yet is somehow always the big bully’s target.
Or maybe they look a little more rebellious. Instead of being the quiet, secluded one, they are the one that sneaks out to drink and are super popular and they have the perfect comeback for all the snotty bullies that try to pick on them and at the same time are a massive target for sale unless harassment. These picked on teen protagonists may actually have decent parents, but no matter how decent or cruel the parents are, they just don’t understand what it is like to be a teenager.
Reading about a spoiled teenager screaming at their parents that they don’t understand is a sure way to get me to close a book. I know it is meant to touch my heart so I feel sorry for their situation but I just really makes me want to knock them upside the head. All I see with the rebellious teen protagonists is a self-centered, selfish brat. It is easier to have some empathy for the quiet, secluded teen protagonists but how come they are so impossibly innocent? I understand that questions “why do bad things happen to good people” but give it a rest.
The Big Bully
A big bully can appear in a few different forms but the two most popular is the big, dumb male jock who likes to use the protagonist as a sexual prey or generally likes to use them as a punching bag and the second is the bitchy cheerleader or popular girl who knows some “flexibility”- if you know what I mean.
Both of these type of bullies are so cardboard that they can’t even do their job right. No one is mean just to be mean. No, not even siblings. Human beings are so much more complex than that it just makes me angry every time I see the a character- who could be a very gravest character- is just a cardboard.
A simple teenager having a massive crush on the cutest jock in school, having ridiculously strict parents for no apparent reason, having to deal with the snotty cheerleader- who is more than likely dating the school jock- and we can’t forget about being the largest target to sexual harassment is all a little too much to be realistic.
Now there are some situations where a bully truly looks like they are being mean just to be mean. But it goes so much deeper than that. If by the end of your story you don’t explain why your antagonist is such an ass, then please fix that. Please make damn good excuses for each time your bully was a bully. Don’t just create this character as an obstacle to your protagonist. Give them a background, give them flesh. Let us readers emphasize for them.
High School Jockies
The loud obnoxious group of all the super cute jocky boys come baring through the hall, all jumping with school spirit except the one. The one boy, the cutest boy. Usually dark brown hair, a solid 5’11, dashing light blue eyes, and the most handsome boyish smile you ever did see. He is as perfect as heaven.
And your protagonist doesn’t stand a chance.
Wake up call: your Prince Charming needs to have flaws. Let him be a person, let him f*** up! Please! And not with misunderstandings! Let him truly, heart breakingly mess up. And it doesn’t have to be by cheating on your protagonist with his ex-cheerleader-girlfriend. He could have secretly been judging her before they got together. What if they had different beliefs? That would be a great conflict and neither have them are messing up in that situation. What if he saw no reason why he should get married? Maybe he can smoke? Drink? Or hell, give him worse addictions. He is not perfect.
Don’t let your protagonist be completely innocent either. People get jealous; she’s not perfect- I hope- she can see something and blow it completely out of proportion. And it doesn’t even have to be anything big! She doesn’t need to suddenly walk in on Prince Charming and his ex while they’re locking lips. She doesn’t need to walk in on them doing anything! Let your protagonist and Prince Charming walking together, but suddenly they realize that the ex-girlfriend is about to pass them. And what does Prince Charming do? He smiles! He waves! He glances! Let her mess up too. Let her eventually realize how ridiculous she was being and let it be a challenge she needs to overcome.
Most importantly, don’t let them be self-centered or play the victim without them eventually getting a wake up call or suffering because of it. Don’t give them flaws like self-pity while trying to cover up that they really don’t have that flaw and are actually completely innocent.
But I will give the writers this: I suppose it can certainly feel that dramatic when you’re a teenager.
Sci-Fi Villians
This subject is similar to what I said up above about high school bullies. Villains can be so fun to create, but not if you just throw evil and sinister together and let the cardboard at it.
We may not look at it this way, but we are our protagonist to our own story and each of us have a massive villain that we must deal with. We don’t know why, we don’t like it, we always want to constantly point fingers to them. But imagine if the villain you are dealing with in your life is like some of those that you read in books. Are you letting a cardboard beat you up? Harass you? Judge you? Get under your skin? Make you want to scream?
Of course not! Villains are so much more vexing. They all have a history, they all have feelings and they are the protagonist to their own stories. Unless your MC can just kill them, than they need to figure out a way to deal with them or they can continue to let the person get under their skin. It’s real life; straight, no chancer.
Typical 1800’s Dirty Romances
None of the things mentioned above can get under my skin like dirty romance novels. I can’t decide who I hate more: the man, the woman, or the author.
Maybe ruffians and brutes who like to pull women’s hair and intimidate them are sexy to some people. I guess if you prefer that then read away.
The men in these stories love to dish it but they can’t take it. With major anger issue that they don’t care to resolve they resort to endless, scandalous sex. That or beating people up. There is this quote I read on Pinterest one time:
“I’ll start believing women are the emotional ones when men stop using their fists and dicks every time they get pissed.”
I disagree that this applies to all men, but it damn sure applies to these angry romance male characters.
I will give it to some novelists: they did a pretty good job when the men have a real reason to be pissed but the only reaction they give is getting flat out drunk and then let the whole issue go because ain’t nobody got time for that.
I’ve seen that in very few romance novels. All the other ones the men are just complete asses and not ideal husbands.
I’ve save the dirty romance novels for the last because it is the topic i seem to hate most. I’ll do the same thing with the women in dirty romance novels.
The men do get under my skin. But not as much as the women. Women who crumble, weak-kneed and immoral. Women who were raised being taught “You don’t let this happen or it will ruin your life” and they stand firm in that belief with every little piece of shit man that gropes them the wrong way.
But there is always that one unbelievable sexy, mysterious man that opens up her mind to all the things that she has never done before. What would it be like to kiss that man? She has plenty of other men to choose from but no, they aren’t sexy- they aren’t ugly, but they aren’t sexy- they aren’t mysterious, she’s seen them before, she can trust them.
So she lowers her morals. She risks her entire reputation. She flirts with the man. She is alone with the man. She kisses the man. She knows she shouldn’t, she knows he is a rake, she knows he gives her no reason to trust him. And yet she dives anyway.
She is truly the one at fault.
Just once I want to read a romance novel where the female protagonist knows how to say no. Let her be curious. Let her want. Let her be frustrated. Let her be smart enough to say no. Let him be craving. Let him be infatuated. Let him be frustrated. Let him be so damn stubborn that he has to have his way no matter what; even if that means marriage.
Then let them fight. Let them hack it out. Let them yell and try each other. Then let them work things out and truly fall in love.
All the characters mentioned above have so much potential. All the stories the involve these characters have potential. I hope this post will help you be able to steer the potential in the right direction as to not drive your readers insane.
Idea Overload 