As I dust off the manuscript once more and fine tune another project I’m working on I’ve been haunted by characters and trying to find a balance to where they are messy, a bit despicable and yet have redeeming qualities that will make anyone listening or reading have an ounce of sympathy and perhaps root for a resolve in their favor. I have to admit it is a bit of challenge for me because I’m adding in a dose of reality based off of some personal experiences. I realize as I do this I still have strong emotions tied to certain situations. So I’m learning to let it go through the writing.
Yet, I don’t want characters, especially a main one, to be squeaky clean or perpetually always a victim. I want her to be messy but I want to tie-in why she is messy in some ways.
I shared some of my realizations about characters in a narrative with my writing group about a week ago. It stemmed from characters that are floating around on a few TV series and my discussions about them. Here’s my realization about what I seek in characters:
Lately I’ve been in and out of conversations about likable and not so likable fictional characters in TV shows; more recently Scandal, Being Mary Jane and with tonight’s 3rd season premier of HBO’s Girls.
Mainly I’ve come across people that nearly vehemently hate the whole show because they HATE the main character. Ok. You like that you like, that’s cool. Yet, I’m curious to know what exactly people want from a character, be it a book or TV Show.
When Being Mary Jane (the movie) premiered in July, I was so glad to see soooo many women on social media express how Mary Jane Paul was them in some shape or form. Then the tone changed when the series premiered earlier this week. Some of those same peeps I remember in the summer that were praising the movie…now dislike (or at least) not so sure about the show. Mary Jane is coming off as messy, esp. with a surprise decision when it came to a man at the end of the episode. A few others I know thought it came off very Olivia Pope-ish. Perhaps.
A male associate of mine took to his FB page and even wrote up the following status: “Sistas are you all tired of being portrayal as professionally successful and dysfunctional yet???? Can black people get better roles?”
His status drew an interesting conversation as the majority of the women that answered agreed with one questioning how can we say we want to do away with whore roles and praise shows like Being Mary Jane and Scandal. My response was thus: “My thing is… there are usually extreme showings of black women. she’s either the all out whore, or ratchet woman with no education, slack and simple or she is the highly educated, ball busting bitch. I think in terms of Being Mary Jane (and Scandal) you have a balance … more so with Mary Jane. She’s educated, she comes from a middle class background (so it is assumed) but there is still dysfunction all around, especially when it comes to her choices in men. If that’s not life I don’t know what is. But again.. the show isn’t representative of ALL black women. I don’t know why people are offended or find the narrative of a “weak” black woman problematic. Overall the character isn’t weak. She’s flawed. she has weak moments. The overall weakness would be if the character never grew… no character development and with Mary Jane there seems to be a lot of room for it! I’m looking forward to it”
Needless to say the conversation about Being Mary Jane on dude’s FB page was very engaging. Then tonight… I realize I’m in a minority – black 30-something female – that watches and enjoys the HBO series Girls. It’s no secret that Hannah, the lead character, is annoying as fuck and a bit self-centered, but she isn’t one of my favorites. It’s really her friend Jessa. Jessa is the typical flighty character that seems to do whatever the hell she wants and gets away with it. Yet, as tonight’s 2 episode premier showed, Jessa’s ways may be catching up to her with Hannah and few others calling her out. A twitter bud and I were tweeting about the show when she mentioned she hated Jessa during the episodes and that as the show moves on, in her opinion, Jessa is becoming more unlikable.
I expressed to her I still like Jessa. I like the ugliness. And this is my realization… as a writer I like the ugliness of a character. Give me their flaws and all. But as my twitter bud responded, what is the redeeming quality? To her Jessa didn’t seem to have anything, but I think if we hold tight this season it will be realized. In a way it has as Hannah tells Shoshannah (Jessa’s young cousin) about a time in college when she realized how sad Jessa is behind all her flighty fabulous ways.
Still I ponder… does a redeeming quality for a flaw-filled character have to be immediately there? Me, as a writer, would present it to you gradually. Something like Melissa McCarthy’s character in Identity Thief. Aside from the hilarious antics, in reality if you came across an ID thief, esp. one that took YOUR ID… you would want to drop kick them on the spot!!! However in the movie there was something about Melissa’s character that made me curious… umm why are you doing this? And of course it is reveal, she had no family or friends and needed to belong some how and some way.
So to bring it home
1. I like “ugly” characters. As long as there is some growth
2. Where should the redeeming quality be? In our face or gradually shown over time?
Side note: Olivia Pope does get on my nerves with Fitz now. I’m still rooting for her…rooting that she gets over him and moves forward. Bwaaahahahahahahaha
As I searched the Google lands for other thoughts on redeeming qualities in characters and how to execute the qualities in the story, I stumbled across a blog post from romance writer Jean Oram; How to Make Unlikeable Characters Likeable. In part Oram shares;
“For my story, the editor mentioned that (because it was a ‘romance’) the hero could be moody because of a romantic falling out, but not because he was screwed up. So in other words, make their issues something the reader expects of the genre and something identifiable in that regard. Romance readers don’t want to read about alcoholics (unless it is backstory I am told), they want to hear about ROMANCE, ROMANCE, ROMANCE!
As well, character flaws should be identifiable to the reader. The average romance reader can identify with someone feeling like crap because of a bad romance. But for being an alcoholic after accidentally killing their father? Well… maybe not so much.”
I also came across an article that was shared in my writing group a year ago; Character Arc 101. The article explores various ways a character can experience change and growth. I thought about the character Olivia Pope as the article brought up this kind of character; The Backslider.
Per the article: “The Backslider changes at the critical moment, but then reverses himself and goes right back to his old belief system. In such a story, the character must be said to change, because it is the belief system itself that is being judged by the audience, once the moment of truth is past and the results of picking that system are seen in the dénouement. In effect, the Backslider changes within the confines of the story structure, but then reverts to his old nature AFTER the structure in the closing storytelling.”
Moving forward, I’m sure I can find the right balance. I just have to stick with it a bit more…just let the ink bleed.
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As I dust off the manuscript once more and fine tune another project I’m working on I’ve been haunted by characters and trying to find a balance to where they are messy, a bit despicable and yet have redeeming qualities that will make anyone listening or reading have an ounce of sympathy and perhaps root for a resolve in their favor. I have to admit it is a bit of challenge for me because I’m adding in a dose of reality based off of some personal experiences. I realize as I do this I still have strong emotions tied to certain situations. So I’m learning to let it go through the writing.
Mahoganie: Musings East of the Anacostia River 
Posted on January 19, 2014
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