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What is a Good, Likeable Character?

Kanata.EXE

Kanata.EXE

Programmer
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Indonesia
As the title implies, what is a good, likeable character?

I ask because I want to fix my weakness in writing character. When I write a character, I sometimes accidently make a sue. A story won't be enjoyable if the character is bad, no?

Considering most of writers here are good, I think I should ask. Also... if you have some tips, please tell me.

P.S. Not sure whether I should post it here or Creative Discussion & World Building.
 
First of all, how exactly is your character turned into a Sue?
 
Hykal94 said:
First of all, how exactly is your character turned into a Sue?
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Well... I remember when I write an original character for quest (The quest allows players to post their character), I accidently write a sue because too much positive traits and doesn't fit the setting.

So I think my weakness come in from the traits and doesn't fit the setting.
 
Sorry Kanata but that may be a bit too vague. Can you give examples?
 
If you want an easy way to make sure you've got a non-Sue character.

1. Cruel
2. Careless
3. Cowardly
4. Rude
5. Lazy
6. Angry
7. Impatient
8. Greedy
9. Suspicious
10. Vain

1. Helpful
2. Considerate
3. Calm
4. Generous
5. Honest
6. Loyal
7. Responsible
8. Cheerful
9. Humble
10. Brave

Roll on these tables an equal amount of times, reroll any contradicting results. Expand it if you feel like it. When you write, keep that characters traits in mind.

You should get a balanced character.

If you want to get a good character, note down traits of what the average person is like in the setting. Then think long and hard about which of those you want and don't want in your character. Follow the traits you want carefully.

More important than all of this is make sure your character is interesting. Characters that have no internal tension or conflict are usually boring beyond belief. Make sure your character has doubts, hesitation and make sure that sometimes they don't actually succeed.

Once in a while, you might want to flip a coin to see if the character's plans will work out. If they don't, explore how and why they didn't work and what this does to the character.
 
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The best advice is as follows:

The character exists to serve the story. The story should never exist to serve the character.

If you find yourself saying "This story is about this character..." stop. Pull back. Ask yourself, "Why should this story be about this character?" The story is about itself. The character, as far as they exist, should be in service to telling a story. Maybe its the story of how the character learned a Valuable LessonTM​ or a story about how the character went to a strange land, or whatever. But those aren't really about the character, are they? They're about the lesson, and the strange land. The character, in these cases, only serves as a vehicle to tell the story. They are a viewpoint through which we can focus our understanding of what the story is really about.

Then, once you understand that the character serves the roll of allowing you to tell the story you realize that you can eliminate unnecessary elements. Writing is far more often about what you leave out that what you include. Your story should include exactly the elements needed to tell it and no more.

So if you find your character has a long list of character traits but only a handful of them are actually needed for the story... eliminate all the unneeded ones. Your character has magical powers that don't serve the story? No he doesn't. Your character has visual elements that don't serve the story? Not anymore.

When you're reading the story there should never be a point where the reader feels you are writing about the character rather than using the character to another purpose.
 
Kanata_Tsukikami said:
As the title implies, what is a good, likeable character?

I ask because I want to fix my weakness in writing character. When I write a character, I sometimes accidently make a sue. A story won't be enjoyable if the character is bad, no?
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Hm, to start with, 'sue' and 'likable' are fairly different axises- a Mary Sue can still be fairly likable, or they can not-be. A non-sue can be unlikable, and so on.

When I think of a Mary Sue, the primary aspect I think of is how they take over the rest of a story. A Sue guy shows up, and is the one who resolves every situation, is the center of attention, and so on.

Sometimes I find I have an idea for a character's role in a story, notice that it ends up making things way too them-centric, a proverbial story held up by a single pillar, and then I literally break them into two or three characters who each take part of the role. Because things are spread out, they're much less of a sue, or I should say the burden of holding up the story is now held on multiple pillars, you can have them bad at things because the other can take up the slack, you can have them simply be at the wrong place at the wrong time without things collapsing, and that helps the characters and the story.
 
I think a big issue behind Mary Sues is not that authors aren't willing to imbue upon their characters flaws, but that the flaws are, in fact, "flaws": They aren't actually all that much of a flaw, or are portrayed unrealistically or without nuance. It is an over-romanticized portrayal of a person that glosses over the challenges and frustration inherit to human life and development. A litmus test I sometimes use goes something like this: "When you are angry and frustrated with your life, someone tells you that you should stop being so angry and frustrated with your life because you're totally like this character and have it good, and you only get angrier because that trivializes your struggles and doesn't even come close to encapsulating the real problems that you face with your life, that aforementioned character is probably a Mary Sue." ^_^;

It is okay to romanticize a lot of stuff in fiction, because a big part of fiction is entertaining your audience, sometimes by glossing over some of the more horrible parts of life. When you get to the point where you have characters that represent the trivialization of what your audience have to struggle with, though, it's the point where relation with and/or admiration towards a character becomes impossible, and you've reached the territory of why Gwyneth Paltrow catches a lot of flak. ^_^;
 
Aaron Peori said:
The best advice is as follows:

The character exists to serve the story. The story should never exist to serve the character.

If you find yourself saying "This story is about this character..." stop. Pull back. Ask yourself, "Why should this story be about this character?" The story is about itself. The character, as far as they exist, should be in service to telling a story. Maybe its the story of how the character learned a Valuable LessonTM​ or a story about how the character went to a strange land, or whatever. But those aren't really about the character, are they? They're about the lesson, and the strange land. The character, in these cases, only serves as a vehicle to tell the story. They are a viewpoint through which we can focus our understanding of what the story is really about.

Then, once you understand that the character serves the roll of allowing you to tell the story you realize that you can eliminate unnecessary elements. Writing is far more often about what you leave out that what you include. Your story should include exactly the elements needed to tell it and no more.

So if you find your character has a long list of character traits but only a handful of them are actually needed for the story... eliminate all the unneeded ones. Your character has magical powers that don't serve the story? No he doesn't. Your character has visual elements that don't serve the story? Not anymore.

When you're reading the story there should never be a point where the reader feels you are writing about the character rather than using the character to another purpose.
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This...I never thought about it this way, but your right. THIS is what makes a character a Mary Sue; having the story revolve around them rather than having them serve the story. This is probably the shortest, most comprehensive explanation of what makes a Sue.
 
The number one rule is to not make them annoying or forgettable. Most other qualities are substantially more subjective. If you look at the kind of characters fandoms tend to hate on it's those that are considered irksome more than those who are considered terrible people while forgettable characters are just well...forgotten about.

What's the fastest way to make a character annoying then? Make them comic relief characters who aren't actually funny.
 
You mean a character that is 'good' in the sense that they're appealing? Or well written?
(Villainous characters can be absolutely unappealing but also well written)

If you mean the former, I think likeable characters should have traits the audience can relate to or sympathise with (see above about including real flaws).
Mental Omega said:
The number one rule is to not make them annoying or forgettable.
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This is a good point. If you're writing an original main character and they're forgettable, I wouldn't think the story they're in is worth reading.
 
There's no silver bullet to character writing, especially since a "good" (or well written character) can be vastly different from a character you're meant to like, because there's no silver bullet to writing characters in general.
 
The primary rule of characters is that they can't be boring to the audience.

They can be possibly redundant, they can be assholes, they can be figurative angels, they can be the most depraved of villains, they can be pretty average people, they can be gods or beyond gods.

But they can't be boring for your audience.

They can be boring to other characters, but never to the people behind the fourth wall. If the majority of people start actively skipping sequences they're in, you did something wrong.
 
Aaron Peori said:
The best advice is as follows:

The character exists to serve the story. The story should never exist to serve the character.

If you find yourself saying "This story is about this character..." stop. Pull back. Ask yourself, "Why should this story be about this character?" The story is about itself. The character, as far as they exist, should be in service to telling a story. Maybe its the story of how the character learned a Valuable LessonTM​ or a story about how the character went to a strange land, or whatever. But those aren't really about the character, are they? They're about the lesson, and the strange land. The character, in these cases, only serves as a vehicle to tell the story. They are a viewpoint through which we can focus our understanding of what the story is really about.

Then, once you understand that the character serves the roll of allowing you to tell the story you realize that you can eliminate unnecessary elements. Writing is far more often about what you leave out that what you include. Your story should include exactly the elements needed to tell it and no more.

So if you find your character has a long list of character traits but only a handful of them are actually needed for the story... eliminate all the unneeded ones. Your character has magical powers that don't serve the story? No he doesn't. Your character has visual elements that don't serve the story? Not anymore.

When you're reading the story there should never be a point where the reader feels you are writing about the character rather than using the character to another purpose.
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It's a bit of a sidestep, but how would you describe a slice of life story then? Since most of them are explicitly about the character's lives. Genuine question, because I've tried and failed to come up with a descriptor.
 
Leila Hann said:
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Hey, I will let you know I write good. My words are the best words, and my sentences flow like a river in winter, still and unyielding and covered in ice, so kids can merrily play hockey together, enjoying their shared illusion of innocence, experiencing the transcendental nature of life itself as the river on which they used to play hockey cannot be entered twice for, as the great Heraclitus once said, panta rhei - "everything flows."

... What was I talking about again?
 
I'm paraphrasing a bit, but Brandon Sanderson described how likeable characters generally display three qualities:

  1. They're active: The character moves the story forwards and take action, as a opposed to simply letting things happen to them
  2. They're competent: In short, they're good at what they do, and are capable of solving problems
  3. They're sympathetic: They possess some trait that the reader can identify with
If you're character lacks any of the above traits, your readers probably won't like him. Of course, depending on the genre, you might not want your characters to be likeable. Comedies, for instance, can get away with characters who are lazy, incompetent, and unsympathetic, because part of the humour comes from watching the world shit on them. Take Basil Fawlty or Ignatius Reilly, for example. Likewise, having the character excel in all three of the above points is probably moving into Mary Sue territory.

In my experience, characters with the following traits tend to be despised by readers:

  • Whininess. This seems to be a cultural thing - Japanese audiences appear to be more sympathetic to whiny, angst-ridden characters like Shinji from NGE or Tidus from FFX than western audiences. Still, a whinging, self-pitying, "woe is me!" character is going to lose the reader's sympathy fast, especially if they never seem to do anything about their circumstances.
  • Moral dissonance. A character who performs actions that are considered by the reader to be morally grotesque, yet is treated by the story is a paragon of moral virtue, is going to be despised. Look at Eragon from the Inheritance Cycle - he performs actions that are often downright sociopathic, and yet we're supposed to cheer him on as a great and noble hero.
  • Immune to consequences. If your character is lazy, or incompetent, or unsympathetic, and yet never seems to suffer any consequences for those traits, then readers are going to hate him. Look at Neelix from ST:VOY, for example: he grossly overstates his own competence (which gets people killed at one point), he can be extremely jealous and petty at times, and yet the show seems to regard him as some sort of "breakout character" that we should all admire.
 
The Victorian said:
I'm paraphrasing a bit, but Brandon Sanderson described how likeable characters generally display three qualities:

  1. They're active: The character moves the story forwards and take action, as a opposed to simply letting things happen to them
  2. They're competent: In short, they're good at what they do, and are capable of solving problems
  3. They're sympathetic: They possess some trait that the reader can identify with
If you're character lacks any of the above traits, your readers probably won't like him. Of course, depending on the genre, you might not want your characters to be likeable. Comedies, for instance, can get away with characters who are lazy, incompetent, and unsympathetic, because part of the humour comes from watching the world shit on them. Take Basil Fawlty or Ignatius Reilly, for example. Likewise, having the character excel in all three of the above points is probably moving into Mary Sue territory.
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These seem to be specific to protagonists. Not all characters.

Also, being likeable, active, and competent makes a character a sue? Really?
 
Leila Hann said:
These seem to be specific to protagonists. Not all characters.

Also, being likeable, active, and competent makes a character a sue? Really?
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If taken to extremes, yes. If a character is so active that they decide everything in a story, if they're so competent that they never fail, if they're so sympathetic that they have no apparent flaws whatsoever, then they're probably a Sue.
 
The Victorian said:
If taken to extremes, yes. If a character is so active that they decide everything in a story, if they're so competent that they never fail, if they're so sympathetic that they have no apparent flaws whatsoever, then they're probably a Sue.
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The first of those things is entirely dependent on how many characters there are in the story, and in what roles.

The second, likewise, is totally story dependent. A story about a character doing the one thing that they're best at would be sue-ish by your definition.

"No flaws whatsoever" does not make a character sympathetic. It makes them unrelatable and alien.
 
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