How can I make readers hate a character?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Gallowglass, Jan 26, 2012.

  1. GoldenGhost

    GoldenGhost Senior Member

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    I think most of the responses have nailed it. Personally, I would rather see a villain with depth. Give him morals to a certain extent, have him show emotion. But then you are going to really have to stress the situations where he lacks emotion, when he is cold and unremorseful in his actions. The times he mis-treats someone or lashes out in anger and physical brutality. I think, when stories are black and white ie: The Good guys are perfect and always make the right decision, and the Bad guys are dumb witted people who some how have concocted this scheme to take over the world (which does take a certain amount of intelligence) yet, lack the intelligence to suceed in most cases because the good guy is ALWAYS there to thwart him and he never makes a wrong choice.

    Creating balance is the goal and instills a realistic experience within the reader, allowing them to connect. You suceed when the reader sees themself in not only the Protagonists' but the Antagonists' as well. That is when they are interested. That is when they are kept reading.

    One of my main Prots in my novel is the God of Chaos, yet he just lectured his minions, yelling at them and inflicting pain upon them for killing an innocent. Why, would the God of destruction care about the loss of an innocent? Because even the most evil of Villains can have the possibility of knowing right from wrong, even if they choose to act wrongly more often then not. These glimmers of light really make the reader think about the Prots next move. One minute he is killing thousands without thinking about it and then in the next situation actually cares that someone died? That is my take on it. I wouldn't do much to your character man, just emphasize points where his flaws shine and actions show the reader that he COULD be hatable and leave it up to them.
     
  2. HorusEye

    HorusEye Contributor Contributor

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    I only hate characters that are badly written. You don't wanna go for that.
     
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  3. tristan.n

    tristan.n Active Member

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    No matter what you make this guy do, not everyone will hate him. Some people will probably even like him because he's a badass. It really depends on the morals and soft spots of the reader. In my story, one of the villains literally has no respect for women as individuals, and no respect for them physically. He takes what he wants and thinks it's his right. I based this guy off of what makes my own blood boil, so hopefully whoever reads it will pick up on the hate that I have for him, too.
    So maybe you could add some personality traits that you personally despise in someone...? Hope that helped a little!
     
  4. Dryade

    Dryade New Member

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    Hi, first of all sorry for my bad English, I am not an English native speaker.
    So what, how can you make readers hate a character?
    I think that one of the most important keys lies in the relationships between the "hateful character" and the main characters of your story. If he persists in being evil and doing all sort of nasty things to them, the readers will start hating him/her because they sympathize with the main characters. This is the way I think you can create feelings in readers' hearts.
     
  5. Unit7

    Unit7 Contributor Contributor

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    I definitely agree. There are some characters that while watching I just absolutely hate them. But when I am not watching and can think about it I both hate and love the character. Unless its Joffrey from ASOIAF. I just hate him.
     
  6. TheWritingWriter

    TheWritingWriter New Member

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    I think different readers hate different types of characters. I may hate one type of character trait in a person, but you may not be bothered by it at all. But if you WANT your character to be hated it shouldn't be hard to get that effect. Make them do terrible, horrible things, & give them like zero conscience. There are some characters that you just love to hate, and others you hope are killed off real quick.
     
  7. wilprim

    wilprim Member

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    I think to make a reader hate one of your characters, you should have an emotion of hatred towards him when you are writing. Write about someone who would make you considerably angry/irritated then go on to get other peoples opinion. Most of the time, when describing/building my characters, a wave of emotion pours over me while I write. It is like the character is coming to life, so to speak.

    Also, use some dialogue. Dialogue mixed with some interior monologue can really help portray the kind of person the character is.
     
  8. Joey Batz

    Joey Batz Member

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    If you're looking for a villain who is just plain evil with no real motivations other than power and the suffering of others, it can be very hard to do without ending up with a cartoonish super-villain that goes to heavy on the blood and gore side of things. But it can be done well, and it has. I urge you to read the manga Dragon Ball--you may have heard of its anime adaptation, Dragon Ball Z--and read the Frieza Saga. The reason I'm saying to read the manga was because it was handled a lot different than in the anime (at least the English dub).

    In Frieza, you had a villain who had a polite demeanor, but small outbursts of terrifying rage when he became truly angry. He addressed his subordinates as "My dear" and "Mister Zarbon/Dodoria/Vegeta", and threatened them with death should they fail (he didn't even threaten to kill them directly, but he would tell them "if you do not have the Dragon Balls within the hour, then prepare yourself for death"). We don't have any motivation for Frieza, and that actually makes his character more mysterious than bland. He desires power for power's sake despite already owning the entire galaxy and being able to destroy planets with a flick of his finger (and I don't mean pressing a button. He's that physically powerful), and he delights at humiliating those who he orders to be killed. He toys with an opponent called Nail, torturing him and enjoying all the while, and even kills a small child simply because he can. But what makes Frieza really stand out is how he reacts to losing, allowing his rage to escape for a brief instant when his dreams of immortality are crushed, or his gradual loss of composure when he realizes that the main character, Goku, is simply stronger than he is. One fantastic line Frieza says when he finally starts to understand his weakness is "I will be victorious! I will be FRIEZA!", as if him being the pinnacle of strength is just a constant in the universe, like space being cold. The fact that he is a racist--he looks down upon a race of aliens called the Saiyans, who's planet he destroyed with nothing but a gesture--makes watching him slowly coming to terms with the fact that Goku, the last living Saiyan, is more powerful than him draw you to Frieza's character even more.
     
  9. Joey Batz

    Joey Batz Member

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    I would post the second half of what I have to say, but it seems that the site isn't interested in having that. Now it just looks like I'm posting randomly about DBZ.



    ^^It actually posted THAT!? Oh come the hell on!!!!
     
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  10. Inspired writer

    Inspired writer New Member

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    Yeah a work colleague did mention that a sociopath would make the perfect villain. A villain who's originally trusted with the protagonist turns out to be a really nasty piece of work. Personally, I'd love to write a villain that the readers would find nauseating. Someone who could really get under the skin. The villain you'd love to hate.
     
  11. Phoenix Hikari

    Phoenix Hikari New Member

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    I don't really sympathize with him and right now I hate his guts. Just tell me one thing, which I seem not to understand very well, is what happened in his past really a good excuse for him to become this person? I don't understand why should he blame his mother. His father was trying to save her and got trapped. Did she trap him? Did she lure him somewhere and slice his neck? Did she poison him?

    I don't feel sorry for your character, just think he's selfish. Unless I understood the plot the wrong way.
     
  12. RusticOnion

    RusticOnion New Member

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    I don't think you should try to make your readers have any disposition towards your characters that isn't based upon their actions in the story.

    So, if he's doing bad things then people will most likely consider him bad.
     
  13. Joey Batz

    Joey Batz Member

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    Many people believe Frieza is nothing more than a bland cartoon super-villain in a show about people screaming and talking incessantly about power levels, but that's not true. You have a villain who is not only pure evil, but whose fall from grace we get to experience firsthand. It's not a tragic backstory that makes us feel empathy for him--he's a complete monster and we feel no empathy. Instead, we are drawn to this character because we see him go from ruling his mighty empire with an iron first and an air of politeness, to lying in the dirt cut in half by his own attack as he begs the Saiyan "monkey" that he had been looking down on to spare his life even though he took pleasure in denying that mercy to others.
     
  14. Gonissa

    Gonissa New Member

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    I hate characters that cheat on their wives or make other women cheat on their husbands. Instant hate, just add cheating.

    Um, I don't know if you want your character to be hated, especially right off. It makes your story hard to follow if they hate the person, but then have to go through all the things that the character does with them. Like in the book Things Fall Apart, I couldn't sympathize with Okonkwo because he shot at one of his wives fairly early on in the story.

    If your audience must hate your character, then use background sparingly. Show more of his evil actions to show that he deserves to die. Or, you can possibly have the hateful character use his background as a pathetic excuse for his behavior. When used correctly, that can be pretty loathsome.
     
  15. Joey Batz

    Joey Batz Member

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    You know what? I don't understand why, but my posts on this thread and only this thread aren't going through. Good luck with your character and disregard everything I just said, because apparently this thread doesn't want to work properly.


    ^^IT POSTED THAT!!!??? IS THERE A FREAKIN' WORD LIMIT ON THESE POSTS!!??? @#$@%#%#%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
  16. Nakhti

    Nakhti Banned

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    To make your readers hate a character, you have to make him get in the way of what the reader most wants to happen, or bring about what they most DON'T want to happen. So, if you have a secondary character who is really likeable or really important to the MC, have this bad character kill them. If there is something that the MC really wants and we are rooting for them to get it, make this character get in the way of it. Or you could do both at once, i.e. the MC's girlfriend is in danger, the antag prevents him saving her.

    Basically, the more plot goals this character thwarts, the more he interferes in the MC's happiness, the more we will hate him.
     
  17. Henning

    Henning New Member

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    I think the best way to make readers hate a character, or at least the only way to make me as a reader hate one, is to not develop that character at all.
    Doesn't matter how much you try to make everyone hate a character, if it's a well developed one (and a realistic one) there's always going to be something to empathize with, or make you curious about, and when you're curious about a character then you can't say you absolutely hate him. My most hated characters are the ones that make me put the book down when they show up.
    Just my opinion.
     
  18. Lou Plot Point Olson

    Lou Plot Point Olson New Member

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    prepare for a spontaneous poem. hate. hate is the hardest thing to convince yourself of. hate is the harest emotion to create for a reader. there isn't a single antagonist that i have ever hated. i sided with most even. not as though they were justified i just found them to be more interesting than the other characters. simply making a character a douche isn't means to hate them, and hate in entirely subjective, which is why it's even harder to create.
     
  19. marcuslam

    marcuslam New Member

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    As many people have already mentioned, it's good to have a villain we can empathize with. If he must become hated, though, he could always just take things too far. Make the readers go, "Even if he had so and so background, he has no right to be doing this."

    Then again, sometimes, I love villains who do evil thing just because they find it amusing. Those old school, two dimensional bad guys. Of course, most of the time, they'll fail as characters.
     
  20. Photon

    Photon New Member

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    Just pick up some bad human traits and events, such as murder, sarcasm and general mis-treatment of others.

    Or one major key event that demonstrates his lack of character profoundly.
     
  21. Dan Kirkalnd

    Dan Kirkalnd New Member

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    For me a character that's hated shouldn't have much in terms of human qualities, for example a total disregard for human life would be a trait that I would hate in a character.
     

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