What Character Can't You Write?

It's a problem even the most established authors still run into. Some characters are just so disconnected from our own experience as writers that we can't write them well. Most of us, of course, simply avoid injecting these types of folks into our stories. I'm curious to hear what the community thinks about this, and what characters you all might have struggled with in the past.

I'll use myself as an example to demonstrate what I mean. I was a ghostwriter for a romance company for a while. One character I'd flunk EVERY time (and thus lose the project) was the "bad boy" or "alpha" male. It's a character type I just can't stand. Someone who begins the story as a true dirtbag, sexualizing women (or men, if we're talking about an alpha female), with callous disregard for others' feelings or flippant disrespectful language. I hate these characters so much and have such a hard time relating to them that I made them too "nice" or "soft" whenever I wrote them. I just can't do it.

Don't get me wrong, my own works have plenty of jerks. But these jerks are almost always using their negative behaviors as a mask to conceal some type of sympathetic insecurity, and almost always show remorse. Having a protagonist discriminate against others by gender or race and be an absolute dick for no apparent reason (or a reason revealed much, much later in the plot), is something I just cannot pull off as a writer.

What about you guys? Is there a specific kind of character that gives you a tough time? Who have you cut from your own creative works because you just couldn't put that person on paper well enough?

 

Creating a character for me involves a pretty deep dive into what motivates them. I don't have a problem writing a**holes, in fact the main character in the sequel to Gravity was a huge douchecanoe in the first book. It's been interesting digging into why he is the way he is, and if I can successfully and authentically redeem him so the he is deserving of his own Happily Ever After.

For that reason I could never write a white supremacist or similar character whose beliefs are so vile to me that I couldn't spend a hot 10 seconds in their head without barfing. I have absolutely no desire to understand someone like that, and even if I could, I would never want to bring them into even fictional existence. It would be nice to think that characters like that aren't applicable to the Romance genre, so why would I even bring it up? Allow me introduce you to For Such a Time by Kate Breslin, a Nazi/concentration camp prisoner Romance that was nominated for a two RITAs (comparable to the Hugo in its importance to the genre) in 2015.

 

I've only ever cut characters that weren't pulling their weight, I've never cut a character because I couldn't write them as it would feel like a cop out. Isn't that a challenge I should face as a writer? If the character isn't working I find out why and what I can do and it's never been because the character was something I'm not. I just pus through it.

I've never found a character I couldn't write because I created them. Some characters give me a tough time in the creation process thinking up motivation and goals and meaningful actions. But I've never had a tough time because the character was someone I didn't like or had morals I couldn't stand or thought were ridiculous. To them it wasn't. They had a reason for their perspective on the world and as long as I understood that perspective I could write that character. I think that's maybe were people have a hard time. They don't give the character a reason for hating women, say, it's just they do because they are a jerk. When you suddenly give that person, even if only in their mind, a valid reason that changes it for me.

 

Stories and characters both do well with some complexity. Perhaps, the problem is not the type of character but a lack of character development.

 

I have a problem writing teenagers. Never was all that good at fitting in as a teen, so as a result, the more popular kids are more of an archetype than a reality in my work. It's troublesome, but can be cured with research.

 

I can write just about anything. I just finished writing a book that was about nothing but aliens. There are characters I don't choose to write because I don't enjoy them but I could if I had to.

 

What an interesting thread! I have no idea what kind of character I couldn't write at all.

However, I would have a hard time writing a character I can't stand, and showing him or her in a sympathetic light. I almost did it with one of my POV characters in my novel, who enabled a lot of bad stuff. But ultimately, I think I did make him a character whom readers could feel sorry for ...to some extent, anyway. But there were a few 'bad guys' in my novel whom I would have struggled to write as POV characters.

Might be a challenge, to do that—to write a POV character who is totally unsympathetic?

 

Children and teens.

It's the "too real to be believable" category that I avoid by a mile - I don't write any teen or child characters. I am extremely annoyed by the usual cutesie/innocent/dumb portrayal of child and especially teen characters as they are nothing close to my childhood or historical childhoods.

There's also an aversion I have involving children/teen characters in violent scenes. So I just nope out and have my youngest generation be fresh adults, the rest only referenced.

 

Dr. Zachary Smith...I can't seem to get into the character that is suppose to be on your side, but does more damage than the antagonist.

 

The alphahole archetype in romance gets me, too. I firmly believe anyone could write anything with enough research and motive, but that's admittedly easier said than done for some of us.

I actually dealt with writing one of those for the first time fairly recently--the story was a gift for someone who loved ravage romance, so I tried to hit all the required tropes. It actually went smoothly enough right up to the conclusion, where I stalled hard because I couldn't figure out a way to make the whole HEA-with-the-rapist thing work. It was a full and total stop until I deduced that my idea of a working conclusion wasn't the point, so I wrapped it up the way that market seems to like em wrapped up. The resolution could've been stronger, but I was happy to wash my hands of it lol.

Silver lining: how much I struggled writing that character turned out to be excellent practice at maintaining distance between myself and The Job. Normally, I like to relate to my characters, so giving an irredeemable monster the big win felt impossible until I shifted my standpoint from "engaged fan" to "clinical wordsmith." Not fun, but not impossible.

(That said, I wouldn't write in that niche again unless someone paid me up front in seven figures.)

 

Alphahole archetype! Love it!

I have one female alphahole as an important but very side character. I considered redeeming her in another book but have decided not to. Mostly because I hate the "she was abused and neglected so turned to alcohol and drugs. that's why she's such an alphahole" excuse. And I really could see no other way to redeem her so, sorry Deb, you're done.

I also realized that I'd have a hard time writing her being nice. Because, in my head as a character I invented, I don't see her as nice. Nor misunderstood. I see her as being an honest to gawd d*ckhead.

 

On the flip side, I can never write those overly confident female heroines who are constantly showing up the guys and breaking down gender roles left and right. I just don't find those types of stories particularly relatable, much less empowering. It's like the author saying, "Oh, look at this girl just wanting to be something. But oh, no! Here comes the patriarchy!" Then I watch as the story goes from dealing with an actual threat to "female empowerment" or something... Yeah, glad to know female representation is like soooo much more important than, you know, dealing with existential threats.

There are good ways to do it. Mulan (the cartoon, not the remake) did it and did it well. But that's because they never let the idea of a girl doing something that is frowned upon ever overshadow the fact that there was this army of Huns just around the corner who were all ready to murder and rape innocent people. It was about putting aside biases in the name of the greater good as opposed to putting aside biases as being the greater good. One treats it as a means to an end (as it should be) and the other as an end in of itself (boring!)

But most important, is the fact you actually like Mulan. She's a good, loving person. Her father is a good loving person, who shows her love and patience. She does good, selfless things that makes her likable. I read these "empowerment" stories and where the protagonist is acting like a jerk to everyone and the author is trying to convince me everyone is mean to her cuZ sHe a gUrL! No, maybe it's because she's a jerk! If you act like a jerk, yeah people are going to treat you like you don't belong there!

 

The character who harms children or animals. I can write the character away from the actual event, but I can't write the enveloping scene in which they deploy this trait, the actual description of harm happening to a child or animal. I can't write that part.

 

I have trouble with villains of any sort. People who are bad just for the sake of being bad. I can always see the motive behind the Badness and then it stops being bad. So I'm sort of screwed.

 

Neurotypical ones lol

 

I mainly have difficulty writing deliberately overpowered villains while keeping them entertaining. An overpowered villain is just as dangerous to write as an overpowered hero, and I'm always afraid of making my villains so overly competent that there's no way for the heroes to realistically win besides just making the villain suddenly drop the ball at the end.

Perfect example is my villain Sophia Giordano, a half vampire/half demon. My intention with this villain is to make her the greatest threat mankind has ever own, more charming than her father Dracula, more powerful than her mother Lilith, and more intelligent than her grandfather Lucifer.

Thing is, I have no idea how to have the heroes realistically beat her. A kryptonite factor is cheap, an all-powerful weapon designed specifically to defeat the villain is cliche, and having the villain slip up at the end in a moment of arrogance or stupidity is just lazy.

 

Someone who abuses animals. You will never see a dog get kicked in anything that I write.

 

Welp, that's one problem Hirohiko Araki definitely doesn't have.

 

There are many types of characters that I can't write well but that's because I am not a good writer.

Probably I avoid writing many of the characters discussed earlier in this thread by simply not writing stories with such characters.

But... characters that are like me (age, gender, background, morals) I avoid.

All my 60+, male, academic, quiet types are razor-thin characters.

I have used myself of ages 14-25 as characters but after that no.


Of course I use everything I know and have experienced in my characters.

Of course I can let my 24 year old female character prepare a meal in the kitchen the same way I do (she says it's her grandmas recipe) .

But I put myself in characters that are different from me.

I can't write me!