Likeable Main Characters

theory
#1

I’m just going to put this here because I feel it’s entirely relevant to the people not understanding the ‘Dramatica structure’ argument. I recently used Dramatica Story Expert to put a story together, and wrote a screenplay based on it. After 4 or 5 rewrites, I sent it into The Blacklist, where I got a 4/10. Now, the feedback they gave me was of very little use (they clearly skimmed the script and some parts of the feedback didn’t even make sense, they had clearly skipped entire parts of some scenes).

But something that really irked me was what they called the “big weakness” in the script - the lead character was not likeable or easy to connect with. They felt she was not a hero character, essentially - someone to root for and connect with. Of course, I took this as a compliment (which was not the way it was intended), because that was my intention - Dramatica helped me create that (Reach - Neither). But this is another example of people in the industry not grasping the Dramatica concept that Main Character does not mean hero. The other thing that irked me was that they said the ‘beats were not strong enough and took too long’. Which is a fair criticism, until you read on and realize they are referring to that pesky three-act structure in which everything has to be on a certain page and The Hero’s Journey and all that crap.

I’d advise that if you write a script using Dramatica, don’t send it to The Blacklist. There is a tiny percentage (as with all scripts there) that you will get lucky and someone will like it and give it a high score. But most people that send their stuff get the same treatment - a very brief skim read and complaints that it doesn’t stick to the formula. Save your money and enter it into contests, if anything.

Structure Is What Happens When
Structure Is What Happens When
#2

@jamjam1794 Been there, done that. I wouldn’t submit anything to them - complete waste of time. Put it this way, their readers get paid $25 a pop so what level of effort does one think they’re really going to give? I had them remove a review because it had so many factual errors in it (I literally ripped them a new one in an e-mail). They agreed, gave me a new review which was slightly better but had the same issues. Why bother a third time? While Franklin is responsive to responding to complaints on boards (I didn’t, but someone hijacked my thread elsewhere), he comes across as trolling after a while - always saying the same things in defense of his efforts. I’ve personally read a couple of 8/10 scores - one of them I even consulted on - and all I could do was roll my eyes. By the way, I just blogged an article on empathy here: http://wp.me/p4Q6fC-2Q that’s been getting a LOT of reads and I had to refrain from saying at the end of it “if you have a reader say your characters aren’t likable, run in the opposite direction because they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

As Mike said on the G+ thread I brought up on this, anytime you deviate from the standard (e.g. “expectation”), you’re essentially inviting criticism.

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#3

Define “unlikeable,” please? With examples would be great. I have thoughts on this but I want to be sure we’re talking about the same thing/on the same page.

#4

I think ‘unlikeable’ in this context is that you don’t empathise with the character (or even like them in any way) or root for them to win, but you sympathise with their situation or problems.

Examples:
Late-series Breaking Bad - Walter White is not empathetic or likeable, but you sympathize with the bad situation he is in. He’s killed a lot of people, he’s been cooking meth and putting his family in danger, but he began with a good reason.

House of Cards - Frank Underwood is not empathetic, he’s barely sympathetic. He kills people willingly and manipulates his way to the top.

A Clockwork Orange - Alex is definitely not an empathetic character, having raped and attacked a lot of people.

American Psycho - Patrick Bateman is not empathetic - he is a serial killer (some people could argue otherwise on this one, but I don’t think he is empathetic).

These characters are some of the most interesting created, because they don’t have clear morals. They’ll do anything to get what they want. You don’t have to connect with them, you just have to be interested in their complex psychology.

#5

I would say Walter is empathetic. It has nothing to do in terms of value - whether he’s right, wrong, good, bad - but more so with regards to whether we understand his emotions. His split persona is driven by a need to be more than who he is on the outset: a chemistry teacher, accompanied by the need to help his family. Almost everybody has that universal yearning, which makes us understand his desire - even if we don’t necessarily like or agree with the specifics of his chosen methodology because we always know what’s at stake.

One of the big, overlooked issues in Toy Story 3 is with Lotso: we’re given this nice, fatherly bear up front before the layers are pulled back to reveal the bitterness underneath. But then the film does something strange: it gives us his backstory which makes us empathize with him because suddenly we can see how he became the way he is - but rather than finding somewhere beneficial to go with the story (e.g. redemption), they throw that empathy out the window and characterize him as being unable (or unworthy) of change/redemption. It was a pretty strange decision for a Pixar film, imo, as it seemed to go against the values one would expect us to learn via films aimed at such a wide range of audience (particularly impressionable children.)

Bottom line: if a reader says they found your character(s) unlikable, put them on the spot and ask them why. Chances are they don’t really know why; they’re just parroting a term they’ve heard elsewhere that really doesn’t have any objective story meaning.

#6

@jamjam1794 I’m not sure, but I think you got the terms sympathetic and empathetic mixed up. As I understand, empathy is when you can see where they’re coming from but don’t necessarily agree with their decisions. “When I think about the abuse the serial killer endured as a child, I feel empathy, however I simply cannot sympathize with the choices he made as an adult.” - Empathy vs. Sympathy

Is the term “unlikable” really that much of a buzz word? That doesn’t agree with my experience, to be honest.

#7

I don’t think it is, but it pops up on occasion. I remember reading somewhere how a professional screenwriter was told this about his main character, so he went back and upon their introduction, added the word “likable.” The problem with its usage is that it’s so…nebulous - and the person using it rarely conveys the important part of their opinion: why? It’s that lack of clarity and ability to convey the particulars that call into question the quality of the notes/coverage given.

#8

@jamjam1794, I haven’t read your work or used the Blacklist. Nevertheless, I get nervous when I hear writers complain about the score they get from readers.

In my experience, there are only five scores: terrible, really bad, meh, almost, and great!

I’ve never understood a 4/10 to mean anything.

Nevertheless, I generally have faith in readers when they say things like “the lead character was not easy to connect with.” Or, “the beats took too long.” Unfortunately, what you cannot know is how this went down. You say it has to do with the Hero’s Journey, but all you really know is that this is what the notes have to do with. If the reader was glued to their chair, they probably would have found a way to make the script “line up” with a hero’s journey or a three-act structure. The only real take-away is that they were not glued to their chair.

There is no such thing as a “dramatica-style” script. The reader cannot possibly say, “well, this didn’t line up with a three-act structure, but it did line up with a dramatica structure.”

I’ll repeat what I said to Jim (IIRC): your job is to write something awesome. If it falls short of that, you will get any of a number of critiques, and these are people who are generally trying to say something helpful with the best tools they have. They aren’t good tools, but to pay attention to their tools and complain is a waste of time – especially since you have a better toolbox than they have. What you need to do is figure out why you fell short of gripping the readers. It’s just not true that your 4/10 script (in their eyes) is actually a 10/10, and that is the goal. Do you know why Frank Underwood is compelling to watch? Patrick Bateman?

When dealing with people who give notes, I don’t think it’s their job to know why your character is unlikeable. It is your job to make their likable, and that can go wrong in so many ways that it’s not reasonable to put it on someone else to fix up. You should be able to ask them “what if…” questions – what if he were blind? What if he had a younger sister? But to expect them to come up with “hey, if they only had a peg leg…” is unreasonable.

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#9

I do hear what you’re saying that a gripping story written in a way that grabs the reader with a compelling promise should be able to create a positive response. What if the reader is a Save the Cat fan and no matter how compelling your storytelling is they judge it negatively because the writer didn’t have the MC save a cat in the first 10 pages? What if the protagonist is not the Main Character and this throws the reader off so much they can’t get over it. Does the writer save the cat or change the Main Character?
Actually I listened to the Auguest 2, 2014 On the Page podcast today. It was a Q&A episode with Corey Mandell and he suggested that the first read from people you want notes from you have to ask the right questions that only deal with making sure the reader is experiencing the movie the way you, the writer, intend (or the way you experience the story), so that the writer and the reader are aligned. Mr. Mandell suggest that you do a re-write to that purpose and once that is accomplished the writer is ready to get the type of notes about the story that I believe you all are talking about.

I have emailed him for this list of questions. I’ll ask him if I can share them.

#10

If a reader is such a fan of Save The Cat that he is looking for the MC to do something redeeming in the first ten, fifteen pages, then the writer is screwed. Likewise if the reader is looking for the hero to not heed the call to adventure.

I guess I never considered that this was possible. Now that I think about it, I’m sure it’s possible – I probably did this myself.

Nevertheless, @jamjam1794 is indicating that his script got a 4/10 because of “people in the industry not grasping the Dramatica concept…” and I just doubt that is really the case. Again, I haven’t read it; I’m just going on experience here. So, @jamjam1794 if you think I’m being unfair, send me the script.

#11

I don’t think you’re being unfair at all, I think your points were reasonable and valid. It’s very, very possible my script just generally sucked (which I could understand). But my main argument was that the coverage I got was riddled with mentions of this idea that the MC was not a hero and was not likeable in any way - the reader could not get this concept that the main character was not a perfectly likeable everywoman. There is a backstory that’s set up in the first 10 pages, and paid off as the story continues, that’s there to create an emotional connection and an arc, which is something that seems necessary to be rewritten as it hasn’t worked for this reader. But I was just very disappointed that they didn’t understand this one general concept.

The blacklist has a lot of these kind of complaints. The blacklist, like any other coverage service, is based on opinion. The score did not and does not bother me - people have submitted contest-winning scripts and got a 3 or 4/10 (as you said, 4/10 means nothing). But the fact that they credit the unheroic protagonist as the biggest weakness is something that drives me slightly crazy. I hate the last 30 or so pages, and I can’t quite figure out why. I think the story does not come together in a satisfying way but I can’t figure out exactly where it goes wrong. That, for me, is the biggest weakness. But it got just one sentence in my coverage.

I think I did get a little bit ranty and it came off as me saying “They didn’t get my script because they don’t get Dramatica” and that was my own fault, and was not what I wanted to say. I apologise for that.

#12

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind the proliferation of books, gurus, courses, seminars, etc. - all available through the internet - has made more armchair experts of people…without a doubt it’s impacted how they “read” and evaluate scripts.

A lot of comments I see today didn’t happen fifteen years ago (I’ll reference one on the last script I wrote: your inciting incident is on page 18 and it should be around page 12.) Really? Says who? Rather, convince me WHY and I might buy into it.

And then there’s the bit I blogged about regarding several fairly well known story gurus who aren’t even on the same page with a particular movie’s inciting incident. That’s 70,000+ Twitter followers running in different directions right there - but my personal experience with the Blacklist was they kept getting facts wrong. How one interprets becomes meaningless if they can’t get that right.

My problem is - and it’s something I agree with Craig Mazin with - there’s a lot of “children” looking for “parents” to tell them what to do and how to act/think. Very few have the gumption to figure things out on their own, whether it’s through trial and error or blood, sweat and tears. It’s much easier to pass someone else’s opinion off as your own because a) you don’t have to do the work b) you don’t have to understand c) you don’t have to take personal responsibility.

Ultimately, I think the Blacklist is good for one thing: a subjective opinion by one reader as to whether your work is ready or not - and I am ALMOST convinced one of the reasons why they now offer a second free read for scripts receiving an 8 or above is due to the lack of quality in these scripts as seen by others. That’s just my gut speaking, but I’ve seen and read enough complaints all over.

I gave feedback a couple of months ago to someone who posted their script on Scriptshadow - the first ten pages being so subpar, yet the writer insisting “but it got an 8 on the Blacklist.” I had to refrain from saying congratulations, what are you doing here if you’ve got it all figured out?

The truth is, there’s a hell of a lot more people walking around who received an 8 or higher on their scripts still trying to get someone to think its awesome than there are people who’ve had them optioned, sold or made into movies. That and Franklin Leonard’s making a lot of money (and I’m not placing a value or judgement on that statement.)

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#13

Okay, I’m back from my busy weekend. Here’s the “deal” with unlikeable characters. You get to have them BUT ( you knew there was going to be a but, right?) if you want the audience to stand in their shoes (MC/Protag) you better make their motivations/backstory crystal clear to the audience.

Before I continue, let me go over empathy and sympathy. Empathy–you get their side of things (understanding) Sympathy–you’re ON their side (affinity). If you want to have a character that has a string of negative character attributes AND you want to seat your audience WITH that character (MC/Protag) you better make darn sure that you’ve got that EMPATHY factor built in to your story. PAGE ONE is not too early.

You have to remember that on the back end of dramatica is the story reception–if you get commentary on your script that your character is UNlikeable, the reader just gave you valuable information --“You gave me a character that I can’t connect with, and I don’t understand their motivations for being the jerk you’ve set in front of me. I can’t receive your story/argument because I’m too uncomfortable to hear it.” That’s some pretty powerful feedback.

It’s not that you can’t have a MC/Protag that is nasty. “Hi, I’m a serial killer. My name is Dexter, but I’m a really nice guy–sorta–I only kill people WORSE than me. Wanna watch?” But from the first kill that they have you watch – they start setting up that Dexter has a code. His first victim is a pedophile and child murderer. Lots of us (especially those of us that are parents) while we couldn’t do that…we certainly empathize (understand) someone who could, others might even sympathize (more power to you brotha!). But if the author weren’t setting up “the code” and the “relative badness” of the victim. Then you’d JUST have a crazy socio/psycho path, and what normal person is gonna wanna go on that ride?

Anyone watch Scandal? I have NO sympathy for any character on that show (well, maybe Huck) and I don’t even like any of them particularly BUT I empathize with every single character and it brings me back to watch it every single week.

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#14

Meg Ryan is the only perfectly likable woman I can think of, and she hasn’t been in a successful movie for 15 years. It’s a strange comment.

Out of curiosity, if your story doesn’t come together, why did you send it to the Blacklist?

As for Sympathy/Empathy – something I don’t hear people talk about is how we can like a character for one thing and dislike them for another, so long as on balance we want to watch them. I feel like most people try to explain why a character is the way they are, instead of focusing on what the character wants and how their behavior inhibits them.

I’m going to echo @JBarker here, too. I think most people are looking for “parents” and most people just don’t believe that writing is hard work. And the more people that get into it, the harder the work is, because you have more people and the same number of jobs.

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#15

Sorry to interject here - I started a new topic for this discussion because I thought it warranted it. @jamjam1794 and others, there is a feature here where you can “Reply as New Topic”, so if the discussion gives rise to thoughts that maybe don’t fit the original post, you can simply click on “Reply as New Topic” it should be a hover link that appears when you mouse over the post in the upper right hand corner. Carry on!

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#16

Fair question. I sent it in for a couple of reasons - I wanted someone with more experience than my colleagues to get some eyes on it and give me some workable feedback (which they mostly did), the Blacklist was something I had always been curious about, and I wanted to see if they would pick out the same problems I did (which, to my surprise, they didn’t). When I say it “doesn’t come together”, I don’t mean that it just falls apart. It has an ending, but I personally don’t feel it is as strong as it should be - yet I can’t think of any other way to end it without completely crumbling the theme of the story. People that have read it said it works fine, but I was just curious to see if the reader at the Blacklist would agree with me.

EDIT: It’s been an hour since I posted this, and I think I have figured out why the ending was not working. Up until this moment, I’ve been writing the entire story as an ‘action’ driver story. It’s not that. It’s entirely driven by decisions, the actions that push the story forward in the current script don’t make much of an impact - you almost know they’re coming. Rather, it should be the decisions that these characters make that create those actions. This may be why the ending feels so clunky - at present, she doesn’t decide to change, she just does. By missing the ‘decision’ driver, I’ve told an entirely different story. The storyform was almost accurate, it just had the wrong driver and benchmark settings. I’m going to develop this and start over, I think it will be a much better story.

Guys, this discussion has been wonderfully helpful to me, much more than the questionable Blacklist feedback. Thank you.

#17

I actually brought this up with regards to Scottie in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” We follow him along for 3/4 of the movie, but then our empathy switches to Judy’s character upon the revelation of the murder plot. Scottie’s obsession objectifies her, causing some cognitive dissonance: we like him, but we no longer like what he’s doing - despite the fact it’s to an accomplice to murder. That’s what makes him a fascinating character - he’s human and flawed, but we understand why and his actions cause our own internal conflict to the extent we can’t help but watch to see how far he’ll go with his obsession (not to mention it’s inevitable he’ll found out, so also to see how he’ll react to the truth as well.)

#18

Here is the email from Corey Mandell. I’ve included his contact information to give him credit for it all. Interestingly, “Likable” is a big part of it. I will argue that we could replace likable with compelling. I’m curious to hear what you guys think, but I hope it’s possible for people to not like characters but still care about them. I agree with him that the reader(movie ‘experiencer’) needs to care, otherwise, they don’t care about the story… or at least care about what happens to the objects of the main characters focus if the main characters are detestable (Breaking Bad - end of season 2 - i think…)

#6. I think I’m Okay with my main character being reactive or passive but I think I hope the other character they would ‘hang out with’ would be my Impact Character.

I would add to this list of questions, “Which character did you experience the story through?” or “Which character did you feel like you experienced the story through?”

What do you think of these questions? What questions would you add or take away?

Hi Sam, > Best of luck with your script and here you go:

Script Testing

The point of this exercise is to see what movie plays in other people’s heads – and how that compares to the movie that plays in your head.

I believe one of the most important goals of screenwriting is to be able to write a script that allows strangers who have no idea what you were going for, and who don’t know or care about you, to be able to see the movie that you see. This is not easy. It is one of the main things that separates professionals from those wishing to become one.

The first thing I would suggest is you read your script and answer the questions yourself.

Then have other people read your script and answer. These people should not be your friends or anyone who has a vested interest in your success. And they shouldn’t have any idea what your script is about or what you’re intending with it.

For best results someone other than you should ideally be asking the questions.

Readers are more likely to be relaxed and honest when the writer isn’t present. Also, no matter how much the writer tries to keep a ‘poker face’, the answers to some of these questions might illicit strong emotional reactions that the respondent will sense.

Even better would be if the interviewer hasn’t read the script themselves. So when a respondent asks if an answer is correct or not, the interviewer can honestly respond they don’t know. If the reader knows the interviewer hasn’t read the script they have no reason to censor or second-guess their answers and give it straight.

I would suggest starting out by stating the following: "When you read the script a ‘movie’ played in your head. I’m going to ask you some questions about that movie.
This will not be a test of your reading comprehension but rather a test of how closely the movie that played in your head resembles the one the writer wants to be playing.

Therefore it is absolutely essential you don’t answer any questions based on what you think the writer might have been intending, but rather how you honestly saw it."

Now onto the questions.

1.) In the movie that played in your head, who were the main characters? (Big problem if readers don’t list one or more of your characters. If this happens, it’ll probably be because the character(s) are reactive/passive and/or didn’t have an external specific goal they were fighting for.)

2.) How would you describe each of the main characters? (You’re looking for adjectives here - i.e. smart, lazy, unlikable, tenacious, etc.)

3.) How did you feel about each of the characters? (You want to know if the reader liked or didn’t like, cared about or didn’t care about them). And why? (How readers feel about characters is a major determinant of how much they care or don’t care about the story).

4.) What was the main thing that each character wanted in the story? And why did they want this? Was there anything at stake for them? (This should be easy for the reader to answer. If not, they either weren’t tracking the story or didn’t care about it.)

5.) On a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (very much) how strongly were you rooting for each character to succeed? And why?

6.) If the main characters were real people and you were at a party with them and could only hang out with one of them, which one would it be? And why? (If readers tend to pick someone other then your main character, chances are your main character is reactive/passive)

7.) Which one of them would you least want to hang out with? And why?

8.) Walk me through the main events of what happened in the story.

9.) Was there anything in the story that you had trouble believing/buying?

10.) Pretend the movie that played in your head was an actual movie that you just saw and a friend asks what the movie was about, how would you answer?

Then your friend asks if you liked the movie or not, how would you answer?

11.) What were your favorite scenes? And why?

12.) What were your least favorite scenes? And why?

13.) If it was your job to pick the clip to be shown on the Letterman show that best represents what the movie’s about, which clip would you pick? And why?

14.) Were there any parts in the story that played in your head where the story started to drag, lose momentum, and/or you found yourself losing interest?

15.) If the studio who owned this script hired you to make it better, and they told you could do whatever you wanted to improve it, what would you do?

All the best,

Corey

Corey Mandell | Professional Screenwriting Workshops 310-243-6758 | Hermosa Beach, California, USA corey@coreymandell.net | http://coreymandell.net On facebook: http://bit.ly/coreyfanpage
#19

I think this sort of reflects the post I had on G+ over a year ago where Michael Arndt placed a questionnaire at the end of his scripts for people to answer specific questions. I think it’s a good practice, though I still haven’t really started doing it myself (but should).

His (Corey’s) rational is mostly sound, I just disagree with the importance of some of the questions. Case in point: #6. To what purpose is this being asked, because I’ve seen a number of movies - particularly horror - where not only would I not want to hang out with any of the characters, I simply wouldn’t be at that party to begin with. Safe to say, I’m not big on hypotheticals (and never have been, especially in job interviews.)

I think compelling is a better term vs. likable, but I wouldn’t use them interchangeably at all. We can have a character like Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men and not like him at all, yet find him completely compelling because of the coda he seems to live by, his personification and his mannerisms which make him fascinating. Scrooge is hardly a likable character, but with a Christmas Carol, I think there’s a fundamental understanding early on that this character is going to change - we just don’t know how, or to what degree so WE feel compelled to read as a result.

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#20

New discuss.dramatica.com member here–new Dramatica user, in fact, though I’ve had a lot of conversations about it with the incredibly insightful @MWollaeger.

Two small thoughts that may or may not be of use to anybody. The first is about “sympathy” and “empathy.” They’re both from the Greek pathos, which means “feeling” or “suffering.” Empathy adds the prefix en (and then changes the n to an m), which means “in.” Sympathy adds instead the prefix sym, which means “with.” So to my way of thinking sympathy is feeling something with a character, and empathy is feeling something in a character. Or perhaps another way of putting is is that sympathy is about feeling for a character and empathy is about identifying with a character.

Or not.

(Can you tell that my current project is a novel set in 451 B.C. Athens?)

The other thought is about likable main characters. I actually come from a theater background, not a movie background, and the way we talk about this (those of us who have any sense) is to say that an audience doesn’t have to like your main character but it does have to love him/her. Walter White definitely fits that for me (and I’m only in the middle of season 4, so no spoilers, please!), and I think it’s the reason that I loved Addicted to Love (1997) so much–Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan were playing such creepy, unattractive characters, but they were so LOVABLE you almost couldn’t stand it.

Anyway, thanks for letting me join, and I look forward to lots of enlightenment!