Pushing the Your Writing with Characters who Just Kind of... Suck · 7:18pm January 16th
Intro
We’ve all been there. You sit down to write a fic you’ve been thinking about for a while. At first, the words just pour out of you - man, writing is easy! But, as time and word count wear on, you start to feel a little… bored. The words keep coming, but the story is getting a bit wooden. Hollow. What’s going on?
I’ve been working on a particular story for quite a long time. When I say “working”, of course, I mean “thinking lightly and outlining repeatedly”. I had very meticulously planned a grand, sweeping plot and placed some of my favorite characters in it. I had an outline down to the chapter. Ooh, this is gonna be sweet, I thought. And then I started writing. And it was terrible. Like 7000 words of terrible.
The story, in broad strokes, stars Vinyl Scratch as a radio DJ for a local Ponyville station who, by virtue of being a late-night host with nothing better to do, becomes one of the foremost reporters on a forthcoming alien invasion. That sounded pretty cool in my head, but in practice it just… didn’t work. Vinyl was tossed around by the plot like a ragdoll. Her dialogue was bland, boring, lifeless, devoid of character. She didn’t feel like Vinyl. She didn’t really feel like anyone. So I shelved the story for a while, waiting for that bolt of inspiration to strike again.
I just recently returned to this story, because that bolt of inspiration did strike. I knew what I had to do.
I had to make Vinyl Scratch suck.
The Secret of Suckage
Why do we like characters who suck? No, seriously. You may not think you do, but you totally do. And I don’t mean the complicated anti-heros who, despite a thorny personality, are generally good people driven to do good things. I mean characters who are just… shitty. With little to no redeeming qualities. I’m talking about George Costanza. I’m talking about Dwight Schrute. I’m talking about this horse:
It’s difficult to describe, but there’s just something addictive about characters who reliably do the stupid, selfish, insensitive, annoying, or otherwise “wrong” things in any given situation. The examples I listed above tend to use this effect for comedy, but characters who suck aren’t relegated to sitcoms alone - Succession is a drama (dramedy?) that essentially lives off different flavors of suckage, Bojack Horseman features many a monologue about sucking, and The Bear (a recent fave of mine) is full of people who, while entertaining to watch, would be pretty unbearable in real life. Haha. Gotcha.
Like I said, it’s hard to explain why. Each case is just a little bit different. A lot of dramas use the potential for improvement to get you to fall in love with members of their cast. Sitcoms much more frequently stand their ground on a particular brand of shitty, never allowing characters to learn the lesson. But, then again, not even these rules are hard and fast. One rule I do firmly believe in, however: a story can only get better by making a protagonist suck. Just a little. Here’s some thoughts on how to make that happen.
Selecting a Brand of Suckage
There are, generally speaking, two types of suckage: forgivable and unforgivable. Dwight Schrute sure can be annoying, but his character doesn’t tend to stray into territory that makes me think “wow, I can never root for that guy again.” Bojack Horseman, on the other hand…
Both work. Both can be immensely rewarding. It’s important, though, to keep in mind how much work it takes to undo the damage - or if the damage needs to be undone at all. Here's three major factors to keep in mind:
- How much change do readers see?
- How soon does the change happen?
- How entertaining is the suckage in the meantime?
Dwight and Bojack are great examples from opposite ends of the spectrum. Dwight was never presented to the audience as a character that would change, or one that needed to change. He’s a member of an ensemble cast who was designed to be terrible. The audience doesn’t expect to see him grow, and he never does! Most importantly, the way he sucks is very entertaining (if you enjoy cringe comedy)! It’s funny to watch him bumble about making bad choices and driving people crazy. There’s no need to do anything else with him beyond wind him up and watch him go.
But if Dwight is a low-level annoyance, Bojack is the final boss of sucking. There’s no doubt he’s the protagonist (and not just because the show is named after him), but he repeatedly fucks up big time. We’re introduced to him after he’s dug himself a pretty deep hole, which should place us at odds with him, but the show establishes early that he wants to crawl out of that hole. After that, we get a rollercoaster of incremental improvements followed by monumental fuck-ups... and that’s the show! It’s entertaining in a different way: it’s drama. It hurts to see him piss away all the effort he’s poured into being better, but it hurts in a way we want to keep watching. Maybe this time. Maybe he can do it.
It’s a balancing act of intention and autonomy. If these characters choose to do stupid, awful things, they have to want to be better. If Dwight’s behavior was always done with active malicious intent, and not simply ignorance or screwed-up priorities, he wouldn’t be as fun to watch as he is. In fact, when Dwight does become outwardly malicious, it shakes Jim to his core. Because Dwight generally lacks intention, he doesn’t have to try to be better for us to want to keep watching. On the other side, while Bojack actively chooses to do heinous and unforgivable things over and over again, he is extremely steadfast in his desire to heal and change. And we want to see that happen.
A Case Study: Vinyl Scratch in Next Time
Okay so, as I mentioned, this is a project I’m currently working on, so I don’t exactly have a place to send you to check it out. I just want to discuss my process in using suckage to solve an actual writing problem.
Quick recap: my tentatively-titled fic Next Time stars Vinyl Scratch as a radio host who, through a series of misadventures, ends up breaking the story of an alien invasion. It is, conceptually, pretty fun, but the execution was lacking. One of the issues I was able to pin down was Vinyl's voice - or, more accurately, her lack of voice.
This is a problem I actually see quite a lot in writing around the site. It’s the writer’s version of same-face syndrome - despite occasional surface-level details (such as AJ’s accent or a “darling” stapled onto a Rarity line), every character speaks in exactly the same way. It’s the quickest road to doom in dialogue-heavy stories because the dialogue loses any points of interest beyond exposition.
The other issue is the plot: it’s incredibly convoluted. Lots of things have to happen just right to put Vinyl in the middle of the action. For two chapters, stuff just happens at Vinyl, who is then unfairly fired from her job. This means the readers, at most, feel sympathetic that something unjust happened to my protagonist… but that feeling isn’t going to be satisfied by the narrative arc I have planned.
Something has to change. The dialogue sucks because Vinyl isn’t involved in it. The plot sucks because Vinyl isn’t involved in it. Why is she even here in the first place?! And then it hit me: what if she totally, absolutely deserved to get fired?
The pieces fell into place pretty quickly after that. Vinyl was no longer a victim of happenstance: she was crass, she broke rules, she did stupid stuff and ended up losing her job because of it. And now she isn’t chasing aliens out of some need to share the truth with Equestria, she’s trying to get famous. She was always trying to get famous. She’s a loud, rude, selfish bastard who wants attention and will steamroll pretty much anyone to get it. Almost worse, she believes she deserves fame more than anyone else! It's her destiny!!
And now, writing this new draft, everything is working together. Vinyl has a voice now: it’s obnoxious and unreliable. Vinyl isn’t magically at the center of the plot, she put herself there. By sucking 
Disclaimer: Making Established Characters Suck (or Suck Worse)
So… here’s the part where I just set out a blanket warning to anyone who might be tempted to do something crazy like take my advice. When you make a character who sucks, there’s always going to be someone who can’t enjoy watching them suck. Personally, I couldn’t get into Succession for just this reason. That’s fine! You can’t please everyone. Those people - the ones who are not your target audience - will pretty quickly put your work down and move on.
When you write fanfiction where characters suck... people are going to come at you. Sure, there’s some readers who value a good character piece that features some suckage, but there’s an ocean of people who love that character who are waiting to tell you, in paragraph form, why they would never do anything wrong ever.
You should still do it, of course. Write bad people making bad choices. I know I express my love for characters by putting them in bad situations and having them make bad choices - that’s fun for me. I also think it makes for a stronger story! But not everyone agrees. Ah, well. There’s plenty for them to read around here.
Outro
I fought bringing up Avatar this entire time, mostly because everyone and their mother has written about how Zuko is the blueprint for redemption arcs… and that’s not really what all this was about, anyway. I will, however, end on a quick note about Aang:
Aang was 12 years old when he discovered he was the avatar. I think, if a lesser writer were trying to set up his story, they would have him be a victim of happenstance: the fire nation attacks his temple, and he somehow freezes himself in time while heroically trying to save everyone. Something like that.
That’s not what happens, of course. Aang gets scared and runs away. The state of the world can be directly traced back to his cowardice - the cowardice of a child, but cowardice nonetheless. He knows this. He struggles with it. It’s an important part of who he is, and it drives his choices for most of the series. That’s the sort of thing that cracks a story wide open: one bad choice, one character flaw, one action that just kind of… sucks.
Some prompts for you all!
- Favorite character in media who sucks? What about them makes you love them, despite their suckage?
- Think about a work you have that’s early in development, or one that you’re really stuck on. What is your major conflict? Now, gift your protagonist with a personality trait that will explicitly make it difficult for them to face this conflict. How does this change the story?
Please do share your thoughts! Answer one or both of the above, or share anything else you’d like. There was a lot I wanted to talk about in this blog that I ultimately decided to remove in the interest of being understood by a broad audience. The character I really wanted to talk about was Richie from The Bear… if this is something you’re interested in analyzing in greater depth, definitely go check the show out and watch his storyline specifically. It’s a really brilliant piece of character writing.
That's all for today!
Mush out.
I do love me and adore dumpster fire gays, No Filter is the poster child for this since Wallflower and Vignette are so *so* bad and I love everything about them. Characters with personalities make bad, terrible decisions and should be allowed to make bad, terrible decisions. I wholly agree on getting on to the YOU SUCK train.
Favourite character in media though is actually the protag from Thirsty Suitors. Indie game with a main character who basically makes a horrible decision by running away from home with her girlfriend, that very *obviously* not working out and then returning to her home town to fix all the broken relationships she left behind and the problems she caused. Its super poignant and at every step she has to scrape her dignity off the floor and really understand that she fucked up and needs to fix that. Its very compelling (If the controls are a bt jank).
In terms of the adding traits, I already made everyone *really* bad in Midnight Rail since well everyone is trauma induced and has to really hit the grinder for their character development. They're victims but that doesnt make them magically nice people.
Soarin lets his low self-esteem and anxiety drive his decision-making, Scootaloo is rude as hell and refuses to work with others. Autumn is too open and needs to learn boundaries with a dash of being not the brightest. Wallflower just... doesn't want to make decisions for herself and latches onto others to do it for her. Plus the other passengers who are just varying degrees of "asshole". Its fun. They mesh poorly and its cool to see them when they dont mesh poorly. And it gives me sooooo much room for little moments to have them grow as characters.
But yeah anygay, #MakeYourCharactersSuck
I mean, there's so many, but the obvious answer, to me, is The Good Place. It's a lot like Bojack in that the entire premise of the show is that it's about a character who sucks. Eleanor is an incredibly selfish person who is literally trying to trick God into believing she deserves to be in the Good Place when she absolutely doesn't. She doesn't care about anyone's problems but her own, but the brilliance is that she improves because she has to pretend to be good to succeed, not because she actually wants to get better.
Of course, that's not the real brilliance of the Good Place. The show initially presents the premise that Eleanor is the sole person who sucks, trying desperately to belong to a group of people who categorically Don't Suck. But it's super early on that it becomes clear that the initial premise is a lie.
The Good Place is great because everyone sucks. Chidi is presented as being the sole arbiter of right and wrong, and he sucks at actually presenting his point or really interacting with anyone, Tahani is a narcissist. Jason is a trash fire. Janet sucks. Michael sucks. The Judge sucks. There is not a single character in the show that doesn't suck, and it's delightful. The reason it's so good is because nobody is actively malicious, and they all suck in different, entertaining ways. And of course, they make you want to root for them because they're not bad people. They just suck, like everyone sucks, and they want to get into the Good Place anyway. You can't condemn them to the Bad Place without condemning everyone. And if I continue to talk about it I will get into Major Spoiler territory so go watch it if you haven't.
I don't know if I'm in any state to actually change something in any of my stories, but I'm going to talk about one anyway. Wings of Ascension may or may not ever get more chapters (I hope I come back to it, it's fun), but the main premise of the story and the reason it's fun to write is that Rainbow Dash sucks. She's entitled, and she's an idiot. The story kicks off because she sneaks her way into a race she didn't qualify for, and as a result fucks up her entire life in the most public way possible, which was entirely predictable to everyone except her. And then because of that she ends up basically becoming the Mockingjay for a revolution she knows nothing about, because she can be used as a convenient symbol. But of course she's a terrible symbol because as previously mentioned, she's an idiot. It's great.
Something I'd like to add to the conversation: when it comes to characters sucking (here defined as being difficult to root for), there is an alternative. You can write a character that is very unsucky, just as long as ineffective. That's the trick: characters can sucky or effective, but not both at the same time. To explain I am going to bring up who I think is the best example of what I am talking about: Walter White.
Just look at how Walter's character progressed throughout Breaking Bad. The first we see of him is him desperately trying to escape from something, only for him to suddenly stop and tearfully leave a message behind for his family, as even he doesn't think that he will make it. When then get a glimpse of what Walt's life, and it's not pretty. He clearly had potential to do make a name for himself, but that has long since passed. He hates his job, his family doesn't respect him, and he's dying of cancer (even though he never smoked!). And sure, he makes some questions choices, but even then it's a 50-year old cancer patient and his not-so-bright side kick going up against psychotic drug dealers. The two seem to only barely survive thanks to either luck or Walt's quick thinking. You don't have time to think about what Walt is doing, you're too worried that he is going to get hurt.
But then, ever so slowly, things start to change for Walt. He starts to get really good at what he does. Too good. So much so that it starts to seem like Walt really doesn't need to this anymore. Everyone would be safer if he just stopped, but he doesn't. Eventually we come to realize that Walt will come out on top no matter what, the only question is how. But by that point he's not some sad old man anymore. He's a remorseless monster. Until the last few episodes that is, when he loses everything. Only then do we finally see a return of his humanity. He no longer an evil genius who can outfox any opponent. He's a sad, pathetic man burdened with the impossible task of trying to set things right.
omg strawberry sunrise
I feel like I often write characters with severely awful character traits that make it hard to function, and it honestly serves as a good driving point when I'm not sure where to start a story. But also sometimes I give them traits I myself have and... hm.
Besides Strawberry (who can do no wrong) the other character who probably fits the bill for me is Lightning Dust. I've literally had to beat her into the ground several times in order for her to truly understand herself after all. I also made her gay and in love with Fiddlesticks but that's besides the point! She's frankly just a fascinating character who puts herself miles above everyone else. Soooo many wonderful issues there to explore, and even more to explore when she has all the wind she's blowing knocked out from under her!
Have I mentioned I love Strawberry? Your Wishberry is still by far the best characterization of her I've ever read. Ever. :)
Ok this is actually the exact advice I've needed cus I've hit a little bit of writers block for my current fic and been grappling specifically on how to write characters that suck but want to strive for improvement (also some supporting characters that suck and will always suck but-)
Anyway very helpful writing advice blog post
Ah! My Twilight in Children of the Sun sucks and is just starting to realize that she does! It's a balance, making characters do detrimental things without malicious intent. My Pinkie from that fic sucks, and I got an exciting graphic comment from someone about how they'd want that Pinkie to die, iirc. Like... sometimes, characters just suck and make horrible decisions! They choose poorly! My Twilight is blinded by desperation to not be completely wrong because her world view has shattered in one way and so she's clinging to anything she can salvage to try not to fall apart because she can't accept that she's a big part of the problem. Fun shit. Goes against my own urges, though, making characters choose incorrectly, but where there are errors, there are opportunities for future growth.
I'll be honest: I enjoyed reading this post a lot but was debating whether I should respond at all, because in general, I tend to be between meh on and actively dislike "characters who suck" -- I'm not really into cringe comedy, I almost wrote off Discworld because Rincewind's buffoonery turned me off so completely, and, idk. I can't quite put a finger on why those tropes don't work for me, but they don't.
(In case this disclaimer is needed: I'm not in any way trying to say that it's bad or wrong to do so -- just that my personal tastes here are different. 😅)
But as I was thinking whether I have any favorite characters who suck (aside from Zuko, because I agree he's the Free square in this Bingo card of suckage
) I was able to come up with a couple off the top of my head: Natori Shuuichi and Matoba Seiji in Natsume's Book of Friends. The former functions as a shady older brother/uncle figure to the protagonist (usually mostly on his side, but you can never forget that he's got his own thing going, too); the latter hops nimbly across the line between antagonist and "the enemy of my enemy is ..... someone I can work with", and of course they both have a history with each other, too.
And much as I love the titular character and his little band of fellow cinnamon rolls, whose biggest claim to suckage is having a hard time believing that people mean it when they say they care -- it's so much fun watching Natori and Matoba at work, all the layers of "what are they planning, what will they do next?", and at least in Natori's case, rooting for him to change while understanding why he's resistant to it.
And then, closer to home, how could I forget that one of my favorite MLP characters is Starlight Glimmer? And sure, I only started liking her once she made her heel-face turn, but -- wow can she suck. But she keeps trying anyway, and it's nice, to see someone who's awkward and unsure but still keeps trying.
Just please don't try any more mind control, k? k.So, yeah. Yeah, I guess I like characters who suck, too. :D
I think one of the things that makes characters who suck harder for me to attach to is that there's a very thin line for me between "unavoidable fuck up due to who the character just is" and "oh come on, be better" and I tend to snap to that latter attitude a lot faster than perhaps I should, particularly if the fuckup derails something that I was interested in seeing straightforwardly happen.
(Circling back around to AtLA: Korra fucks up so much, and I had such a hard time watching the early seasons because I just kept wanting her to not be the "leap before she looks" himbo she was. And yet -- I'm glad we got to have a female protagonist who was allowed to behave like that, for everyone who did love or see themselves in her. As you said -- not every story has to be for everyone. :) )
Gonna have to think on this one, whether it's applicable to my story that's mostly about characters trying to figure out how to break out of the boxes they've put themselves in. (I think I probably need to better solidify what, if anything, my external conflict is, first. XD)
Maybe I should give Feather Bangs a bigger role, though; it sure was fun writing and watching him cheerfully suck in what I've drafted so far. :D