Tips on Writing Difficult Characters Your Readers Will Love

by Sarah Sally Hamer @SarahSallyHamer

Writing Difficult Characters

Just like with humans, sometimes our characters can be really difficult to deal with. They can be snide or mean or just plain ugly. Our audience may not like difficult characters. The writer may struggle to understand the characters who don't want to behave. And within the story itself, difficult characters can cause a whole lot of trouble. But why are they difficult? Why do we have to fight with them or chastise them back into shape?

The main reason difficult characters work in stories is that we need them for conflict. After all, if everyone gets along all the time, a story can be very bland. Not that bland stories are necessarily bad, but a little bit of spice never hurt anyone!

Let's start with Professor Snape in the Harry Potter series. From the very beginning, we don't like him. He constantly looks angry (doesn't smile at all), he obviously has a problem with any kid named "Potter", and he seems to go out of his way to cause Harry and his friends grief. As the audience, we have no idea what his deal is. Nor does Harry, for that matter. Harry is already overwhelmed with all of the things going on around him and is struggling to just get by. So a difficult character, who treats him with contempt, just makes everything worse. 

It takes five or six books for us to find out (spoiler alert!!!) that Snape was infatuated with Harry's mom and hated Harry's dad. And, Snape is pretending to be a bad guy to help take down the main villain. Harry doesn't figure it out completely until almost the very end, when Snape is dying. By then, it's too late. But Harry does honor Snape later by naming his son after him. So, was Snape difficult? Or was he a purveyor of conflict for Harry and the other kids?

How about Up? It's an animated movie about Carl and his wife, Ellie. In an amazing introduction, we watch them grow up together and fall in love. They live a good life until Ellie gets sick and dies. Now Carl, a very difficult character, is trying to figure out what to do with the little time he has left, fiercely protecting the house where they lived together. If we had not seen the intro, where we see Carl as an amazing and loving husband, we probably wouldn't have seen him as a sympathetic character. (I cry every time I watch that movie—it's very well done.)

Another really difficult character is Scarlett O'Hara. In fact, although I often use Gone with the Wind as an example when I teach, I've never liked her. She's spoiled and arrogant and stubborn and difficult. But when I back off and really look at her and the role she's supposed to play in that book/movie, I realize that her strength and willingness to fight for what she wants is stellar. She even has some compassion lurking under the foot-stomping she occasionally indulges in. She could have left Melanie in Atlanta to have the baby alone, which probably would have caused her death. Not only would no one really have blamed her (the Yankees were coming!) but it would have opened the door for Scarlett to get the man she believed she loved, Ashley. But Scarlett didn't. At the risk of her life (and Prissy's), she helped Melanie to have the baby and safely got them out of town before the army arrived. So, her difficult nature probably saved them all.

How do you insert a difficult character into your story? First, can you figure out why that character is difficult in the first place? How well do you know what that character is going through in their own life? 

What if every time Snape sees Harry Potter, a knife goes through his heart as he remembers Lily, who he worshipped, and James Potter, who was a brutal bully to him? How could he treat Harry fairly when those memories are so clear?

What if Carl doesn't know what to do now that Ellie is gone? He can't protect her from the illness, but he can at least try to live the way she wanted him to. But he lives with bitterness and grief.

And Scarlett's strengths came from that stubbornness and arrogance. She not only saved Melanie and the baby, she saved Tara, using those character traits.

Figuring out your difficult character and creating their backstory can not only make him or her more real to you, but also to the audience who will understand why they act the way they do, even though they may not have respect for them. Some difficult characters aren't ever truly explained in a story—they may always be opaque and mysterious. Some don't need explanation; they're just plain mean! But, if you truly want to give the reader an insight into a character and allow redemption, dig into their past and find out what drives them.

What difficult characters do you love? Or hate? Who are you creating?

TWEETABLE

Tips on Writing Difficult Characters Your Readers Will Love from @SarahSallyHamer on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Sarah (Sally) Hamer, B.S., MLA, is a lover of books, a teacher of writers, and a believer in a good story. Most of all, she is eternally fascinated by people and how they 'tick'. She’s passionate about helping people tell their own stories, whether through fiction or through memoir. Writing in many genres—mystery, science fiction, fantasy, romance, medieval history, non-fiction—she has won awards at both local and national levels, including two Golden Heart finals.

A teacher of memoir, beginning and advanced creative fiction writing, and screenwriting at Louisiana State University in Shreveport for over twenty years, she also teaches online for Margie Lawson at www.margielawson.com. Sally is a free-lance editor and book coach at Touch Not the Cat Books, with many of her students and clients becoming successful, award-winning authors. 

You can find her at hamerse@bellsouth.net or www.sallyhamer.blogspot.com