Welcome back!
Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season!
This post does contain minor spoilers for Game of Thrones and Ocarina of Time, though I believe most of you are aware of them already. Still, just a heads up regardless, and if you aren’t familiar with these works, the examples are provided with context to help you follow along.
Game of Thrones belongs to George R. R. Martin and HBO, and Ocarina of Time belongs to Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo.
On with the show!
All right, everyone, show of hands: who remembers this guy?
This guy…this guy is just awful.
Joffrey Baratheon is a horrible person. He is cruel, violent, sadistic, and yet way too stupid and petulant to be anything resembling a compelling villain. He’s basically an annoying, whiny teenager with a freakish habit of making people fight to the death.
Yeah. We hate Joffrey. And we’re supposed to. He’s intentionally written to have no redeemable qualities, so all of us readers hate him and rally against him. You know how it goes. You probably have a handful of characters from other media that you couldn’t stand long before you ever read Game of Thrones.
I do too, believe it or not. After spending enough time reading and watching shows and movies and meeting the loads and loads of characters introduced to you, of course you’ll find some that rub you the wrong way. Maybe their quirky mannerisms irritate you, or you think that their actions are horrible, or you just find them rude. Or maybe you don’t have a concrete reason at all.
One of my big ones was Princess Ruto from Ocarina of Time. I’m usually pretty easy-going when it comes to characters, but Ruto annoyed the crap out of me. I thought she was rude, selfish, and demanding, and I pictured her with one of those loud, shrill voices that hurts your ears whenever she talks.
But when my overactive brain kept thinking up story scenarios that involved the Six Sages, a group that Ruto has an important role in, I realized I had a problem.
Disliking a character and then trying to write a story with them in it is hard.
Like…trying-to-come-up-with-a-good-simile-for-this hard.
(Yeah, I gave up after ten minutes on that one).
Here’s the thing: not every character you hate is like Joffrey Baratheon. Joffrey is written to be a Hate Sink, but most characters – including Ruto – aren’t. They have redeeming values. They have friends. They have kindness. They stand up for things you believe in. They have goals you understand. You know that, but that knowledge doesn’t necessarily stop the negative feelings. All it does is give you enough cognitive dissonance to cause a headache.
So what do you do?
Look, if you just want to avoid stories featuring these characters all together, that’s fine. I personally didn’t want to do that with my brainstorms because the ideas I had were really interesting to me and I wanted to explore them. And if you decide to use a story as a means to vent about a character or to specifically highlight their negative traits, that’s fine too. Chances are you’ve got a good handle on that. But if you do decide to write a story that does feature a disliked character (we’ll call them DCs from now on) and they’re supposed to be portrayed positively, or at least NOT horribly, writing that story can get a lot harder.
Biting your tongue, sucking it up, and pushing forward might be all you need, and if that works for you, great! But if you’re like me and you do your best work when you connect with the characters in your piece, then maybe you could use a little extra help.
I started thinking of these tactics back when I realized that stories featuring Ruto in some capacity were going to keep popping into my brain whether I liked it or not, and I’ve been pretty pleased with the results! Hopefully these will be of some use to you too!
1. Ask yourself “Do they really need to be here?” Yes, that is a real question. Take an honest look at your story and see if your DC really needs to have a role. Does your main character NEED to interact with them directly, or can they be pushed to the background with a few lines of prose or dialogue? Because if the answer is yes, consider doing that. If you regulate your DC to the background, or can remove them entirely, then you only have to spend a minimal amount of effort on them. Win-win.
For example, if I did a story involving Ruto interacting with King Zora, her father, well, Ruto would have to be front and center. But if I did a story about the Six Sages preparing to join the fight against Ganondorf, I could probably have Impa be my main character and have Ruto be in the background training, present, but out of focus.
2. Choose your narrator carefully. Most of the other entries on this list are meant to help you think about your DC more positively, but if that’s just not in the cards, consider picking a narrator that has similar feelings towards your DC as you do. If you do that, any negative emotions or comments that bleed into your narration will come across more like clever characterization rather than misplaced bashing.
For example, if I wrote a story about Ruto using her father as my narrator, that would be complicated because King Zora canonically adores his daughter and any criticism he has about her personality would be tempered by parental love. But if my narrator was Ganondorf, well…I could level almost any insult at the Zora princess I want to and it would be in character because I don’t think the King of Evil will find much in common with the Sage of Water, do you?
3. Create stress. If you can’t (or don’t want to) portray the DC positively, but you aren’t comfortable with bashing or having the surrounding characters hating them, try raising the stakes or limiting the time to save the world or throwing problem after problem at your cast. People under stress tend to show their less-than-pretty traits as their patience wears thin, so causing stress might be a way for you to showcase your DC’s negative traits and justify it at the same time.
Photo courtesy of Lacie Slezak
For example, if I did a story that shows Ruto and her father trying to deal with Ganondorf’s threat to their home, I would have a little more freedom to show Ruto’s short temper and tactlessness because the stress she’s under is intense and will have dire consequences if the situation isn’t handled right. That’s the type of circumstance that would put anyone on edge.
So there are a couple tips to help you get through a story with a DC, but if your story doesn’t allow these fixes, or if you want to try and shake up your view of your DC for whatever reason, maybe these next tips will help with that.
4. Pick your favorite spot in your DC’s development. Characters are a lot like people. If a story goes on long enough, even minor characters can get pretty good doses of development and growth. Ask yourself if there is any point in your DC’s development when you kinda liked them. If so, can you set your story during that time in their lives? If not, can you MAKE one, by setting the story in the DC’s past or future? People are very different as kids then they are as adults, and the same goes for adults and senior citizens, so setting a story outside your DC’s canon timeline gives you quite a bit of artistic license.
For example, I actually like Ruto better as a teenager than I do when she’s a child. She tones down some of her more bratty traits and takes a more active role in protecting her people and that’s something I can get behind. Thus far, every story of mine that features Ruto shows her as a teenager.
5. Give them a characteristic that helps you connect with them. This may work better with minor characters, but even the most fully-developed main characters have some room for headcanons. Sometimes, giving a DC a small hobby or favorite film or an old childhood BFF can do wonders to humanize them for you and engender enough positive feelings to help you go forward. If your given characteristic is something you share, it helps even more.
Photo courtesy of Tanny Do
My example this time is actually with Rauru, which I talked about in my narrator’s post. I originally had a natural, maybe slightly negative view towards him, but I had to expand his character for him to be my narrator for “Interlude.” I fleshed him out with dorky mannerisms and explored his relationship with Link as a parental one, and he suddenly became much more endearing to me, and now I like him a lot better.
6. Emphasize the character’s positive traits. This is a challenge, but sometimes your brain needs a good shake to alter your position, especially if the other tips on this list aren’t working for you. Create a traits list with only the character’s positive traits. Talk to someone who DOES like the character and try to understand their point of view. See if you can find a moment with your DC where they are smart, or kind, or anything that engenders positive feelings in you, and go from there.
Photo courtesy of Allie Smith
Seem like a lot more work than the other examples? Yeah, it is, and perhaps half of you (or more) won’t be working with a DC in a big enough story to warrant using it. That’s totally fine. In a way, it’s sort of meant to be used as a last resort, something to be used when your DC is a major part of the story and you just can’t get around it.
This is the technique I used when I brainstormed a story that featured Sheik rescuing Ruto from the ice Ganondorf casts over Zora’s Domain, an event that happens off-screen. When I looked up what few details of the incident that the game offers, I realized that Ruto must have gone straight to the Water Temple to learn more about the threat to her people as soon as she recovered, even though she is young, alone, and has little-to-no experience fighting. And she is sincerely grateful to Sheik for saving her life. That gratitude and determination were positive traits that were so pertinent to this story that I couldn’t ignore them, and when I used those as my starting point for Ruto’s characterization, I found myself starting to see her differently.
And much like Rauru, I actually grew to like Ruto a lot better after employing some of these tactics. She is still brash, stubborn, and sometimes tactless, but now I also see her determination to do what is right for her people and country as a whole. She’s more well-rounded and likable to me, and that opens up a whole bunch of creative doors now that I’m more comfortable using her in my stories.
If you have a similar experience and grow a new appreciation for your DC, then congratulations! That’s great! But if you don’t, that is okay. This post is not meant to make you change your feelings. It is just meant to help you find new ways to get through the not-so-fun parts of writing so they don’t hold you up or wear you out.
Have you ever used a DC in a story? How did you get through it? Have your feelings towards that character changed since? Share your stories in the comments!
Until next time!
Photo courtesy of Reuben Juarez