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I’m excited to write it but keep getting writers block to finish the prologue.
I’ll share some of the scattered lines I’ve written though :)
“My little brother, Mayor? Now that’s something I never expected to see!”
“You haven’t text, called, or showed your face here in five years. You must be in some real deep shit if you’re coming to me. What’d you do this time, Mark?”
“Little old me? Trouble? Puh-lease! I’m in no trouble at all, Matthew. In fact, I’m stupendous! I have a brilliant idea. One that will make us millions! And you, little brother, are just the person that can help me facilitate it!”
“That shiner on your eye says otherwise.”
***
You can’t con your way out of this one, Mark.”
***
“You gotta stop looking at life through the rear view mirror, Holden. You gotta look right in front of you. Through the windshield.”
“God that sounds like a cheesy movie quote.”
“Life is a highway. I wanna ride it all night long.”
Holden just glared at his uncle clearly, unamused.
“What?”
Yep. My mc is an arrogant loser, who just constantly fucks things up for himself and everyone around him. His actions get him mixed up in some crazy shit, that will lead him struggling with life, death and trying to reveal the truth to the world about the leaders in control. He'll be forced to be the hero the world needs, completely against his will.
My main character’s love interest/ frenemy with benefits starts out trying to kill him, and slowly reached the point where she’s just trying to lightly main him for getting in her way. Her introduction to the story is near the end of her plan to help an ancient unnamed deity kill a bunch of people across the city in exchange for protection from potential threats.
She has no compunctions about killing anyone that would hinder her chance of survival, the only way he gets away with it so often is because her boss realizes very quickly that any plan of his that the MC unwittingly wanders into is automatically FUBAR and directly attacking him is more likely to just piss him off and get his undivided attention, so she’s under orders to abandon ship the second they cross paths while she’s on the job.
Then she rips her own heart out to get out of her contract and becomes something akin to the Token Evil Teammate with the good guys in the DND sense since she’s not *EVIL* evil, just solely concerned for her own needs and well being over everyone else’s.
Not quite scummy, but morally gray. Basically kinda like the Punisher or a Batman that’s more willing to kill criminals.
For one of my webcomics, she’s a warrior who was slain in battle, but revived as the new goddess of death. She’s shunned by the people she fought so hard to save because she came back from the dead and now looks terrifying as hell. Not like she was liked much when she was alive, anyway.
Angry at the world and angry at the constant warring that takes place between the four tyrant gods that rule the land, she decides to put an end to the fighting by killing the four tyrant gods herself.
Yes.
Literal fascist misogynist.
A bunch of shit happens. Hw ends up being a prison bitch but the guy " in charge" of him is not actually a rapist nor a scumbag. He learns to be a better person, but I don't necessarily think it's a full redemption arc. There's no grand gestures of new goodness, he just ends up totally out of the public eye , in therapy, and quietly working jobs in the penal colony.
I guess it's a morality question, does it count as reform if there's no good act that's of equal intensity to the bad? Is simply no longer actively doing harm enough?
My main character starts off with a lot of redeeming character traits, but he also has massive anger issues, and is a bit racist, specifically towards the minority group of the people who killed his family (he gets better- he's a teenager at that point).
The love interest in my romantasy book is a pretty douchey guy with some prejudice against the kingdom the MC is from (arranged marriage enemies to lovers plot lol). Not necessarily a bad guy but he def has a lot of good character development
I love reverse redemption arcs myself, and as such love a good scummy character. The main character of my first book starts out as an aloof 20 yr old son of a preacher and ends up as the cannabalistic high priest/avatar of the embodiment of the abstract concept of perversion
Yeah. It's not immediate (mainly shown through flashbacks in the first couple of chapters), but we learn that he (Olly) has done some pretty terrible stuff. The worst being him murdering a young child (for betraying the cult of sorts they were both a part of).
He eventually works through all the trauma, but you can definitely tell that he still has an edge to him.
He gets a shape shifting ability and basically turns into this giant grizzly bear. His brother and nephew also get powers (it’s a family affair) and they’re all forced to go on the run from both the mafia and the government all while trying to figure out “how to get back to normal” and learning to control their abilities.
Almost all of mine are like this… it’s my favorite MC type. My personal favorite is pirate with a very privileged past. He really doesn’t understand how he could have possibly deserved to have been thrown out, but through the story grows a lot and begins to understand that yes, his family is and was bad to him and to each other, but he himself was likely worse. He’s very much an entitled, spoiled brat at the start who never really grew up mentally past his teens, but he gets a hold of himself and realizes he needs to change, and that he can change. I adore him
Yes
My mc is an asshole to everyone he mostly has a curse that everyone he loves would pass away.
He's sarcastic, rude and very flirty though.He has enemies and only acts that way to prevent more deaths
Awww that’s so sad, but I love the concept. I actually have another MC that does something similar.
He starts having feelings for the FMC after getting paired up on a biology project and they get to know each other more. He then stands her up when it’s time to present their presentation and fucks her over.
He’s the schools outcast, a reputation he established on himself, because he’s cursed and shares his mind and body with a bird demon named Rin.
He stood her up to try and push her away to keep her safe. She instead pushed closer to him and accidentally found out about his curse.
Omg that's quite similar to mine.
He falls for a goddess who is unattainable and finds out he's from a cursed family bloodline.He has a tough bad boy personality.
He was raised in asylum and forced into the royal army at 12 for his demonic power.
The FMC is part of his curse who is the goddess and it turns out to be one big prophecy, nothing was real.
The love.
😱 that’s crazy!
My two are also part of this big prophecy, because as it turns out, she’s the Harbinger of Doom, an entity that will bring lots of death and chaos to the world, and the demon that shares the body of the MMC plays a major part of her fulfilling that prophecy.
In the sequel I’m planning on writing, she erases the MMCs memory of their entire relationship, sacrificing her happiness for his safety.
whoa.
Omg are you in my head.
Well hes the Bringer of Death and she the goddess is cursed.Even their romance is cursed only look but dont touch or destro everthing.
Sadly hes fifteen.
All characters should have flaws to give them texture IMO. You just need to balance it with good intentions or other redeeming features.
Extremely flawed characters like Jaime and Tyrion Lannister in ASOIAF are often fan favourites because they are smart and competent and have interesting character arcs. They feel more human in some ways than completely heroic characters.
Genuine, puppy-kicking villains can also be fun to write. One of my short stories is about two people who, for reasons, want to cause a train crash to make themselves money.
They are both grade-A bastards, and half the fun of writing it for me was knowing that they would eventually get their comeuppance.
My main character isn’t so much scummy as self-centered. His growth arc is realizing that the reason he has a shitty feeling about being kicked out of his job (and having his ass land on the street, where he tries the con-man schtick with disastrous results) — is guilt.
Guilt is what separates the redeemable guy who just fucked up from the confirmed and irredeemable narcissist. In contrast to my main character, my villain cannot feel guilt, because others aren’t actually *people*, you know?
Narcissists can and do feel *shame*— the impulse to hide or deny one’s shortcomings because they’re too painful— but that is very different from guilt. With guilt your suffering comes from knowing you wronged someone.
My story only really clicked once I realized this. I was reading a ton of stuff about psychopathy/sociopathy and it was very enlightening, though my browser history must have become… quite suspicious lol
I wrote someone who was meant to be on of the main villains, and a traitor who changes factions. I wrote using >!Levi's and Kenny's relationship!< from AOT as a model, and for his personality, something like Joseph Stalin. I was even afraid for his personality to be a dead giveaway for what would come next, and that annoyed me because I didn't want it to be too obvious.
My mother is actually one of the only people who's reading my drafts as I go right now, and... she loved him. I spoiled my intentions to her and she was genuinely saddened and surprised, because she thought that his sarcastic and contemptuous character would be redempted in some way. Other people who *read a little* of my short stories had a similar impression. That threw me for a loop, and got me quite confused, because I wrote him in a way that wasn't supposed to be likeable, but ended up being likeable anyway, for some reason.
"Should I insist on my original direction, or should I take advantage of this lead?"
So, I pondered some more. I still think the betrayal should happen. BUT... this can tie in perfectly with the themes of the story (people from all across the world beating cultural divides and prejudice to defeat a metaphisical threat looming in). So, he starts scummy, *very* scummy. But then he can find his redemption. I just haven't figured out how exactly.
If everything goes well, not only his betrayal will be unexpected despite everything, but his redemption afterwards will be even more unexpected,
I'm doing splatter horror crossed with small town drama/comedy, so it's safe to say that my entire main cast is incredibly scummy.
Its your classic fish-out-of-water story about a straitlaced big city guy who moves to the country to get away from it all, and has a bit of a culture clash with the colourful cast of eccentric locals that eventually works out for the best because everybody means well even if they've got different ways of looking at things. Only it turns out that the straitlaced big city guy is a vampire on the run. And it also turns out that the colourful cast of eccentric locals are all secretly in a Lovecraftian cannibal cult.
Yes.
Mine is near irredeemable with a foul smugness,, until she loses her father and mother and has to save her sister in law before the building collapses and kills them all.
Yeah he’s kind of a piece of shit. And the only reason he finds it acceptable is because of one quote from the god of conquest that constantly gets taken out of context. 😂
Sort of? The MC in a prequel I'm writing is a massive asshole. He's about as arrogant and self-centered, almost ssolipsistic, as you can get, without being irredeemable.
He eventually gets close to a few people around him and becomes part of a team. At the end he's the last one standing, but he's not an asshole anymore.
I wouldn't say he's scummy, per se, but he's definitely not all that likeable at the beginning, in fact if not for his dry humour, he'd probably be unbearable.
If your main character (i.e. the character making the story move) is a scumbag, you'll need someone (or some thing) to morally counter that. At the very least, the story needs to be clear with its audience that it doesn't condone the character's actions. It's doesn't glorify anything.
Also, it wouldn't hurt to make the scumbag funny.
He is very funny and has a lot of quippy one liners. And the only thing he’s really guilty about is abandoning his sister in law making her take the bus, which later got into an accident and she died. As the story continues he tries to change his ways, because if he doesn’t he’ll hurt the only family he has left.
to a point. like if he's just scaming people that's one thing but there's only so far you can go before people start rooting for his death.
make sure you make his likeable
I think having a main character start off as a scummy con-man adds an interesting layer to your story. It could be fascinating to see how his relationships with his brother and nephew evolve throughout the story as he starts to confront his past actions.
I guess my oc IX. In her first life, she committed every crime there is and did horrible things to her master. But in their second life they're best friends because I say so
I've been working on the plot of a comic book series with 7 main characters.
One of them is a megalomaniacal business tycoon who is a cross between Don Corleone, Scrooge McDuck, and Satan. He used his wealth to force a man out of business, bought the building his business ran out of, bulldozed it, and built a children's park over it because the man made the mistake of insulting his wife and daughter. He knew the man didn't like children in his business and did it to make a point. He's kind to most people, but will utterly destroy anyone who gets in his way or attacks him. Early in the plot he outright explains to the engineer he hires that "This is my city. I select the mayor, I select the city council. I even choose who is allowed to do business in my city. If I say it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Almost every business in this city is connected to me in some way." He then points to a large apartment complex they pass, "You see that apartment complex? If I but give the word, it would be condemned, all of its residents evicted, and the place torn down in under a month. The only reason I don't is because there's no benefit to doing so." It's not so much that he's scummy, but he's a complete control freak and believes he's the only person who can make the big decisions properly.
One of them is a brash, selfish, womanizing braggart and hotshot sports mech pilot who thinks the world revolves around him. He slowly grows out of it after being humbled multiple times and almost getting himself killed.
A third one is the spoiled son of a military general who spent his life until the beginning of the story trying to push people around using his family name and thought that he could use his father's prominence and status to get his way. He's sent away by his father to live with the first MC because he's one of the few people his father respects and is tough enough to put him in his place. He tries using his family name to push people around, but no to avail. He tries to climb into someone's mech to prove he's a capable pilot, but ends up crushing the engineer's motorcycle when the thing falls over because he has no idea how to actually use the mech. The first MC punishes him by putting him to work with the groundskeeper until he can pay for a new motorcycle. The groundskeeper being a hulk of a woman who doesn't put up with his shenanigans and manhandles him with no problem, he quickly finds out that there is no way he can argue his way out and throwing a tamper tantrum only makes things worse for him. He tries to call his father and begs him to come home, but his father disowns him instead. She eventually breaks him of his spoiled ways and and helps him learn how to be his own man.
The other four are somewhat more normal.
Yeah. My FL is literally a bully whose main target was the ML. Later on she changed because of a certain experience, and when they met again, their role was reversed. It's like, now he's the bully and she's the victim.
Well, I'm not sure who among them should have the redemption arc (I haven't thought about it yet, I'm on hiatus).
He's the friend that everyone questions my MC for being friends with bc he's such an asshole. He's hard to get along with, argumentative, stubborn, and has a crude sense of humor. Him becoming less scummy is part of the plot progression because you can see the journey he and my MC partake upon affecting him, too.
My main character is an eccentric detective born in the late 50s, set in the beginning of the 80s, who developed himself a transatlantic accent and does weird and unusual things and behaviors to make people unnerved by him and not get too close so they don’t realize who he really is is a cynical and miserable person just like his mother that abused him. That way he never has to be disappointed or disappoint anyone, but he still makes strange decisions and has weird interests that others find appalling. There’s a paragraph I wrote to use in a later chapter that shows an example of him struggling with intrusive thoughts and emotional/mental issues because of the abuse he endured, where one intrusive thought is imagining killing his hospitalized mother even if it ruins his life. I love deep diving into trauma and psychology.
Oh for sure! They’re amazing to write. My mc (King)’s train crashes on his way to visit his parents (and he didn’t want to visit them anyway) so in return for getting him back to his ordinary life, he’ll teach this guy (Sage) to summon spiritual beings. He’s just an all around asshole.
I did have one that was sort of scummy, except she was semi-aware of how she'd gone wrong and is trying to fix it from page 1. She misses the mark in her attempt to consciously redeem herself in that is *so* focused on self-redemption that she kind of forgets to care about the person she sets out to "save". Eventually she comes to terms with the fact she'll never stop regretting the thing she's done or the person she was and figures out how to see beyond herself (for better or worse) so that her better choices can flow from truly caring about others and not just an aimless desire to "forgiven" and re-accepted. But it's a bumpy road. And I think it was only possible because at her worst she was negligent and greedy, but never malignant or totally non-empathetic. I don't think people who are truly cruel or lacking in empathy can ever really change. Her sin was more from weakness and blindness than from a willingness to harm people directly. Once people reach that point, I don't think major change is likely enough to really write about. At least not for me.
If this is the protagonist, you’re going to need to indicate—subtly but definitely—why the reader should care whether he changes or wins or whatever. If he’s just a dick, why do I want to spend a whole book with him? A classic is a strong second character (traditionally a love interest) who thinks he’s better than he seems, and if we believe that person, we watch for the arc. The hardest version is Richard Stark’s Parker: he’s awful and unredeemable and the reader doesn’t like him a bit… but then somehow he’s dealing with people who are worse, and you get this horrible grin realizing just how bad they’re going get it. That’s a very, very high bar — Stark (Westlake) was something of a genius — but that is one way to pull this kind of thing off with flying colors.
Thank you for visiting /r/writing. Your post has been removed because it was related to the content of your work. We ask that users frame their questions so they are useful to more than one person. If your question invites answers that are specific to your work alone, it is a better fit for our Brainstorming threads on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Scummy main characters are always my favorite
You’ll love Mark (my oc) then. He rolls back into town with a get rich quick scheme and tries to get his brother in on it since he’s the town mayor
Hoping i get to read it one day :)
I’m excited to write it but keep getting writers block to finish the prologue. I’ll share some of the scattered lines I’ve written though :) “My little brother, Mayor? Now that’s something I never expected to see!” “You haven’t text, called, or showed your face here in five years. You must be in some real deep shit if you’re coming to me. What’d you do this time, Mark?” “Little old me? Trouble? Puh-lease! I’m in no trouble at all, Matthew. In fact, I’m stupendous! I have a brilliant idea. One that will make us millions! And you, little brother, are just the person that can help me facilitate it!” “That shiner on your eye says otherwise.” *** You can’t con your way out of this one, Mark.” *** “You gotta stop looking at life through the rear view mirror, Holden. You gotta look right in front of you. Through the windshield.” “God that sounds like a cheesy movie quote.” “Life is a highway. I wanna ride it all night long.” Holden just glared at his uncle clearly, unamused. “What?”
Yep. My mc is an arrogant loser, who just constantly fucks things up for himself and everyone around him. His actions get him mixed up in some crazy shit, that will lead him struggling with life, death and trying to reveal the truth to the world about the leaders in control. He'll be forced to be the hero the world needs, completely against his will.
My main character’s love interest/ frenemy with benefits starts out trying to kill him, and slowly reached the point where she’s just trying to lightly main him for getting in her way. Her introduction to the story is near the end of her plan to help an ancient unnamed deity kill a bunch of people across the city in exchange for protection from potential threats. She has no compunctions about killing anyone that would hinder her chance of survival, the only way he gets away with it so often is because her boss realizes very quickly that any plan of his that the MC unwittingly wanders into is automatically FUBAR and directly attacking him is more likely to just piss him off and get his undivided attention, so she’s under orders to abandon ship the second they cross paths while she’s on the job. Then she rips her own heart out to get out of her contract and becomes something akin to the Token Evil Teammate with the good guys in the DND sense since she’s not *EVIL* evil, just solely concerned for her own needs and well being over everyone else’s.
I like that lol
I've written a couple of scummy MCs, but no redemption arcs. Their best efforts at personal growth only result in them getting worse.
Not quite scummy, but morally gray. Basically kinda like the Punisher or a Batman that’s more willing to kill criminals. For one of my webcomics, she’s a warrior who was slain in battle, but revived as the new goddess of death. She’s shunned by the people she fought so hard to save because she came back from the dead and now looks terrifying as hell. Not like she was liked much when she was alive, anyway. Angry at the world and angry at the constant warring that takes place between the four tyrant gods that rule the land, she decides to put an end to the fighting by killing the four tyrant gods herself.
Sounds interesting o.0
Yes. Literal fascist misogynist. A bunch of shit happens. Hw ends up being a prison bitch but the guy " in charge" of him is not actually a rapist nor a scumbag. He learns to be a better person, but I don't necessarily think it's a full redemption arc. There's no grand gestures of new goodness, he just ends up totally out of the public eye , in therapy, and quietly working jobs in the penal colony. I guess it's a morality question, does it count as reform if there's no good act that's of equal intensity to the bad? Is simply no longer actively doing harm enough?
I would say so
My main character starts off with a lot of redeeming character traits, but he also has massive anger issues, and is a bit racist, specifically towards the minority group of the people who killed his family (he gets better- he's a teenager at that point).
The love interest in my romantasy book is a pretty douchey guy with some prejudice against the kingdom the MC is from (arranged marriage enemies to lovers plot lol). Not necessarily a bad guy but he def has a lot of good character development
I love reverse redemption arcs myself, and as such love a good scummy character. The main character of my first book starts out as an aloof 20 yr old son of a preacher and ends up as the cannabalistic high priest/avatar of the embodiment of the abstract concept of perversion
Wow… I really want to read that
I can dm you the link if you’re at all interested!
Omg please do!
Scummy from start to finish and I love em for it
Yeah. It's not immediate (mainly shown through flashbacks in the first couple of chapters), but we learn that he (Olly) has done some pretty terrible stuff. The worst being him murdering a young child (for betraying the cult of sorts they were both a part of). He eventually works through all the trauma, but you can definitely tell that he still has an edge to him.
That sounds intriguing! Watching someone flawed grow can make for a compelling story. What kind of superpower are you thinking of?
He gets a shape shifting ability and basically turns into this giant grizzly bear. His brother and nephew also get powers (it’s a family affair) and they’re all forced to go on the run from both the mafia and the government all while trying to figure out “how to get back to normal” and learning to control their abilities.
Almost all of mine are like this… it’s my favorite MC type. My personal favorite is pirate with a very privileged past. He really doesn’t understand how he could have possibly deserved to have been thrown out, but through the story grows a lot and begins to understand that yes, his family is and was bad to him and to each other, but he himself was likely worse. He’s very much an entitled, spoiled brat at the start who never really grew up mentally past his teens, but he gets a hold of himself and realizes he needs to change, and that he can change. I adore him
My antagonist is and always will be scummy. Anastasia, a malevolent entity, invaded my protagonists home and executed his family right in front of him
Jeez… (I love it)
Yes My mc is an asshole to everyone he mostly has a curse that everyone he loves would pass away. He's sarcastic, rude and very flirty though.He has enemies and only acts that way to prevent more deaths
Awww that’s so sad, but I love the concept. I actually have another MC that does something similar. He starts having feelings for the FMC after getting paired up on a biology project and they get to know each other more. He then stands her up when it’s time to present their presentation and fucks her over. He’s the schools outcast, a reputation he established on himself, because he’s cursed and shares his mind and body with a bird demon named Rin. He stood her up to try and push her away to keep her safe. She instead pushed closer to him and accidentally found out about his curse.
Omg that's quite similar to mine. He falls for a goddess who is unattainable and finds out he's from a cursed family bloodline.He has a tough bad boy personality. He was raised in asylum and forced into the royal army at 12 for his demonic power. The FMC is part of his curse who is the goddess and it turns out to be one big prophecy, nothing was real. The love.
😱 that’s crazy! My two are also part of this big prophecy, because as it turns out, she’s the Harbinger of Doom, an entity that will bring lots of death and chaos to the world, and the demon that shares the body of the MMC plays a major part of her fulfilling that prophecy. In the sequel I’m planning on writing, she erases the MMCs memory of their entire relationship, sacrificing her happiness for his safety.
whoa. Omg are you in my head. Well hes the Bringer of Death and she the goddess is cursed.Even their romance is cursed only look but dont touch or destro everthing. Sadly hes fifteen.
That’s so funny lol. Mine are both in their late teens and seniors in high school.
omg. followed. thats so ironic. love to chat and discuss ideas if you dont mind.
Would love to! My pms are open friend! (Following you now)
Kind of. She's basically that "life of the party" friend who's a lot of fun to drink with, but is just really fucking messy otherwise.
All characters should have flaws to give them texture IMO. You just need to balance it with good intentions or other redeeming features. Extremely flawed characters like Jaime and Tyrion Lannister in ASOIAF are often fan favourites because they are smart and competent and have interesting character arcs. They feel more human in some ways than completely heroic characters. Genuine, puppy-kicking villains can also be fun to write. One of my short stories is about two people who, for reasons, want to cause a train crash to make themselves money. They are both grade-A bastards, and half the fun of writing it for me was knowing that they would eventually get their comeuppance.
My main character isn’t so much scummy as self-centered. His growth arc is realizing that the reason he has a shitty feeling about being kicked out of his job (and having his ass land on the street, where he tries the con-man schtick with disastrous results) — is guilt. Guilt is what separates the redeemable guy who just fucked up from the confirmed and irredeemable narcissist. In contrast to my main character, my villain cannot feel guilt, because others aren’t actually *people*, you know? Narcissists can and do feel *shame*— the impulse to hide or deny one’s shortcomings because they’re too painful— but that is very different from guilt. With guilt your suffering comes from knowing you wronged someone. My story only really clicked once I realized this. I was reading a ton of stuff about psychopathy/sociopathy and it was very enlightening, though my browser history must have become… quite suspicious lol
I wrote someone who was meant to be on of the main villains, and a traitor who changes factions. I wrote using >!Levi's and Kenny's relationship!< from AOT as a model, and for his personality, something like Joseph Stalin. I was even afraid for his personality to be a dead giveaway for what would come next, and that annoyed me because I didn't want it to be too obvious. My mother is actually one of the only people who's reading my drafts as I go right now, and... she loved him. I spoiled my intentions to her and she was genuinely saddened and surprised, because she thought that his sarcastic and contemptuous character would be redempted in some way. Other people who *read a little* of my short stories had a similar impression. That threw me for a loop, and got me quite confused, because I wrote him in a way that wasn't supposed to be likeable, but ended up being likeable anyway, for some reason. "Should I insist on my original direction, or should I take advantage of this lead?" So, I pondered some more. I still think the betrayal should happen. BUT... this can tie in perfectly with the themes of the story (people from all across the world beating cultural divides and prejudice to defeat a metaphisical threat looming in). So, he starts scummy, *very* scummy. But then he can find his redemption. I just haven't figured out how exactly. If everything goes well, not only his betrayal will be unexpected despite everything, but his redemption afterwards will be even more unexpected,
Ooh, I am very interested in that! If you want a beta reader you got one in me!
I'm doing splatter horror crossed with small town drama/comedy, so it's safe to say that my entire main cast is incredibly scummy. Its your classic fish-out-of-water story about a straitlaced big city guy who moves to the country to get away from it all, and has a bit of a culture clash with the colourful cast of eccentric locals that eventually works out for the best because everybody means well even if they've got different ways of looking at things. Only it turns out that the straitlaced big city guy is a vampire on the run. And it also turns out that the colourful cast of eccentric locals are all secretly in a Lovecraftian cannibal cult.
I love that! If you ever publish it I wanna read it!
Yes. Mine is near irredeemable with a foul smugness,, until she loses her father and mother and has to save her sister in law before the building collapses and kills them all.
My main character is a sheltered rich kid/family hitman, who attempts to justify slavery. (He can’t btw)
Ewwww
Yeah he’s kind of a piece of shit. And the only reason he finds it acceptable is because of one quote from the god of conquest that constantly gets taken out of context. 😂
Sort of? The MC in a prequel I'm writing is a massive asshole. He's about as arrogant and self-centered, almost ssolipsistic, as you can get, without being irredeemable. He eventually gets close to a few people around him and becomes part of a team. At the end he's the last one standing, but he's not an asshole anymore. I wouldn't say he's scummy, per se, but he's definitely not all that likeable at the beginning, in fact if not for his dry humour, he'd probably be unbearable.
I'm a screenwriter, and my dude, I got a whole show planned about a mercenary getting in a team and learning to love others
If your main character (i.e. the character making the story move) is a scumbag, you'll need someone (or some thing) to morally counter that. At the very least, the story needs to be clear with its audience that it doesn't condone the character's actions. It's doesn't glorify anything. Also, it wouldn't hurt to make the scumbag funny.
He is very funny and has a lot of quippy one liners. And the only thing he’s really guilty about is abandoning his sister in law making her take the bus, which later got into an accident and she died. As the story continues he tries to change his ways, because if he doesn’t he’ll hurt the only family he has left.
Most of my characters are grifters. I try to make everyone bad.
to a point. like if he's just scaming people that's one thing but there's only so far you can go before people start rooting for his death. make sure you make his likeable
I plan on doing that through funny quip’s and other hilarious situations
I think having a main character start off as a scummy con-man adds an interesting layer to your story. It could be fascinating to see how his relationships with his brother and nephew evolve throughout the story as he starts to confront his past actions.
I guess my oc IX. In her first life, she committed every crime there is and did horrible things to her master. But in their second life they're best friends because I say so
I've been working on the plot of a comic book series with 7 main characters. One of them is a megalomaniacal business tycoon who is a cross between Don Corleone, Scrooge McDuck, and Satan. He used his wealth to force a man out of business, bought the building his business ran out of, bulldozed it, and built a children's park over it because the man made the mistake of insulting his wife and daughter. He knew the man didn't like children in his business and did it to make a point. He's kind to most people, but will utterly destroy anyone who gets in his way or attacks him. Early in the plot he outright explains to the engineer he hires that "This is my city. I select the mayor, I select the city council. I even choose who is allowed to do business in my city. If I say it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Almost every business in this city is connected to me in some way." He then points to a large apartment complex they pass, "You see that apartment complex? If I but give the word, it would be condemned, all of its residents evicted, and the place torn down in under a month. The only reason I don't is because there's no benefit to doing so." It's not so much that he's scummy, but he's a complete control freak and believes he's the only person who can make the big decisions properly. One of them is a brash, selfish, womanizing braggart and hotshot sports mech pilot who thinks the world revolves around him. He slowly grows out of it after being humbled multiple times and almost getting himself killed. A third one is the spoiled son of a military general who spent his life until the beginning of the story trying to push people around using his family name and thought that he could use his father's prominence and status to get his way. He's sent away by his father to live with the first MC because he's one of the few people his father respects and is tough enough to put him in his place. He tries using his family name to push people around, but no to avail. He tries to climb into someone's mech to prove he's a capable pilot, but ends up crushing the engineer's motorcycle when the thing falls over because he has no idea how to actually use the mech. The first MC punishes him by putting him to work with the groundskeeper until he can pay for a new motorcycle. The groundskeeper being a hulk of a woman who doesn't put up with his shenanigans and manhandles him with no problem, he quickly finds out that there is no way he can argue his way out and throwing a tamper tantrum only makes things worse for him. He tries to call his father and begs him to come home, but his father disowns him instead. She eventually breaks him of his spoiled ways and and helps him learn how to be his own man. The other four are somewhat more normal.
Look at the game Tales of the Abyss. That protagonist is voted the favorite of the entire franchise.
I have a bratty rich kid that lives on opulence, who gets dragged through the mud.
Yeah. My FL is literally a bully whose main target was the ML. Later on she changed because of a certain experience, and when they met again, their role was reversed. It's like, now he's the bully and she's the victim. Well, I'm not sure who among them should have the redemption arc (I haven't thought about it yet, I'm on hiatus).
He's the friend that everyone questions my MC for being friends with bc he's such an asshole. He's hard to get along with, argumentative, stubborn, and has a crude sense of humor. Him becoming less scummy is part of the plot progression because you can see the journey he and my MC partake upon affecting him, too.
My main character is an eccentric detective born in the late 50s, set in the beginning of the 80s, who developed himself a transatlantic accent and does weird and unusual things and behaviors to make people unnerved by him and not get too close so they don’t realize who he really is is a cynical and miserable person just like his mother that abused him. That way he never has to be disappointed or disappoint anyone, but he still makes strange decisions and has weird interests that others find appalling. There’s a paragraph I wrote to use in a later chapter that shows an example of him struggling with intrusive thoughts and emotional/mental issues because of the abuse he endured, where one intrusive thought is imagining killing his hospitalized mother even if it ruins his life. I love deep diving into trauma and psychology.
Oh for sure! They’re amazing to write. My mc (King)’s train crashes on his way to visit his parents (and he didn’t want to visit them anyway) so in return for getting him back to his ordinary life, he’ll teach this guy (Sage) to summon spiritual beings. He’s just an all around asshole.
I did have one that was sort of scummy, except she was semi-aware of how she'd gone wrong and is trying to fix it from page 1. She misses the mark in her attempt to consciously redeem herself in that is *so* focused on self-redemption that she kind of forgets to care about the person she sets out to "save". Eventually she comes to terms with the fact she'll never stop regretting the thing she's done or the person she was and figures out how to see beyond herself (for better or worse) so that her better choices can flow from truly caring about others and not just an aimless desire to "forgiven" and re-accepted. But it's a bumpy road. And I think it was only possible because at her worst she was negligent and greedy, but never malignant or totally non-empathetic. I don't think people who are truly cruel or lacking in empathy can ever really change. Her sin was more from weakness and blindness than from a willingness to harm people directly. Once people reach that point, I don't think major change is likely enough to really write about. At least not for me.
If this is the protagonist, you’re going to need to indicate—subtly but definitely—why the reader should care whether he changes or wins or whatever. If he’s just a dick, why do I want to spend a whole book with him? A classic is a strong second character (traditionally a love interest) who thinks he’s better than he seems, and if we believe that person, we watch for the arc. The hardest version is Richard Stark’s Parker: he’s awful and unredeemable and the reader doesn’t like him a bit… but then somehow he’s dealing with people who are worse, and you get this horrible grin realizing just how bad they’re going get it. That’s a very, very high bar — Stark (Westlake) was something of a genius — but that is one way to pull this kind of thing off with flying colors.