🥴 Can We Make Them More Likeable?

In the words of Tyler Durden…I look around, I see a lot of new faces.

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Okay, onto the main event. There’s a lot to unpack with this one, so strap in.

“Can we make him // her more likeable?”

What is it about this particular note that writers dread?

Is it because it’s so…basic? So on-the-nose? So vague and unhelpful?

Is it because the note-giver always follows it up with some truly terrible “bad version” suggestion?

I’ve had this exact note twice - but variations of it many times.

The first time I was asked to make my protagonist more likeable, the in-the-moment solution we awkwardly stumbled on was to have him (an amoral businessman) literally hand money to a homeless person, apropos nothing.

That hurt to write. But it was a long development process and I was worn out. And I found a better solve in a later draft, I swear.

But this is the general level of creative thinking such a note generates. It makes everyone dumber.

One reason this note is so frustrating is because the whole point of telling a story is to send your character through a profound personal change. So it stands to reason the more of a bastard they are at the beginning, the more powerful their reversal at the end.

Think of A Christmas Carol. It’s one of the most cathartic stories in human history because Ebenezer Scrooge starts out as such a brutal shitheel of a boss, and ends as the most generous patron in all of London. If we learned in the opening scene that Scrooge ran a volunteer kitten sanctuary in his spare time, that final scene around Bob Cratchit’s dinner table probably wouldn’t have the same impact.

But actually…that’s not quite accurate.

The truth is, the seeds of growth are already buried in your character from the get-go. They just need to be exposed to the right elements - the water, nutrients, and sunlight of your story’s events - in order to bloom and become dominant.

That’s not to say they have to be likeable…maybe the more appropriate term would be relatable.

Because generally the note-giver doesn’t even mean “likeable”. What they’re really trying to say is “I found this character alienating for some reason. I couldn’t get behind them.” And that is something you can fix by considering the fundamentals of character.

Let’s look at old Scrooge again. His whole “bah humbug” schtick comes from a place of loneliness and isolation. He’s going to spend Christmas Day with a party of one.

In the opening scene, he does give Bob Cratchit Christmas day off work. Begrudgingly, granted, and it’ll come out of poor sap’s wages. But some barely glowing ember in Scrooge’s coal-black heart acknowledges that a man should spend time with his family at Christmas. He is showing the faintest glimmer of empathy.

This empathy is nurtured throughout the rest of his ghostly fever-dream of a journey. He meets past versions of himself and starts to understand the source of his ill-temper…he starts to empathise with himself. With each step, that tiny vestige of empathy is coaxed further to the surface and allowed to blossom.

This is not a process of incepting new characteristics in Scrooge. It’s a process of unearthing the traits he has neglected to nurture within himself.

Is he “likeable” in the beginning? No, he’s a prick. But Dickens wrote a more complex and multifaceted character than we perhaps remember. Crucially it was all in there, right from the off.

So it’s your job as a writer to be more Dickens. Don’t worry about whether we like the character. Focus on whether you’ve constructed them in a way that makes them relatable, and that gives them the latent traits we can latch onto early.

Consider this checklist of character fundamentals to make sure you’ve built a protagonist that we can’t help but pull for - regardless of whether we’d want to be sat next to them at a dinner party.

One of the incredible evolutionary quirks about human beings is that with very little context we can place ourselves into someone else’s situation (emotionally speaking).

They don’t even have to be fellow humans. We want the gazelle to escape the jaws of the leopard. Unless we’re following the plight of the leopard. Then we want it to take that sucker down.

We don’t need any more context because the goal is so abundantly obvious and immediate.

If we latch on to someone trying to achieve something, our default is to want them to get what they want. Do you know what your protagonist is aiming for? Is it clear that they have an abiding goal driving them forward from the first scene?

James Bond is a cold-blooded spook working for a crumbling colonial power. Not an inherently likeable man. But we’re always dialled in to what he’s trying to achieve - and it’s always a combination of saving lives and preserving the status quo for us civilian plebs. A good goal. We like the goal!

And it’s always beautifully clear. We can track his successes and failures from scene to scene. We want Bond to win, always.

This is one of the most foundational aspects of storytelling, and as such is so easy to overlook. If we know what your character wants early, it’s the first step towards caring about it - and caring about them.

Which leads us to the next point. What does your protagonist stand to gain? What to they stand to lose? Interrogate whether their stakes are obvious and present. We’ll care the more they care.

The stakes for the gazelle? Literal life and death.

The stakes for the leopard? Probably the same.

We know what this means for them. We know why their goal is profound, personal, primal.

Your stakes don’t necessarily have to be life-and-death - your genre will dictate that. But making them as clear and as immediate as they are for the gazelle (or leopard) is a very good benchmark to aim for.

Your protagonist doesn’t have to be a saint. We just need to recognise their values as closest to our own relative to the world they’re in.

Picture the scene: A group of teenage thugs hanging out on a street corner, looking for their next mark.

Their roving eye lands on a young man in a cheap suit. Some poor working stiff waiting for the bus. They round on him like a pack of hyenas. He senses danger, turns tail. A chase. They catch him and drag him down an alleyway.

Thug One clocks him in the jaw and the young man hits the deck. Thug Two cracks wise while she rifles through the man’s pockets. Thug Three hears sirens “let’s go!”

Thug One gives the guy another whack for good measure “that’s for making us chase you.”

Thug Two shouts back as she runs off, “grab his bag!”

Thug Three grabs the man’s rucksack. The man puts up a struggle. Thug Three yanks the bag off him.

The bag falls open, and a box of pills tumbles onto the ground between them. That’s expensive medicine. One box alone would fetch hundreds of dollars on the black market.

But Thug Three knows that it’s also life-preserving medicine. Without it, the mugging victim could die. He makes a split decision. He tosses the medicine back to the downed man, takes the rucksack, and bolts.

In this moment we understand: Thug Three is our protagonist.

We’re naturally inclined against street robbers of all kinds. But in relation to his immediate environment and network of characters, he’s shown a personal value that we like to see in ourselves. We align with him more than we do his buddies.

Per A Christmas Carol, we’re also witnessing the seeds of growth - an instinct that can be coaxed out of him as the film advances towards its climax.

We don’t mind seeing characters do bad things if they feel kinda bad about it.

Okay it’s not quite that simple, but if we’re aiming for likeability relatability, we’re really aiming to signpost the kind of growth journey this character’s going to be on.

We’re saying - “yeah, they’re a dick. But deep down they kind of know it. And we’re going to force them to acknowledge it and change their ways. Come along for the ride!”

If you suggest that your character has doubts, internal dilemmas, or even a hint of personal values that cut against their outwardly poor behaviour, then we’re going to relate to them a lot more.

Because that’s exactly how we behave. We’re complicated and contradictory. We lash out when we’re really in pain. We push others away when we really need a hug. We do things we know aren’t always right in moments of weakness, and regret them later.

Your character should be no different.

If you want us to relate to someone, make us hate the person they’re up against.

This is something I always felt Game of Thrones did incredibly well. A character could be an out-and-out villain for several seasons. But as soon as they’re up against someone we truly hate in our bones, they flip to feeling like a protagonist.

Jaime Lannister committed a heinous act in episode one, but when the detestable Vargo Hoat’s Bloody Mummers sever his hand, we find ourselves sharing a common enemy with him.

This paves the way for his later heroic acts - saving Brienne from the same Bloody Mummers, and freeing his brother Tyrion from execution.

Looking at James Bond again - always going up against some seedy megalomaniac who wants to destabilise or destroy the current world order.

John Wick is another useful example. His OG nemesis is a Russian nepo-baby who killed the man’s dog (the ultimate cardinal sin in storytelling).

We’ll always root for a bastard so long as they’re trying to defeat a much more unpleasant bastard.

This one’s a sneaky little hack that’s like sprinkling magic dust over your story.

Make your protagonist really great at something. Make them the best at what they do - preternaturally talented. If they’re brilliant at one thing, we’ll forgive pretty much everything else. It’s called the halo effect and it just works.

John Wick again - he murders people for a living. But there’s no question he is the single best contract killer money can buy. We want him to kill as many people as possible purely because he’s so darned good at it. He’s so good at killing people he’s spawned a $1 billion+ person-killing cinematic universe.

Here’s another example. There’s a scene in The Social Network. Mark Zuckerberg is a student at Harvard. He’s sitting in a lecture having a conversation with his friend Eduardo Saverin - very much not listening to his professor.

He has more important stuff to deal with than pay attention to whatever the lesson is about, and in a minute he’s trying to sneak out of the class altogether.

His professor clocks this and puts him on the spot. Asks him to solve the fearsomely baroque looking formula written on the board.

Zuckerberg turns on his heels, does a quick scan of the board, and without missing a beat spits out the correct answer. Then he barrels out the door.

It’s a small moment of triumph. A fist-pump for a hateful character. Because it makes us think, whoa…he’s good! He’s obviously top of his year group and he doesn’t even need to try. It’s impressive. It’s kind of cool. We, as viewers, are backing the right horse here.

Morally and ethically bankrupt. Weak, egotistical, venal. But the best damn computer science guy in all of Harvard.

The writer Aaron Sorkin gives Zuckerberg a few triumphant moments like this that help us take him as a true antihero rather than an out-and-out villain. And makes the film much more satisfying, sophisticated, and compelling as a result.

To finish, here’s a few characters who in my estimation nail all or most of these items on the checklist:

Lisbeth Sander, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Walter White, Breaking Bad

The Bride, Kill Bill

Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean

Vilanelle, Killing Eve

Consider your favourite films and TV shows. Can you identify any other characters whom we shouldn’t like, but do?

So there you have it. How do you make your protagonist more likeable? Make them more complete. Build them properly. They’ll feel more real, more complex, more human. And we tend to like humans. Almost as much as we like gazelles and leopards.

If checklists are your thing, check out my ten guiding principles of horror.

Before I leave, I’m going to ask you for a quick favour. That favour is a question. Do you prefer to read about film, TV, or both?

It would be a huge help if you’d reply to this very email with a single word:

TV

Film

Both

Thanks for reading. Till next Tuesday, go get after it.

Rob