: Re: Two protagonists where one is dark - a mistake? I'm currently writing a tale with two protagonists. One of them is a dark protagonist - that is, technically evil. The other protagonist is not

Each reader probably won't like the protagonists equally. Readers are not a monolithic group. Some will be drawn to the virtue of the good character, while others will eat up the struggles of the dark character. It doesn't even necessarily have to do with their morality, and it's hard to say what character traits will resonate with a particular reader the best.

The only thing you can do is make both characters likeable, and equally fleshed-out. They don't even have to be likeable as people to be likeable as characters. If the character's justifications make sense, and if you explore how they got to be the way they are, even an evil character can be a good character. This is why characters such as Voldemort feel shallow to me (even though Rowling tried to give him some backstory exposition), while I liked Snape as a character. Harkening back to my earlier point, I know that other people have the opposite positions on the characters.

Remember that no one is the villain in their own mind, and only the cartooniest Disney or Superhero villains are evil for its own sake. Only a true psychopath would commit such acts for their own pleasure. All others have motivations for it, feeling that the ends justify the means. That sounds like I have strayed from the question of 'can I make them equally likeable' into the territory of 'how do I make a likeable dark character', but I am really just stressing the importance of letting the reader in on the characters' motivations and justifications equally.

Load Full (0)

: How do I write a good haiku poem? Here is my haiku I wrote it for this question Is it any good? I understand the mechanical basics of a haiku being the three line syllable pattern of 5-7-5,

@Jessie137

Load Full 0 Comments

: Linguistic simplicity in novels: how do different world markets/languages view it? This site has a lot of question on how to write properly and, naturally, many of the answers are on how to

@Jessie137

Load Full 2 Comments

: How can I continue one scene after many scenes? Take this example: scene 1: int. - day Bruce - Where am I? Wayne - In Gotham. (A bunch of scenes) Scene 11: int. - day Bruce - In Gotham,

@Jessie137

Load Full 2 Comments

: Three protagonists in one novel, too much? For my graphic novel I have 3 protagonists, each a different type of hero: action, guile, and science/rational. Although it's space opera my story is

: Re: Two protagonists where one is dark - a mistake? I'm currently writing a tale with two protagonists. One of them is a dark protagonist - that is, technically evil. The other protagonist is not

More posts by @Jessie137

: How do I write a good haiku poem? Here is my haiku I wrote it for this question Is it any good? I understand the mechanical basics of a haiku being the three line syllable pattern of 5-7-5,

: Linguistic simplicity in novels: how do different world markets/languages view it? This site has a lot of question on how to write properly and, naturally, many of the answers are on how to

: How can I continue one scene after many scenes? Take this example: scene 1: int. - day Bruce - Where am I? Wayne - In Gotham. (A bunch of scenes) Scene 11: int. - day Bruce - In Gotham,

: Three protagonists in one novel, too much? For my graphic novel I have 3 protagonists, each a different type of hero: action, guile, and science/rational. Although it's space opera my story is

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top