: Re: How to write a chaotic neutral protagonist and prevent my readers from thinking they are evil? I've come across a problem with one of the main characters in my book. The "heroine" of my story

@Bethany377

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Why she's not saving the world... (easy)

I think you're already on track to answer this. You said at one point in your comments that your character wasn't interested in saving everyone because she was self-interested and not worried about some awful thing that someone else caused.

Well, what would lead someone to not be worried about other people's problems? Having too many problems yourself. Which, if you pull it off right is fine. Being too busy to care is a real thing and seems already in line with your character. It doesn't have to be busy, but all we're really talking about is crowding out her ability to be too concerned about any one thing that's not directly affecting her. Give her enough emotional and local baggage and it'll be pretty easy to have her shrug off a request to do more.

"I don't have time to take down a drug ring, I need to eat before my big meeting and I haven't even prepared!"

Or the classic...

"I can't take down that drug ring, I have children to raise."

Or...

"Sure, I'll save the world; after my homework is finished."

There are lot of reasons to not do things that aren't going to help yourself and most of us organize our days regularly around such reasons. You're going to have bigger problems justifying why she's willing to take some actions that harm people than justifying why she's not taking actions. So...

Why she's making the world worse...

On balance anything she's doing to make the world worse for others you're going to have to demonstrate as not being that bad. Classic tropes are "they're ensured," "stormtroopers aren't people/robots don't have feelings," and "they deserved it." The point is you've got to keep your character from crossing a line and really hurting someone, or if they are going to do that maybe they own up to it later or do enough to really offset this in your readers mind or it was the least bad thing they could do given the circumstances.

The less of a sympathetic connection your reader feels to the person being harmed, the more likely you are to pull this off. If you can create space for justification, then your character has space to remain "not evil".

If you balance these two methods you should be able to create a character who is too troubled to be a big-time hero, but capable enough to get by in an unfair world by taking from those who won't be harmed or deserve it.

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