Relatable Characters? Not This Time

  I did a workshop at our local community college last week about drawing upon real life to write fiction.  It’s a great subject because isn’t that what we do?  Take our real-life details and put them into make-believe stories?

While I talked about this, I mentioned how characters should be relatable, meaning they have to have good qualities, but they need flaws as well.  Because, let’s face it, nobody in our real lives is perfect.  Nor would we want them to be. 

Just like characters in books and in movies need both good and bad qualities.  I touched upon the fact that even antiheroes have some redeeming qualities.  Otherwise, we simply couldn’t relate to them at all.  

Walter White in the hit television show Breaking Bad was a high school science teacher who discovered that he had terminal cancer and became a notorious meth dealer, eventually graduating to murder.  But... he did it to leave enough money to his family that they’d be in a good place after he died. 

Never mind that he put them in danger on several occasions. 

Tony Soprano, on another hit television series, The Sopranos, was a mafia don that routinely terrorized, extorted, stole, and killed in cold blood. But you could overlook all of that because he was a good family man.  If you overlooked the systemic infidelity. 

They were bad guys but had some redeeming qualities. 

Now comes Succession.  We have a whole cast of characters, none of whom seem to have any redeeming qualities at all.  None.  Zero.  

They’re money obsessed, class snobs, insulting, bullying, and extraordinarily narcissistic. I wouldn’t want to spend any time in real life with any of them.

And yet, the show has been wildly popular.  

Alert…I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon, May 28th, the same day that the finale will debut on Max, Formerly HBO Max.  Why did they delete HBO?  It’s an easily recognizable name.  Another topic for another day. 

In a nutshell, the show is all about who among the four Roy children will succeed their father in running his vast media empire.  Every single one of the children feels entitled and the entire series seems to be about who can be the most ruthless and cutthroat, just like their old man, Logan Roy.  

So, why is it so popular?  The pacing is incredibly brisk, the scenes are lavish, the music is elegantly beautiful, and the lengths at which the kids are willing to go can be jaw dropping.

And the dialogue.  It’s biting, witty, hip, crude, and hilarious---sometimes all at once.  It’s also incredibly fast.  Pay attention, because it comes at you so quickly that you’re liable to miss a bit of conversation that is priceless. 

So, I’ll be in my chair tonight at 9pm, ready to see how this all ends.  Relatable characters?  Not in this show.  But it’s been addictive as hell, and I’ll miss it when it’s over. 

Will I ever write a lead character that's completely unlikable?  Not on a bet. 

P.S.  I just finished watching the finale.  It was the perfect last episode in so many ways for imperfect characters. It wasn't a happy ending. 

When the Bad Guys Win

  My wife and I have been binging on the Neflix series, Peaky Blinders and tonight we will be watching the last two episodes of the final season.  If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s a story of a gangster family, taking place right after WWI in 1919 and through tumultuous years into the 1930’s.  The name Peaky Blinders is from the gang sewing razor blades into the peaks of their hats so that they can be used as a cruel weapons. 

Much like the series the Sopranos and Breaking Bad, we’ve watched episode after episode quietly rooting for the bad guys…the antiheroes. Rooting for them, more or less. 

We’ve seen this particular family overcome incredible obstacles while using absolutely detestable methods.  But still, they hold on to a modicum of morality, at least when it comes to their own family. 

After watching the end of the last season, my wife asked, “How do you think this all will end?”

Good question.  Do we want the bad guys to win?  

Spoiler alert…if you haven’t seen Breaking Bad or the Sopranos, you may want to stop reading. 

At the end of Breaking Bad, the main protagonist, Walter White is gunned down.  True, he did so while heroically fighting a gang who had enslaved his protégé and was forcing him to manufacture methamphetamines.  He’s been doing that anyway before being captured, but he hadn’t been chained up in the lab.

So, Walter wins but he’s riddled with bullets.

Tony Soprano doesn’t go down in a blaze of glory like Walter White.  As a matter of fact, we don’t know what exactly happened to him because while Journey is playing “Don’t Stop Believin’” on the jukebox, he’s sitting in a diner with his family, and the scene goes black.

When I saw that, I thought at first my television had glitched out.

Best guess as to that ending, Tony never saw or heard his bullet.  

But when we read mysteries, I’m a firm believer we want a satisfying ending.  We want the good guys to win and justice to prevail.  Most of the mysteries, indeed, most of the books I’ve read have that kind of ending.  Not always an ending that screams, “Happily ever after”.  But enough where you can close the book and say, “They had it coming.”

Once in a while, I read a book where that’s not the case.  Two in the last year.  I won’t name them because I don’t want to spoil the ending if you haven’t read them.

One of these was a New York Times bestseller.  It got wonderful reviews and when I read it, it really was a page turner.  And then I got to the end.  The villain kills the good guy…and not only gets away with it, but is successful at stealing his work, becoming wildly rich and famous. 

Will I ever recommend the book?  I don't think so. 

In a second book, not a best seller but written by a highly respected author, the good guy is really relatable.  You love the guy.  He overcomes incredible odds. I loved the book until, once again, I got to the end.  The villain not only kills the good guy, but nobody ever knows what happens to him.  He vanishes, his body never found.  His loved will never know what happened to him. It was awful. 

I was left with a feeling of anger and annoyance. 

When asked about his ending, this particular author said, “There aren’t always happy endings.”  No worries.  I'm angry enough, I probably won't read another one of his books. 

If I want unhappy endings, I’ll read the newspaper or watch a cable news station.  That’s real life.

In the meantime, don’t tell me how Peaky Blinders ends, okay?   

Bad boys and bad girls...why do we like them so much?

Bad boys and bad girls…why do we like them so much?

During this time of quarantine, my wife and I are binging on shows we’ve found on both Hulu and Netflix.  We just finished season three of Ozark and we’re in the middle of season two of Killing Eve.

Both have antiheroes who are the lead characters.

In Ozark, the program focuses on a married couple who are laundering money for a drug cartel.  They started out as nearly normal in episode one of the first season, but as the program progresses, the fall deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.  In order to save their lives, they had to break the law.  But as the show unfolds, they’re clearly outstanding at what they do and, to a degree, are enjoying it.

In Killing Eve, the show is about an MI6 operative who is chasing down an international assassin.  While Eve, the operative, is interesting, it’s Villanelle, the killer, who is endlessly fascinating. Villanelle has a childish quality and is a charming psychopath.

Then again, so was Ted Bundy.

Tony Soprano from the HBO series The Sopranos. Walter White from Breaking Bad.  Don Draper from Mad Men.  All antiheroes.

A few literary antiheroes?  Jay Gatsby, Alex from A Clockwork Orange, Tom Ripley, Lestat de Lioncourt from Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles.

How about James Bond?  He’s an assassin with a license to kill, drinks heavily, likes to gamble, and is an incessant womanizer.


What about anti eroes draws us to them?  I think it’s their depth of character.  I’ve written that a protagonist can’t be too perfect or they’re deadly dull.  They have to have flaws to make them human.

For an anti hero those flaws are much more pronounced.  And in many cases, becoming an anti hero was the result of a noble cause.  Walter White in Breaking Bad learns he has terminal lung cancer and wants to leave a financial legacy for his family so he turns to cooking meth and selling it.  And he becomes damned good at it.  And through the course of the show, devolves more and more into a monster.

So, an antihero should be good at what they do.  Don Draper was an awesome ad guy.  Tony Soprano would do most anything for his family and he was adept at staying one step ahead of his enemies.

In all of their cases, they can rationalize their bad behavior because they think they’re doing it for a good reason.

And when I talked about depth of character it can also mean being colorful.  Of the two female lead characters in Killing Eve, the MI6 operative starts as a boring but likable protagonist.  As she chases her killer quarry, her behavior becomes more and more questionable and I’ve found that she's becoming more interesting. More like the assassin.

The second lead in that series, Villanelle, started as a colorful character and never lets up.  When she kills a target, it’s macabre theater.

In the end, we're fascinated with antiheroes because they’re damned entertaining.

Just as a side note, years ago I wrote a thriller where the lead character was an antihero.  He worked as a bartender in a strip club, was dating one of the strippers, and in his spare time he was a con artist. One of his cons gets him in trouble the Mob and he and his girlfriend have to go on the run.

I never found an agent for the book and it was never published.

However, the agent I’m working with now told me that she recalled reading the first fifty pages of the book when I'd submitted it to her.  Then she said that the reason her agency didn’t take it on was that she immediately didn’t like the lead character.

Writing anti heroes is a tricky business.  So, who is your favorite antihero?