5 Tips To Keep Readers Connected to Your Protagonist—Even When She Does Something Awful
A character doesn’t always have to do what’s right for us to like them. Here, author Rebecca Keller shares 5 tips for keeping readers connected to your protagonist.
In You Should Have Known, I leaned into the moral complications of a story about a good person who succumbs to their worst impulse. What prompts someone to stray from the straight and narrow?
Most writers are good observers. We transform the people and places we encounter in daily life, giving them new life as fictional characters and settings. When my mother entered an assisted living facility, it occurred to me that such a place would be an intriguing setting for a novel. The new residents were operating within a new social structure. They brought with them a lot of history but were obviously not planning on much of a future. In such a situation, I imagined complications if someone’s past could resurface with added importance, and the story of Frannie Greene—a good person drawn into doing something horrible—flickered into view.
But that kind of story comes with two inherent challenges: believability and likeability. If a writer successfully creates a likable character, how can that character remain convincing while doing something terrible? And having accomplished that, how to keep readers in the character’s corner, even as she is credibly portrayed as doing something awful?
The two questions are linked, because if we understand why someone is driven to do something we are more likely to forgive them. The following might help keep readers connected to the protagonist.
Justice Is on Their Side
One strategy is to frame the character’s actions as part of a pursuit of justice. Hollywood understands this well. Think of all the books made into movies in which the hero is seeking revenge on someone who harmed their family or friends: True Grit; The Equalizer; Cape Fear; Kill Bill—even Mean Girls. Sure, maybe the characters go too far, but their impulses are understandable—perhaps even noble. Their outrage at injustice drives the story.
In Frannie’s case, her actions are triggered by a family tragedy she blames on the target of her vengeance. And although she does not consciously plan anything (see below), her desire for retribution leaves her vulnerable to such an idea.
It Is a Momentary Lapse in an Otherwise Exemplary Life
Most of us have done something (big or small, consequential or not) that our friends would say was “out of character.” In retrospect, maybe we realize the idea had been taking shape for a while, even if we would not have acknowledged it—just as Frannie didn’t look too closely at the vague notions that were percolating in the back of her mind.
The challenge for the writer is essentially doing the same thing in the mind of the reader: laying down enough breadcrumbs that when the action occurs, the reader isn’t left in disbelief—and instead eagerly reads on to figure out what happened (and why). If the character is really alive on the page, the reader will allow them the all-too-human tendency to mess up without losing credibility.
They Think They Will Suffer No Consequences
Some of the most memorable baddies in fiction (I’m looking at you, Nurse Ratched) are never held accountable. But they are deeply unlikeable characters. Readers may be fascinated but repelled and unsympathetic.
However, the lesson can be applied to a sympathetic character as well. Feeling free from consequences makes it easier to transgress. An accountant in charge of a company’s finances may easily imagine they can embezzle funds without anyone realizing. Combine that with the first item on this list: a pursuit of justice (perhaps they are providing for a child the boss abandoned...) and we forgive them, or at least understand their actions. In You Should Have Known, Frannie convinces herself that she can avoid consequences for her acts of vengeance because no one will suspect an old woman.
The Goodness of the Character Is Verified in Multiple Ways
Fiction is replete with unreliable narrators, so readers need more than the character’s own assurances of their goodness. When we see the character through the eyes of others—in the case of our fictional accountant, protecting a child—we stay on their side. When Frannie defends the staff, laughs with her daughter, or helps fellow residents, we find verification within the world of the novel that she is someone with whom we can sympathize, despite her sins.
Finally: Redemption, or at Least Remorse
If readers are to continue to empathize with the protagonist, there probably needs to be an aspect of remorse or redemption in their story. This is true even in an extreme case like The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo, in which the main character is an assassin for hire—surely not the most promising career for a sympathetic protagonist. But by the end we root for her despite her crimes, as she risks her own life to protect someone who was kind to her. In You Should Have Known, Frannie is overwhelmed with remorse, and in an effort to redeem herself, she uncovers a crime no one suspected.
Rebecca Keller is the author of You Should Have Known (April 4, 2023; Crooked Lane Books). She is also an internationally exhibited visual artist, a college professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Fulbright Scholar, and a recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. You can visit her online at rebeccakeller.com.
