Are your characters ever too damaged?

Aren't we allowed damaged characters in stories? Seems kind of strange feedback. I don't think that editor would have liked Trainspotting very much. Was there more to the feedback than that? Maybe your story wasn't suitable for that publisher.

I understand that comment, but then I don't like reading a book where everyone is damaged and the book ends hopelessly. I always ask 'What's the point?' It seems like books like that are too in love with their darkness and bleakness.

Are they striving to achieve anything? Do they change by the end and accomplish something they set out to do? Is there something I can root for?

I absolutely think there is a point when the characters are too damaged and the odds are so bad it feels ridiculous.

As a reader I don't like anything that comes off as taken straight from the Book of Job where the slings against the characters are relentless.

Also, if every character is damaged, it does seem a bit too much. Granted, in life people with similar experiences and so on tend to attract - birds of a feather and all that - but in fiction I think it's good to strive for a bit more balance.

Why not? I don't see why it won't work...

A group of men/women in a prison.
People talking in a group therapy session.
A dysfunctional family trying to hang on.
Members at an AA meeting finally opening up.
Some friends meeting over coffee at a diner after attending another friend's funeral.
A female cop who was abused as a child interviewing an abused child.

I mean, this causes interest and tension - isn't that what we want in a short story? Well, some of us do.

I think damaged is fine, as long as there's hope, and as long as there's effort to get better. Damaged characters who wallow in misery probably won't work.

I've never really though about my characters in that light, but I'd have to say that while a number of my characters come from what might be thought of as "damaged" families, and may have "damaged" backgrounds, none are dysfunctional. There's just normal people facing some serious problem.

I guess I'd ask what your story is about? I don't believe in a situation with no hope, and I don't believe in being stuck in a particular lifestyle or situation. Too many work themselves out of even the worst situation. I have no time for people who don't make every effort to better themselves. Even if they fail, they have to try.

To me, "low-life" means someone who's no good, who may be a thief, a liar, and worse. Unless there's redemption, then, no, I can't relate to such characters.

You make characters relatable by having them do whatever readers believe they might do in the same situation. This means knowing how readers think about themselves. It means knowing how you think about yourself. Hoiw would you behave, if you were in the same situation as a character, and what, if anything, would you do to try to better yourself?

But, again, what is you story about? What's the plot?

Different readers have different preferences, and different tolerances, so it isn't possible to say definitively that a bunch of damaged characters will put everyone off. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, anyone?

You probably need to wonder if the person giving you feedback is your reader, ie the person you imagine buying and reading your book, or just a random helpful person.

Personally I don't much enjoy reading about criminal characters, but they are generally popular with many other readers. Altho of course I do write about criminal characters sometimes, but they tend to be involved in survival crime.

Think of satire as something that's generally directed at authority of some sort - whether people, social mores (including hypocrisy), cultural institutions etc. - with a goal of undermining it or deflating their power in some way.

IMO nobody these days does it better than Stephen Colbert. Johnathan Swift and Kurt Vonnegut were brilliant for it too. If you haven't read Gulliver's Travels past the age of ten, I recommend it - he takes on lawyers, academics, you name it. Though ridicule can be a part of it, keep in mind satire doesn't always have to be all that funny so long as the anger is there and the writer goes for the proverbial jugular. Keep in mind what Wilde once said though - if you want to tell the truth make people laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you.

I prefer a mix in my writing. Having some of each lets me play up the contrast in exciting ways.

As for your piece though, the real key is whether anyone else agrees with the critique in question. Not every story is for everyone, but if more than one person gives you the same feedback, it's something you need to address.

I'd be willing to workshop it for you. I've got one I need some thoughts on, too.

"Do you guys think it is harder for readers to relate to damaged characters?" I don't think how relatable a character is and their amount of damage are necessarily connected. There can be an undamaged character you can't relate to at all. You can relate to anything. You can relate to a cookie if that's how the story is.

"How do I make these characters more likable and relatable?" Hmmm… why aren't they likeable? Perhaps they need a bit of tweaking. Just speculating, I remember what got me to love this one character was when I found out she had an innocent appreciation for something (like humour, dance) -- a little niche that makes them happy. … That can't be the answer to everything. But maybe it will help a little! Ah, now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I think you have a relatable, likeable character when the reader has a few positive things in common with the character (just a few, so the people are all compelling in their own ways), regardless of damage. I think that's possible with mostly anyone, actually.

Good luck!! You will find a way!

Yeah I prefer damaged characters, but I just know when I read a story that starts with a character contemplating suicide, that they'll be a lot of whiny reviews on Amazon about how they didn't like that.

I do write happy endings, but I like some real genuine pain to be in there somewhere.'

The important thing is that there is character growth, and there has to be SOME hope of some sort however small.

I think that like any other element of your story, the personalities and backgrounds of the characters needs to have a purpose. Either those "damaged" qualities drive and enrich the story, or at the very least define the characters in such a way that makes them who they are so they fit with the story.

If you just wanted to have a screwed up character, but it doesn't work in, then the damage will seem out of place. Look at each character and their damage and ask "does this character perform the same function in the story if they weren't beaten senseless as a child?"

Certainly, the cast of broken bodies is workable. Mark Chadbourn's series "Age of Misrule" has six characters that could all be spokes-characters for "Literary Anti-Psychotic Meds". Seriously, these people are screwed up and the events of the story don't help.

Personally I like damaged characters. I like to read them, and I like to write them. Hope or humor, something has to offer lighter moments, but I don't need a happy ending. I think I'm in the minority but as evidenced by the successful novels above, I'm not alone.

That said, I think the more damaged characters are a harder sell. Then again, maybe my writing just sucks and that's just something I tell myself.

In my story, everyone is in a bad place with little to no hope of things being any different.

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Without more detail it's hard to say where the difficulty is but this statement sure looks like part of it. If all of your characters are not only in horrible circumstances but they also have no hope of improvement then how can they have a character arc?

Now, I'm one of those people who doesn't have to like or relate to a character to want to know what happens to them. All a writer has to make me do is care about the character. For me, caring comes through understanding. I have to see a whole person on the page. The way I see whole people happens when their actions and thoughts to grow organically from their pasts and their present circumstances.

As posters above wrote, characters have to have something that they're striving to achieve. They have to start one place and end another or there's no story.

I also agree with posters who say that there is always some bit of hope, no matter how small. That hope is what drives people to change. If they don't change then they have to consciously reject the option but the choice must still be there.

Here's the important thing I have to add. It was a piece of advice I got from an acting professor of all people but it works for writing too.

Find the love.

Love is perhaps the most powerful motivator. It could be love of another or love of self or love of an ideal but at the root of so much of what we do there is love.

For me, it's not enough to make sure my characters love. I have to love them as well. When I love them, I see them as real people and when I engage with them it makes it easier for me to present them in a way that they can engage others.

LittlePinto said:

Find the love.

Love is perhaps the most powerful motivator. It could be love of another or love of self or love of an ideal but at the root of so much of what we do there is love.

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This, right here, is excellent advice. Just about every character should be influenced by love on some level. Whether it's something they love, something they used to love, or even something they want to love.

And, since we're talking about damaged characters (which, incidentally, I greatly enjoy)...love can also lead to some very, very powerful hate.

I don't think anyone would say damaged characters are bad, but there is too much of a good thing. Or too much of a damaged thing. What happens to these characters matter, how the story ends matters, whether there's hope matters.

gingerwoman said:

Yeah I prefer damaged characters, but I just know when I read a story that starts with a character contemplating suicide, that they'll be a lot of whiny reviews on Amazon about how they didn't like that.

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Other readers are not whiny because they don't share your taste in stories that begin like that.

My first thought when I read a story that begins with a character contemplating suicide is, "Get on with it. I have better things to do than care about your miserable existence."

I'll still give the story a chance, if the writer is good enough, but the character better find a reason to live real soon, or I'm out of there, wishing I had a way to hand such a character a loaded gun.

I personally find characters who are hot messes in various ways to be much more interesting and compelling than people who are highly functional across the board. Personal dysfunction can become yet another obstacle to overcome. I like stories where not all the obstacles to success are external, in other words.

And who in the heck doesn't have (or hasn't had) issues at some point or another in their life? It can be darned comforting to see people with serious problems overcoming adversity and to see evidence that we ourselves are not alone.

There are some people who don't like them, but from what I've seen, even in genre fantasy (which has been accused of having more than its fair share of overpowered, wish fulfillment characters), flawed characters, and characters with lots of emotional baggage, abound.

I think something that can make a character lose sympathy, however, is if they are not functioning as well as they reasonably can be at a given time and place. If a character makes poor choices because he or she lacks information, or has problem that logically leads them to screw up, then it usually works fine. But if they come off as too stupid to live, or are making mistakes that seem out of character, or not learning at all from their mistakes (unless that's the flaw you're illustrating), or if they are overcome with paralysis for too long, then some readers will likely disengage from them.

Another thing that can be frustrating is if the character is static. If he or she doesn't overcome at least some of their problems, or find a better way of coping with them, by story's end, it can frustrate some readers. Though I can think of at least one fantasy series where the very flawed characters don't really grow or change at all (they seem like they are for a bit, but then they don't), and yet it worked somehow.

The main thing is to make your characters the people they need to be for the story you are trying to tell. Not everyone will like your approach, but if your write well and from the heart, some likely will.

Some books (just off the top of my head) that have done well with very damaged characters:

Trainspotting
The Hotel New Hampshire (and most anything else by John Irving)
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Almost anything by Joe Abercrombie
A Song of Ice and Fire series by GRRM
The Color Purple (and its sequels) by Alice Walker
Many of CJ Cherryh's SF books
The Farseer and Fool books by Robin Hobb (plus others by this author too)

This thread is interesting to me. I'm writing some very damaged/marginalized characters right now. So long as the characters have some kind of relatable traits, readers will be ok with some pretty horrific behavior (Just look at the popularity of the show "Breaking Bad").

The reader may also be looking for redemption in an otherwise despicable character. Of course, the character needs to die shortly after receiving redemption.

Unlikeable characters doing terrible things aren't enough to hold the interest of the reader for long.

gettingby said:

I recently got feedback on one of my stories that all of my characters are extremely damaged people.

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That's not the problem.

In my story, everyone is in a bad place with little to no hope of things being any different. How do I make these characters more likable and relatable?

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This is the problem. If the reader knows from the first page that the last page will leave the characters just as miserable or worse, there's little incentive to spend time watching sad people lead futile lives.

Someone once said that tragedy is the most optimistic literary form, because to be successful, you must feel that there was a chance that things could have been different. If the story doesn't give that option, it's not tragedy, it's misery. Most people have enough of their own not to want to waste emotional capital on imaginary people's insoluble problems.

Twick said:

That's not the problem.



This is the problem. If the reader knows from the first page that the last page will leave the characters just as miserable or worse, there's little incentive to spend time watching sad people lead futile lives.

Someone once said that tragedy is the most optimistic literary form, because to be successful, you must feel that there was a chance that things could have been different. If the story doesn't give that option, it's not tragedy, it's misery. Most people have enough of their own not to want to waste emotional capital on imaginary people's insoluble problems.

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This reminds me of something one off my professors said. "If you want to slap the snot out of the protagonist at the beginning of the story, that's fine. If you still want to slap the snot out of the protagonist at the end of the story, you have a serious problem."

gingerwoman said:

Yeah I prefer damaged characters, but I just know when I read a story that starts with a character contemplating suicide, that they'll be a lot of whiny reviews on Amazon about how they didn't like that.

I do write happy endings, but I like some real genuine pain to be in there somewhere.'

The important thing is that there is character growth, and there has to be SOME hope of some sort however small.

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I agree. Conflict resolution is something I look for in every story, no matter how bleak.

"Crime and Punishment" had a great ending that made all the pain and suffering worth while. You got the sense that the MC and his fiance had come to terms with what had happened and were going to make a good life in spite of it all, even in Czarist Russia.

Pain and struggle make triumph genuine and more believable. How would "Return of the Jedi" have fared if Luke and company weren't dragged across the coals in the previous film? The desperate evacuation from Hoth. Han and Leah running for their lives from the Empire. Luke alone on an alien planet, fighting against his youthful rage while trying to master ancient magic that requires discipline beyond his years...only to lose his hand in a duel with his own father.

For me, I look for the moment of enlightenment, when a character realizes that they would not be who they are if not for their circumstances (and they accept this).

Taylor Harbin said:

I agree. Conflict resolution is something I look for in every story, no matter how bleak.

"Crime and Punishment" had a great ending that made all the pain and suffering worth while. You got the sense that the MC and his fiance had come to terms with what had happened and were going to make a good life in spite of it all, even in Czarist Russia.

Pain and struggle make triumph genuine and more believable. How would "Return of the Jedi" have fared if Luke and company weren't dragged across the coals in the previous film? The desperate evacuation from Hoth. Han and Leah running for their lives from the Empire. Luke alone on an alien planet, fighting against his youthful rage while trying to master ancient magic that requires discipline beyond his years...only to lose his hand in a duel with his own father.

For me, I look for the moment of enlightenment, when a character realizes that they would not be who they are if not for their circumstances (and they accept this).

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What does any of that have to do with "damaged"? Pretty much all readers expect this kind of thing in every story that has any adventure in it, but it really has nothing to do with characters being too damaged.

And Star Wars, of course, had a pretty happy ending, though no one will let it live in peace. But when the last episode finally is made, I guarantee a happy ending.

Some of mine are so 'damaged' I wouldn't attempt candy coating them for this particular venue of conversation. Of course the majority of my characters are actually people I know/knew in real life.