Unlikable Characters? Here’s How to Make Your Audience Care

Not every character is likable—but unlikable doesn’t have to mean forgettable. Zena Del Lowe shares strategies to make unlikable characters sympathetic or intriguing, keeping audiences hooked. Perfect for novelists, screenwriters, and all storytellers.

📌 Resources & Links:

• Free training: 7 Crucial Plot Points — https://www.thestorytellersmission.com/story-structure-made-easy
• Follow Zena Dell Lowe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FuQeOePj4c8 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Another question that I got, it has to do with this concept of likable versus sympathetic. Generally speaking, likable characters are sympathetic. That's part of what makes them likable, is that we sympathize with them. I am talking about it in a separate way. I'm saying specifically if you have a character who is not likable. You have to have a way to make the audience bond with that character. 

[00:00:28] hello and welcome to the Storytellers Mission with Zena Debo, A podcast for artists and storytellers about changing the world for the better Through story.

[00:00:38] I've basically said the number one job of you as a writer is to create an emotional bond between you and the reader.

[00:00:45] Right. That's the key because if we don't care about the character, we're not gonna care about the plot. We're not going to care about how exciting the action is. We have to care about the character to be sucked into the story. And what I've argued is that there are three primary ways to create that emotional bond, but what I have found is it's caused some confusion. And the reason it's caused some confusion is because people are like, well, wait a minute, aren't likable characters sympathetic? And I'm using them as separate terms, so.

[00:01:17] I just wanted to clarify this for a second and say, yes. Generally speaking, likable characters are sympathetic. That's part of what makes them likable, is that we sympathize with them. I am talking about it in a separate way. I'm saying specifically if you have a character who is not likable. You have to have a way to make the audience bond with that character.

[00:01:41] And the way to do that is to make that character sympathetic. So they might not be likable at all. They might be abrasive, they might be me. They might be annoying. They might be one of those characters that just. Gets under your skin, and yet if we can still understand them, if you can tap into the shared humanity that causes us to feel compassion towards that character, you can still create the emotional bond, which will allow the audience to invest in their journey.

[00:02:14] And here's why this is important, because if the audience doesn't care, then they're not going to stick around. It's as simple as that. They're not gonna finish your book. They're not gonna finish the movie. I mean, they're not gonna finish the TV series.

[00:02:28] I can't tell you the number of times that I have. Stopped watching a TV series in particular 'cause they don't like the characters or, but it's happened with books too. Like when I read the Poisonwood Bible, brilliantly written, really? Barbara Kings, silver Kings, something like that. I think. I forget her name.

[00:02:47] She wrote it. The Poisonwood Bible. Super well written. I didn't care. About a single character. I hated them. so here's the thing. It's okay if I hate them, if I am compassionate towards them, but I didn't have compassion for 'em either, and therefore I couldn't stick around.

[00:03:05] You. Contrast this with. Ozark. I'm here to tell you the characters in Ozark are not likable. These are morally bankrupt characters. They are bad people. The husband and wife played by Jason, whatever his name is, and Laura Lenny, Jason Bateman, and Laura Lenny. They're bad. They are morally bankrupt. He's a person who is.

[00:03:29] Laundering money for the cartel. They're not good people, so they're not likable. But you do have empathy for how they were deceived by what was being offered to them, and then they got trapped and now they're stuck and they can't get out. Of course, they keep getting worse over the course of the telling, and they keep getting darker and darker to the point where they can no longer say, we're the victims here.

[00:03:52] In fact, they're the predators who are wiping out other people and they're just as bad as the cartel. That is their journey into darkness. But I'm willing to go through the journey of darkness because of the initial empathy, the fact that I can understand as a human being, how you would be deceived, how it would sound.

[00:04:11] So exciting and almost seem innocuous and almost be like, can I get away with this? Like, I'm so smart. Like it plays on your pride. I get that. I could empathize with that. And then the feelings of being trapped and not knowing how to get out and you're gonna die any minute and you've gotta save your family.

[00:04:27] You've got these kids now to protect and you're stuck. How? What are you going to do? It created enough empathy for me that even though they were not likable characters, I watched all of the. Seasons now. I almost stopped by the end of season one. I almost stopped watching it for this very reason. I was like, I don't know if they're empathetic enough for me to keep going, but everybody I talked to said, oh, you ought keep going.

[00:04:51] It gets better and better. So I did because I'm in the industry and I wanna know what everybody is watching so that I can speak on it with authority. And it was true, but it was a dissent into darkness. So all that to say, I am using these terms separately. Yes. If you are writing a likable character, you are almost always going to also make them sympathetic.

[00:05:12] I'm talking about using sympathy as a separate tool. If you have a character who is not likable, how do you create the emotional bond between the audience and your character? You cause them to have. Sympathy with that character. And you do that by showing their vulnerabilities, their flaws. I mean, usually the more flawed they are, the more broken they are, the more sympathetic they are.

[00:05:38] As long as we understand where those flaws are coming from. If they're just a great a jerk, there's nothing sympathetic. But if they're a grade a jerk because they're afraid or they're compensating like Schmidt in about Schmidt. I can have sympathy and I can be invested in his journey. Does that distinction help?

[00:05:57] Does that make sense? Okay. Nobody's saying it doesn't, so I'm going to assume that it does Now I think it makes sense. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I may, I think it makes sense and. It seems to be, I mean, parallel to do what you were saying in the storytellers storytellers class about differences in genre between thriller and drama and other kinds, they're evoking a different emotion.

[00:06:19] These characters evoke a different emotion. One seems like the likable character evokes more like happiness, joy, maybe. You know, they, you like the character, they're, they bring you joy. Whereas the sympathetic character invokes more compassion and perhaps the intriguing character invokes more curiosity and perhaps even horror, that they're intriguing.

[00:06:35] So you wanna keep following the story. That's great. It's a very good connection, Steven. And you're absolutely right. And I would just tweak it slightly to say this,

[00:06:43] however, before we get there, did you know that there are seven crucial plot points that every story must hit in order to satisfy the audience?

[00:06:52] And if you miss even one of those crucial plot points, you risk losing your audience's attention forever. This is why I've created a free training video for you where I break down exactly what these seven deadly plot points are. These are the essential plot moments that you need to hit in order to deliver a powerful, compelling page turning story.

[00:07:16] So. Be sure to check out my free training video on the seven Deadly plot points. It's going to transform your writing. Just click on the link provided in the notes, or head over to the storytellers mission.com and you can start watching this free training video right away.

[00:07:31] A likable character is one that you enjoy, so it's not just that they bring joy, it's you actually enjoy them, you delight in them.

[00:07:40] They're fun for you. You love 'em. A sympathetic character is somebody you feel for whatever that those feelings are. You feel for them. Ugh. You ache for them. You hurt for them. Now the last one speaks to the other point that Steven made, which was, I had said in the course, there's actually three ways to create the bond because sometimes you have a character who is not likable.

[00:08:03] Who also isn't sympathetic, but they are intriguing. They're fascinating to us, like a train wreck and we cannot look away. Usually that's the horror element. We're horrified by it, but it's the train wreck ification, right? Like we just can't look away. And I always use. The talent, Mr. Ripley, as an example of how that happens?

[00:08:25] I mean, he's a horrible, horrible human being. Dexter, I think Dexter is a good example. Some people would say Dexter is sympathetic, but I think they have a poor worldview. 'cause Dexter shouldn't be sympathetic. Dexter is a serial killer. He just happens to kill other serial killers, sir. Bad guys, but he's not a good person.

[00:08:42] So I don't think we should have true sympathy or compassion for him. But he is intriguing. We are fascinated by him, and that is one way to create the bond. The point is you must create that bond, and there's three ways to do that. Probably 99% of the time we are trying to create a likable character, a character that audiences enjoy.

[00:09:04] They just like him. But once in a while we have a character that is not likable. And is not sympathetic. And then they're either, well, they're intriguing if that's the case, or they're not likable. And they're sympathetic. Alright. I hope that helps. Yes, Leslie, if you have several characters, one main character, but several, like you don't want them all to be equally like, I mean, it's interesting when you say O Ozark, they were all equally, you know, not, well, not sympathetic, but not likable.

[00:09:32] Is it good to mix it up? I mean, often you're gonna mix it up again, right? Okay. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, what I would say. Say in Ozark, actually, Jason Bateman's character was sympathetic. Laura Linneys wasn't, she was not likable and she was not sympathetic. We actually hated her, but she was intriguing.

[00:09:48] And then the son, I would say he was sympathetic, maybe even likable or maybe Jason Bateman's character was likable. I, it, it's, it gets tricky in some ways, but yes, so like in, you know, Hannibal Lecter, for example, in Silence of the Lambs. I would say that we, like Jodi Foster's character, but we are intrigued by Hannibal Lecter.

[00:10:09] And so when you have multiple characters, primarily I'm talking about your main character, but I know in novels you have multiple protagonists, so each one of those protagonists has to have something you don't want people to read. About that particular protagonist and check out for that portion of the book.

[00:10:25] And the way that you avoid that is by making sure they're emotionally invested in their story in one of those three ways. And yes, if they're all equally likable, then maybe your story just doesn't have much depth. And so you might need to switch that up. But on the other hand. Maybe they just have different levels of complexity.

[00:10:43] For example, in my novel, the Bottomless Box, I think that primarily my characters are likable. I mean, they're all really likable, but they're likable for different reasons and in different ways. You know, Wilbur is just such a sweet, innocent, and you just, I mean, I think he's so great. You just love him. He is so sweet and good and you just love him.

[00:11:09] Whereas Percy is not sweet and is not. But he's noble in his own way and he's trying to do right by will, but he's also really hurt and wounded and he has more sympathy part of it. So, but they're all likable. Like nobody's just a jerk, you know? Well, except for the, the bad guys, but I'm talking about the main characters.

[00:11:29] So anyway, if they are all likable, I would say you wanna play with variation of how you got them to be likable. Beth, I don't know if you saw the,miniseries, the perfect couple with Nicole Kidman, I guess my questioner can the characters change because.

[00:11:47] In that she starts out and she's probably more the intriguing person. and by the end she's almost likable.

[00:11:55] is that just complexity? Does the character stay the same or we're talking about two different things? Two different things. So when I talk about likable, intriguing, sympathetic, I'm talking about the hook at the beginning of the story.

[00:12:12] Where does your character start? What is the hook that draws the reader into this? Story and keeps them hooked so that they'll go on the journey, but the journey implies that they're going to change over the course of the story. So yes, of course they should and can change, and the best characters do. You know, Rick Blaine in Casablanca.

[00:12:36] I mean, I think we like him because it's Rick Blaine and if we've seen it, we love him by the end of it. But the truth is he's kind of a jerk at the beginning, and yet he has these characteristics and you know, by the end we just, we adore him. And there's other characters like that. Where, about Schmidt, you know, or what is it?

[00:12:54] As good as it gets? Also, Jack Nicholson, you know, he starts out very, very unlikeable. He's a hateful person and. Yet we immediately play on the sympathy after he's been insulting his neighbor and just is so politically incorrect. You know, he's a homophobe, he's a sexist, he's a, he puts a dog down the garbage chute, all these horrible things.

[00:13:17] He's racist. I mean, he just shows he is a bad neighbor, and yet he immediately goes into his apartment and goes. Flick, flick, flick, flick, flick, you know, with the light switch and then goes in the bathroom, has to wash his hands five times, has to, I mean, he's clearly got a severe, debilitating case of OCD.

[00:13:34] So they hooked us into his story with the sympathy so that we would be invested in his journey. But that journey means we want to see him change and grow over the course of it. So what I'm talking about is just what. Happens at the beginning of the story. What tool are you using to hook your audience into your character's journey?

[00:13:53] Then the arc is the growth is the change. They should change. A good story doesn't take your character and leave them the same at the end. I mean, usually there are stories that do very seldom. So all this to say, you want to have your character grow and change for the most part. Elf is an example of a character who does not grow and change.

[00:14:16] He's the same at the beginning of the film and at the end, but he becomes the catalyst of change for everyone around him so people don't stay the same in that movie, he changes his dad, he changes his stepmom, changes his brother, you know, he changes the girl, you know, he brings Christmas spirit. He even changes the elfs and Santa.

[00:14:39] He changes. Santa. He changes everybody. Even all the guys that work in the mail room, he's a delightful character who doesn't change, and that's the point because he's so full of Christmas spirit and so he impacts everybody else. There are a few stories like that and they work. But for the most part, your character is going to change and we're going to see different sides of them as they go.

[00:15:02] They should become more sympathetic as we go, especially if they start out being intriguing. It should evoke more compassion as we go. Even villains can have that, even Thanos. For crying out loud in the Marvel cinematic universe. You know, Thanos sacrificed the only person that he loved, and we loved Gamora, so it hurt us there.

[00:15:22] But also there was a part of us that we're like, okay, we kind of get it. Like he really thinks he's doing the right thing here. And we hear more and more about Thanos backstory that justifies why he's doing what he's doing and getting rid of half the people in the universe because of the limited resources.

[00:15:40] So yes, good characters become more sympathetic usually, but they definitely grow and change. Although again, they don't have to be, become more sympathetic. Like I said, in Ozark, they get worse. You know, by the end of it, they're evil, pure, and simple. The whole family becomes Don Corleone in Walter White. He starts out sympathetic.

[00:15:59] He ends intriguing, you know, he's, and he gets his just dessert, you know? But we're in it. We're in it for the journey in his downhill spiral. So we damn him, but we redeem the audience. Thank you for listening to the Storyteller's Mission with Zena Del Lo. May you go forth. To change the world for the better through.