Unlikeable vs. Insufferable, and how to spot the difference

(it’s the interiority, stupid*)

*Don’t worry, I’m talking to myself.

A while back I wrote about unlikable characters, how leaning into someone’s bad side gives us opportunities to make her entertaining, even lovable. But, as I was binging new seasons of the Housewives over the holidays, I realized I left out a major component of this conversation—vulnerability.

Here’s what I realized.

Characters can be as unlikable as they want as long as they are vulnerable. And in order to be vulnerable they have to be truthful. Not necessarily with the people in their lives (they can lie to other characters all they want) but with us, with the reader.

In order for us to cheer on an “unlikable” character, we must understand why he or she is acting that way. What happened to them? What is their misbelief (or shard of glass, if that’s your thing)? What are they covering up? What or whom are they protecting? Why?

We need to understand their psychology. And this is what we are talking about when we are talking about interiority.

Case in point. I hated Dorit on the RHOBH last season. I found her insufferable— materialistic, smug, pretentious, defensive, tone-deaf. This year, she is still all those things, but something has shifted in the way I see her. I know things now that I didn’t last year: Her husband wants a divorce; her best friend is turning on her; she is struggling to hold her world together for herself and her kids. Instead of watching her only care about jewelry and clothing and the way people see her—instead of trying to appear perfect—Dorit is riding around Encino in her G Wagon, smoking Marlboros like a teenager in the 90s. She’s flipping off the cameras and calling people see you next tuesdays. She’s still a pain in the ass, don’t get me wrong. She still talks too much and doesn’t listen enough. She still wears a mask with the people around her, and she can be tedious and absurd, but she is no longer insufferable to me because I understand that she is coping with something hard.

Letting her audience see her imperfections, her vulnerability, changes everything. It makes her worth watching. (This is, imho, why Rinna was fired. She did a great villain, but she never gave us more. She was all deflection. She never let us in.)

So, how can you determine whether your character is unlikable or insufferable?

Start with their flaws, and ask yourself why.

Is your MC materialistic like Dorit? Maybe she exclusively wears labels because she grew up wanting, and now she believes she isn’t good enough without them. Maybe she feels like she’s going to war, and her absurd car is a kind of armored vehicle.

Is she defensive? Maybe she is constantly fighting with her spouse and it has left her feeling like everyone is attacking her.

Is she smug and pretentious? Maybe she’s been told she’s wrong about so many things so many times that she can’t help trying to prove how much she actually knows.

Then ask yourself if your reader has this information.

I.e., is your character’s psychology actually in the book? Or is it only in your head? This was a problem I didn’t know I had for years. I would write a character—a complicated character with messy emotions who sometimes made bad choices, like we all do—and I would hear a lot of “I can’t connect with this protagonist.” What was I doing wrong?

I was glossing over (or omitting) the reason my character made the bad choices she did, said or thought the mean things she did. It took me a long time to realize that the reader is not actually in my head.

This doesn’t mean you need to talk down to your reader or over-explain backstory. On the contrary, interiority is like salt—a taste of it should be in every bite. Between bits of dialogue. A glimpse of a memory while your character is doing something else. A gesture. A thought. A fear. A defiant cigarette in the car while the world finds out your husband is living in a hotel.

I promise we’ll be here for it.

Btw, friends, I partnered with the cool new indie bookshop Tertulia to offer my readers a 25% discount on preorders of Tell Them You Lied this month! Use code LIED until Feb 1. They offer insane membership deals too, so if you buy a lot of books online, this is a good way to go—and you can pre-order TTYL for 50% off & free shipping!

Happy shopping :)