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We continue our chat with Josh Flanagan. Josh tells us about National Novel Writing Month, Alex and I counter with The 24 Hour Comic, and then we go on to offer our opinions of Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Simple Rules For Writing A Good Story. Comments Welcome!
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Alex Robinson lives in New York City with his wife, a cat, and a dog. His books include Box Office Poison, Tricked and his latest book Too Cool to Be Forgotten, all of which are available from Top Shelf Productions. He has won and lost several industry awards. 
Mike Dawson lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. His books include the epic graphic-memoir Freddie & Me, the action-packed book of short stories Ace-Face: The Mod With the Metal Arms, and the forthcoming Troop 142. 
Hey listening to the podcast (it’s awesome) and I wanted to chime in: I’m taking a sequential art class and one aspect about character complexity is that the only real thing a character needs is strong will & desire to interest the audience. It doesn’t necessarily matter if we like them or not, i.e. the Parker novels, or Johnny Clay’s character in “The Killing.” That’s just what I’ve been taught.
I think we are definitely in agreement about how it shouldn’t matter if the characters are “likeable”. Some people don’t agree. I’ve seen on amazon.com, people leaving bad reviews for books because the characters were jerks. That’s not right. I should leave a bad review of their reviews, because *they’re* jerks!
That’s an interesting take on what characters “want”. I should have my characters enter the panel and announce that they have a desire to interest the audience. My next book is sure to be a hit!
Haha my bad, I phrased that poorly. I meant in order to interest the audience, a protagonist should have a strong want/desire, but I guess that’s a given. I’m relatively new to this! :p
Oh no, wait – I wasn’t trying to pick on your comment! I was referring to something I said in the show, when I was trying to figure out how to make my book the best it can be – I would have each character appear for the first time and declare what they wanted. And then Josh jokes that most of them want a glass of water.
Now I feel terrible, like I came off like a jerk in my reply. No wonder nobody ever comments on this blog!
I still think it’s very difficult to pull off a novel in which none of the characters are likable or at least sympathetic to some degree. I think it can work in a movie, where you’re only asking for two hours of the audience’s time, but a novel takes a lot longer to read, so there has be some reason for people to want to keep picking it up and carrying on.
How about this, Mike: can you think of a novel (or TV series) which has managed to pull off the trick of having no likable characters that you’ve completed?
Hm – I don’t think I ever really said that I disagreed with the point that some characters have to be likeable. I said in the podcast that it’s something I have trouble with – and I do. But, maybe that’s why some of my comics aren’t very popular.
I’ve heard a couple of times now that my Jack & Max Escape From The End of Time story suffers from a lack of any likeable characters. If there’s nobody for the reader to identify with, they might not really care what happens to these people.
But, now that you’ve challenged me, THE YOUNG ONES comes to mind as a show that features no likeable characters. The closest they have to a likeable character is Neil, and that’s just because he’s so hapless and pathetic, you feel bad for him.
Sorry if I misinterpreted what you meant. I guess I took you “I think we are definitely in agreement about how it shouldn’t matter if the characters are ‘likeable’” to mean you didn’t think it was important to have characters who were likable.
THE YOUNG ONES is good one. I think the Brits are a lot more tolerant of very flawed or downright obnoxious characters in their comedies than Americans are. My theory is that is has something to do with the difference between a fallen empire (the UK) and a current one (the US).
I read a novel called KILL YOUR FRIENDS which was a thinly veiled autobiographical satirical novel about an exectutive for a music company and the main character was such a complete prick that it made it a hard read. The book was just relentlessly bleak! I did finish it though. Relatedly, perhaps, was that the author was British.
I can’t tell if I’m making myself clear (this is the worst comments thread ever!!), but here’s my official opinion on the importance of likelable characters:
1) I think you can have unlikeable characters and still have a story that works. We talk plenty in the show about Mad Men, Sopranos, etc.
2) It does seem to help if the unlikeable character in question is good at his/her job. Don Draper cheats on his family and leads his brother to suicide, but he is AWESOME at coming up with ad campaigns.
3) A story where EVERY character is unlikeable sounds like it wouldn’t happen that much. But, according to Kurt’s 8 Simple Rules, you only need 1 to bring the readers along with you.
4) All examples of stories where EVERY character is an unlikeable sniveling creep and/or bully (not good at their jobs) comes from The Island Of Self-Hatred, Great Britain.
5) Now that I think about it, maybe the “good at their jobs” thing is an American trait. This is the land of The Rugged Individual, after-all. Perhaps we don’t care that such-and-such character shot up a bank, because he is AWESOME at riding horses and taming The Wild West.
I think the reason good-at-your-job can translate into likability is that it indicates some degree of confidence, which is always an appealing quality. I don’t agree with your claim that Tony Soprano and Don Draper are unlikable, actually. I think they’re flawed but you’re still on their side (if you compare Tony Soprano to, say, Johnny Sack Tony is clearly more likable, even if they’re morally instinguishable).
I don’t think the good-at-your-job thing is exclusively American, as James Bond and other British heroes have proven, but maybe it stems from the British being somewhat uptight/modest about showing off. The idea of America has been (in theory) that one can rise as high as one’s talent will get you, whereas the class system of the UK might be a natural damper on ambition.
Coincidentally, I first heard the “make the character good at their job and the audience will like them” rule from Alfred Hitchcock–born in England, but made his fame in Hollywood. I don’t know what that means.