HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It's one of the buzziest topics in publishing--do readers need to LIKE a main character? I vote a big no. I think they simply have to be interested in them, and compelled to find out what happens to them. For better or for worse.
There are endless readers who disagree."I just didn't fall in love with her/him," they'll say about someone's book. Or "I had no one to root for." And yes, I so agree, that's fun! And a joy to be on the book-train with a character you adore.
BAD GIRLS
When I sat down to write my
latest book, I could tell you an awful lot about Jo Greaver, the suspect at the
center of the case. She was being blackmailed by someone she didn’t know. She’d
grown up poor, and she’d fled Kentucky after her mother died, arriving in New
York at fourteen. She’d been trafficked by someone she trusted, and the
photographic and video evidence of that terrible time was bubbling up years
later, threatening the good life Jo had managed to build for herself.
What I didn’t realize—until after I’d finished writing the
first draft of Don’t Look Down—was
that I’d written an unlikeable female character. I didn’t see it for myself,
either; someone else pointed it out to me. “She’s pretty bad,” an early reader
said of Jo.
“You think she’s badass?” I asked, mistaking the comment
for a compliment.
“More
like evil. I can’t believe she shot that guy.”
This isn’t a spoiler: chapter one begins with Jo lugging
a bag of money to a face-to-face meeting with her blackmailer. She has a plan,
which is to pay off the person once and for all. But she’s also carrying a gun,
because she’s afraid for her own safety. The thing is, she’s not wrong to be
afraid. The chapter ends with Jo and her blackmailer shooting at each other.
Writing the book, I tended to admire Jo for her toughness
and her resilience. I don’t necessarily agree with certain choices she makes
(such as lying to the people she’s closest to), but I understand the fear that
drives her to make those choices. She’s a survivor who’s never really processed
her traumatic adolescence, and that trauma seeps out in different ways—Jo’s
headaches, claustrophobia, and tendency to drink too much are all related to
it.
But for all of her suffering, she’s also a person who knows how to take care of herself. She can be violent if her life is threatened. At the same time, she’s a young entrepreneur who’s devoted to doing good in the world; ever since she started her business, it’s been donating to an organization that helps girls who’ve been trafficked.
But for all of her suffering, she’s also a person who knows how to take care of herself. She can be violent if her life is threatened. At the same time, she’s a young entrepreneur who’s devoted to doing good in the world; ever since she started her business, it’s been donating to an organization that helps girls who’ve been trafficked.
At first, I thought of the criticism of Jo in personal
terms; she’s my brainchild, after all, so I’m going to view her in a gentler
light than anyone who’s meeting her for the first time would.
But because the
book deals with sex trafficking, I started looking at real-life cases.
What I
found disturbed me: girls and women who are trafficked and commit acts of
violence to protect themselves are punished with unusual harshness in the
criminal justice system. At first, I thought this might be because of a twisted
sort of morality (basically, a desire to punish prostitutes), but the more
research I did, the more disturbing statistics turned up.
Overall, girls are
punished more harshly than boys for misdemeanors, and they are far more likely
to end up in front of a judge for probation violations such as running away or
breaking curfew. The expectation for girls’ behavior is much higher than it is
for boys, and the consequences for anything perceived as bad behavior is more
severe.
The research did have one major effect on my writing: it
made me give up on the idea of making Jo likeable. She’s sharp and loyal and
occasionally brutal, and I decided that would have to do. When I think of
novels I’ve read and loved lately (Jennifer Hillier’s Jar of Hearts, Megan Abbott’s Give
Me Your Hand, and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My
Sister the Serial Killer all come to mind) their central characters
fascinate me. Whether I like them or not seems beside the point. Quite simply, I
don’t want to take my eyes off them. For any character in this day and age,
that seems like enough to ask.
PS Thanks for having me visit
again, Hank and the rest of the Reds. It’s always an honor to stop by!
So tell us: what do you think about bad girls? Who's your favorite "bad girl" in books or movies or TV?
