Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash.
Scarlett O’Hara is not a nice girl.
When you’re first introduced to her in the opening pages of Gone with the Wind, you find someone who’s vain, self-centered, and manipulative. She’s certainly not someone you’d want to interact with on a daily basis. Even her own sisters don’t appear to like her very much.
So what is it that makes her compelling enough to draw readers into a tale that spans a thousand pages?
Two words: desire and action.
These are two things every character needs, but especially your main characters. Without these two things, characters are uninteresting. Readers don’t root for them. Worse, the story just doesn’t work. Adding these two things can make even the most unlovable character compelling, much like the Grinch in Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Desire
Right from the first page of Gone with the Wind, we know that Scarlett O’Hara wants something. She wants to be the belle of the county and the center of attention.
More than that, she wants to marry Ashley Wilkes.
Desire is fundamental to compelling characters, because that instantly introduces a point of conflict. Scarlett O’Hara wants to become Mrs. Ashley Wilkes, and in the first scene she discovers that what she wants the most is exactly what she can’t or won’t have. Not one to be daunted by such an impossibility as Ashley’s engagement to Melanie Hamilton, she sets out to capture Ashley’s heart. Which leads me to the second thing every character must have in order to be compelling.
Action
From page one, Scarlett O’Hara sets out to get what she wants. Her actions lead to complications that further drive the conflict. This intense action is one of the things that makes Scarlett a compelling character even as it makes her a somewhat horrible person.
Contrast this intensity of action with Melanie Hamilton. Melanie certainly does have desire, but if Margaret Mitchell had made her the main character, the story would not have worked. And it’s not because Melanie is too sweet or too perfect. It’s because Melanie is a passive character.
Where Scarlett sets out to get what she wants, Melanie waits with saintly patience. Where Scarlett flirts with scandal to achieve her desire, Melanie obeys the rules. Where Scarlett manipulates circumstances for the chance of one night out in town, Melanie waits for better circumstances to arrive. Melanie never sets out to achieve these things. She responds to them as they arrive. All these things help make her a sweet character, but not one that can carry a story forward.
Examples from Jane Austen
One of Jane Austen’s most compelling heroines is Emma Woodhouse. With the meddlesome Emma, Austen famously claimed that she was setting out to create a character no one would like.
In short, she failed. Emma contains both aspects every compelling character needs: she wants something and she sets out to get it. And, at the same time, readers like her.
Contrast this with Austen’s Fanny Price from Mansfield Park. Fanny is an observer in her own story, watching events at Mansfield Park happen and going along with the flow when things happen to upset her world. So even though the story is brimming with Austen’s canny observations of society and contains plenty of conflict, Fanny is not as compelling a character as Emma.
Do They Have to be Feisty?
Of all the examples cited here, it can appear that in order for a character to be compelling, they have to be feisty. After all, Scarlett O’Hara is hot tempered and Emma Woodhouse is witty.
But not all compelling characters are loud and dominant. Take Meg March from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
In many ways, she wants the same things Scarlett O’Hara does. She wants to be pretty and admired and she wants to be the center of attention. She also sets out to achieve those things, as shown by her constant attention to her appearance and her desperate pleas to headstrong Jo to not embarrass her.
But a key difference lies between the two young women. Scarlett O’Hara is loud where Meg is soft-spoken. In terms of temperament, Jo is a better comparison to Scarlett’s fiery nature.
And yet many of my favorite moments from Little Women center around Meg, indicating that she is indeed a compelling character. As she matures into womanhood and becomes first a wife and then a mother, readers root for her and cheer her successes. Why?
Two words: desire and action. Meg wants something and she is active in her pursuit of what she wants.
When They are Inactive
What happens when your characters are forced into inaction? When they are unable to pursue what they want?
In these cases, glossing over the period is a better option than describing in detail what takes place. This happens early in Gone with the Wind. Scarlett, recently become a widow and a mother and driven to boredom by the lack of parties around Tara, spends several months doing nothing. Rather than describe a day of her life and show us Scarlett’s emotional decline, Margaret Mitchell wisely tells us the events that take place. Scarlett still wants something—life to return to what it was a year ago—but she is unable to do anything about it. By glossing over the events, Mitchell quickly takes us to a point where Scarlett is once again actively pursuing something she wants.
Conclusion
Unlikable characters can be compelling. So can mild-mannered and soft-spoken ones, although it is harder to achieve with them.
As you read, take note of the character’s desires. See how they work to achieve those things. Also pay attention to how their desires change from the start to the end of the book; this is what indicates they are growing or remaining static.
As you write or edit your stories, try to make sure your character’s desire is clear in every scene and that they are actively trying to gain that. If at any point your character is inactive, try to find ways to change that. If it is unavoidable, then rather gloss over the moment than spend pages with your characters doing nothing.