In yesterday's post we took a look at five ways author Janet Fitch tries to win our support for unlikable protagonist Josie Tyrell in her novel Paint it Black (if you follow this link to amazon.com you can use their "Look Inside" function to see several of these pages). Fitch doesn't stop at five, however—Fitch imbues every single line with something that helps engage the reader as her character moves toward that moment, eight pages in, where her life will change forever. Here I'd like to highlight seven more techniques you can imitate to curry favor for your own difficult protagonist. 6. Fitch grounds this off-beat character in familiar domestic bliss: She opened the door, threw her key in the red bowl, and called out, “Hey, Michael?” 7. Then, a one-word sentence: Silence. Uh-oh, what’s wrong? We learn that Michael, for the first time ever, had needed “space” to paint and has left for a few days. 8. In this next excerpt, from backstory, remembered sens...

Unlikeable protagonists are commonplace these days. Why? Maybe writers took the advice that their characters should be flawed and ran away with it. Or maybe, with so many of the educated middle class out of work, losing their homes, or in over their heads in credit card debt, we writers are looking for a new kind of hero. Someone even worse off, who found the strength to make a difference. To make that work you must get your reader to bond with this character. How do you do that? Janet Fitch , in her opening to Paint it Black , introduces us to Josie Tyrell, a teen runaway. Josie cusses a lot. To earn a sparse living, she poses nude for artists. She does a lot of drugs. She lives in a shack with her Harvard-dropout boyfriend who is a painter. Does this sound like someone you’d want to spend 387 pages with? Fitch works to win our loyalty to Josie sentence after sentence, while building toward a shocking moment, eight pages in, that will change Josie’s life forever. Fitch knows th...