Having said that, I want to talk about douchebags. Again. Because some of you may remember my Take The Anti-Douchebag Challenge post, where I ranted and raved about the epidemic of douchebag male mc's in YA literature. And after all that, do you know what I did in my own YA novel?
Yup. I went and wrote a douchebag.
I didn't do it on purpose. Apparently, I have this bad habit of being biased toward The Boy Who Gets The Girl in my stories. And The Other Boy? Gets totally crapped on as a result.
I feel like I need to make the reader side with me, side with my choice of Happy Ending. But then I wind up... not giving them one. Oops.
As much as I love my poor Other Boy, he's received three votes of douchebag from my Betas so far (even after the CH 3 revisions Leigh Ann - hold me). So back I go to my revision cave in attempt to make him as lovable (but flawed) as I originally intended.
Has this ever happened to you, peeps? Have you ever written the very thing you claim to hate?
EVEN AFTER THE REVISIONS??? *jaw drops* I mean, yeah, he's still a jerk, but at least I didn't want to torch him with fire. Let's talk.
ReplyDeleteRemember that time I said I wanted to only write smart female characters and then I went and invented the protag of my first novel? Yeah. She was dumb as a bag of rocks. (She did get a little smarter thanks to you and the rest of Team TT.) So, I've been there, inserting two feet.
You're doing an awesome job. And seriously. Let's talk.
Oh oh! Raises hand.
ReplyDeleteI think my first heroine existed solely just to get tied to a pair of train tracks. She's been upgraded to "doormat", but I still need to make her into the strong heroine I would approve of.
Haha, it happens to the best of us. I tried so very hard to make one boy not a douchebag, but it took some work. Lovable but flawed sounds much better to me! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteYes, it happens. My first protagonist was the perfect, pretty, intelligent girl. I think she was all I hoped to be when I was a little girl. Once I was able to accept what others were telling me about her I changed the character and the story was not so bad. It was one of my NaNo stories that I never got around to editing. As long as you recognize what your beta readers are telling you then you are on the right path. Good luck.
ReplyDelete