How do you make people like your character, before character development?

Hello everyone I am writing a character that is supposed to begin as an average teen that is selfish, a liar immature , a bit of a coward etc but eventually becomes heroic and good natured.

The problem is that I am worried that the audience might hate her, before her character development kicks in.

I think that's what happened to the sixth doctor from Doctor Who, they intentionally made him unlikeable in some aspects so he would eventually develop but ... he got fired before he got the chance. The few that stayed through his audio adventures like him more however and agree that he left the show too soon. Seriously he got .88 in a popluarity poll! out of 100

Nathan-Turner also experimented with the characterisation of the Doctor, intentionally making the Sixth Doctor initially unlikeable in order to create a new dynamic. Neither experiment was successful.

edited 12th Oct '14 7:19:44 PM by fallenlegend

Well, you can never make everyone like a character and you shouldn't even try. But people rarely pull a complete 180 in terms of personality, so an obvious thing to attempt would be to have elements of the character's better side show through right from the beginning. This might help both make her more likeable and make the audience more inclined to actively root for her to become a better person, instead of just wishing she'd go away.

Great advice thank you!

Relation could also be helped by making the traits realistic, I.E. don't go overboard on making her unsympathetic, everyone's had a temper tantrum occasionally just don't make it happen constantly and disproportionately. Don't pull a "You're ruining my life! *slam " without a suitably heated argument for instance. It's a pretty common stage for people to go through as a teenager so we'll relate, even if it isn't necessarily goody good.

As long as you don't go full ham it should be fine.

"As long as you don't go full ham you should be fine."

Unless you go all the way and make the character so ridiculously over the top that people like to read about him just to snicker at how ridiculous he is.

I'd point at A Song Of Ice And Fire Cersei chapters. Is she a scheming hypocritical idiot of a bitch whose delusions of grandeur defy all reason? Of course. Is she fun to read about as she takes one step forward and ten steps back with each choice she makes, all the while patting herself on the back and mentally congratulating herself on her triumph? In my opinion, at least, very much so.

Writing Excuses has talked about the hypothesis that how engaging a character is to read is broadly a combination of sympathy, competence, and proactivity.