Yesterday was all about how Mike White set up his unlikable characters. Today we’re going to discuss how you can create a show (or movie) based around unlikable characters and still get readers invested. It’s a delicate process. But White Lotus gives us some insight into how it can be done.
There are four gradations of characters you can choose from when writing something. The first is the most obvious – a “likable” character. This would be someone like Peter Parker. Right below “likable” we have the “sympathetic” character. Andy Samberg’s character in Palm Springs comes to mind. Kind of a dick but you would be too if you were stuck in a loop for hundreds of years. We sympathize with his situation. Just under that is the “interesting” character. Louis Bloom from Nightcrawler is a great example of this. When it comes to “interesting” characters, the idea is that the character is, in many ways, unlikable, but they make up for it by being interesting. Finally we have the “unlikable” character. This is usually reserved for villains. They’re people who are virtually impossible to root for.
I listed the four options in that order because it correlates with how difficult it is to make each character work within a story. If you write a likable character, it’s a lot easier for audiences to root for that character than if you write a sympathetic character, or an interesting character.
I bring this up because a lot of screenwriters think the character debate is binary. A character is either likable or unlikable. In actuality, you have these two options in between. And when you start to dig into White Lotus, you realize that a lot of these characters exist in that middle ground.
It should also be noted that there are gradations within the gradations. You can have a character who’s mildly sympathetic just as you can have a character who’s extremely sympathetic. Every time you create a character, you should put some thought into where, on that scale, you need your character to be in order for your story to work.
Let’s start with, arguably, the two easiest characters to root for. There’s Quinn, the teenage son. And there’s Rachel, the wife. In both cases, you would place these characters in the “sympathetic” category. With Quinn, you have this 15 year old runt of a kid who has no friends, who’s constantly made fun of by his sister and her friends. His whole life he has retreated into his electronic devices because nobody else pays him any attention. Quinn is one of the only people in this show who we want to see something good happen to.
Then you have Rachel, who’s sympathetic because she’s starting to realize that she married the world’s biggest asshole. For the rest of her life, she’ll only be known as Shane’s wife and nothing more. On top of that, Rachel grew up poor. So there’s nothing entitled about her, like a lot of these characters. She’s a low-level journalist, so she’s trying to do something with her life. You might be able to argue that Rachel is at the bottom level of “likable.” Because, on top of everything else, she’s genuine and nice.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Shane, the husband, Olivia, the sister, and Armond, the manager. I would argue that Shane is a straight up asshole with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I would put him squarely in the “unlikable” category without even considering him for “interesting.” But I was still captivated by him and I’ll explain why in a second.
Next we have Olivia, who’s a stone’s throw away from Shane. She’s outright cruel to people, like her brother and Rachel. She’s manipulative, as we see when she tries to steal her friend’s boyfriend. She has zero appreciation for her incredibly privileged life. Honestly, sometimes you can just break characters down based on how they treat other people. And Olivia treats everyone but her best friend badly.
Next you have Armond. Armond straddles the line between “interesting” and “unlikable.” The guy is a hardcore recovering addict. He’ll lie, cheat, and steal on the job, as long as it means getting through the day. So you know that whenever Armond appears, something interesting is going to happen. And that’s your baseline for writing an interesting character. When his scenes come around, is something interesting always happening? If not, he’s probably not very interesting.
The rest of the characters are harder to peg. You have the dad, Mark, the mom, Nicole, the socialite, Tanya, and the best friend, Paula. I actually might classify the dad as likable. He seems genuinely involved in his family’s happiness. He wants to use this trip to improve his relationship with his son. So we kinda like this guy.
But here’s where the whole character creation thing gets complicated. I would argue that Mark is one of the least memorable characters on the show. I remember Armond, Shane, Rachel, Olivia, Paula, and Quinn all before I remember him. Which is the danger of creating likable characters. Likable characters usually aren’t that interesting. That’s not a blanket rule, by any means. But generally speaking it seems to be the case.
Nicole is probably a better example of this. She cares deeply about her family. She’s constantly trying to help her son, like Mark is. She takes all of her daughter’s snipes in stride, never getting upset with her, respectfully trying to help her see outside her laser-focused belief-system. But because the only thing she has going for her is her likability, she’s not very memorable. At least compared to the other characters.
Tanya’s a weird one. I would definitely place her in the “interesting” category because I don’t think there’s anything sympathetic about her, even though her mother just died. I say that because Mike White writes her mother’s death as a means to inconvenience everyone around Tanya rather than as a way to draw sympathy. And I think Tanya’s insistence that the hotel people cater to her whims whenever she needs them to, occasionally places her in the “unlikable” category. But the wildcard factor with Tanya is the casting. White chose such an interesting actress for this part that we probably put up with Tanya a lot more than we would had she been played by, say, Michelle Pfiffer.
Paula is another unique case. She’s fairly unlikable due to the fact that, for the first few episodes, she operates as Olivia’s henchman. But because she’s from a poorer background, she gets sympathy points. And then, as her storyline emerges where she connects with one of the island workers and wants to help him, she becomes more sympathetic. Helping others will always give your character sympathy points.
Now, getting back to Shane. Why is it I care so much about the most unlikable character in the show? Again, he’s not likable. He’s not interesting. He’s not sympathetic. What’s going on here? Why does this character still intrigue me? The answer is, I’m not sure. But if I had to guess, it’s probably because Shane is the most active character in the show.
This is why creating active characters is so important. Activity leads to activity. If someone is out there constantly pushing on the world, the world has to keep pushing back. And that’s where you get all the drama, in the pushback. Shane’s singular goal in this show is to get him and his wife the better room (the room they actually paid for). And when he becomes convinced (rightly) that the hotel manager screwed up and is deliberately trying to keep him from the room, he ramps up his pursuit. He’s going to get that room through hell or high water.
So, if there’s a lesson with unlikable characters, it might be to make them extremely active. It won’t solve everything. But it will guarantee that they get into a lot of interesting situations. One caveat about that is, this is an ensemble. And I think it works in large part because we only get Shane in bits and pieces. This wouldn’t work if Shane was the lead character in a feature.
I hope today’s post helps you consider how your characters are coming off to readers. A minor miscalculation in how sympathetic or interesting a character is can be the difference between a reader investing in your script or not. Sometimes a character needs a few extra sympathy points. Of if they’re unlikable, they need a few more “interesting” points. One of the most common reasons readers check out of scripts is because they’re not into the characters. Use the tools we’ve talked about today to make sure that doesn’t happen to your creations.
White Lotus is Awesome Week continues tomorrow!
