Young Writers Society

I'm writing a story where a girl thinks her fiancé is cheating on her because he is sneaking out of the house, she smells woman perfume on him, and finds an earings that isn't hers. Finding panties in his car when driving to her wedding was the last straw. She plans to confront him but can't due to the festivities and hesitant to upset family and friends. Yet, since she is upset she ends up getting drunk and exposing the truth on stage.

The problem I have is making her sympathetic. I'm afraid I will portray her as a bridezilla because I was thinking in one situation she would complain about her makeup and hair because she felt insecure. I included a backstory where she has been cheated on by many men and it took a while for the guy to gain her trust. Any tips? I know it's important to let the readers understand the characters intensions. Although, It's also important to show and not tell how she is feeling.

Also any suggestions for good build up and events happening between the beginning to the climax would be welcome.

Thanks you!

Redbox275

I would suggest not being so caught up in "sympathetic" and focus more on "interesting".

The thing is, sympathetic is a very hard line to walk and you'll never really achieve it. However, an interesting character can be stuck with even if they do certain unsympathetic things, because interest is a far better thing to drag us through the story instead of sympathetic.

It also sounds like you're worried that your (female) character will be thrown to the wolves because she displayed a negative trait. Ask yourself: if a guy was complaining because he was under extreme stress, would you have the same reaction? If no, then you're probably fine and simply holding your female characters to a different standard than your male character.

As for your question.

The thing you have to consider for keeping your characters "good people" is basically making sure they don't commit acts that make them irredeemable in the reader's eyes. This varies from person to person, but as a general rule, try to avoid:

- Them becoming abusers to others
- They give disproportionate retribution to others (note- this varies)
- They are extremely selfish and lack any compassion consistently, towards everyone

Things such as emotional stress, lashing out but feeling remorse (or at least apologizing honestly), hiding secrets, betrayal— these make people enter emotional states that are out of character for their intensity, and they're usually understandable.

So long as you have the character, in general, try to be a good person, or at least be an interesting person that we're fascinated by, then you should be fine.

Don't focus so much on making her a goodie two shoes but instead make her a person going under extreme stress and sometimes lashing out at others as a result. Then you should be more than fine.

Brandon Sanderson's lecture on sympathetic characters. Broken up into multiple parts, I highly suggest you watch the whole thing!