When you think of asshole characters, do you picture villains? The bad guys can be bastards, that’s for sure, and even when they try to be good they usually have bastardly reasons. There are many assholish qualities people will recognize: rude, selfish, inconsiderate, two-faced, liar, inappropriate, uncaring. But are these qualities that should only be shown by villains?

Some of the most loved characters of historical and modern literature (and other media) have been assholes to some degree. Some of these characters are just assholes on occasion, while others are living it 24/7.

Why would you want your character to be an asshole?

Frankly, nobody can truly sympathize with the lily pure character, because there’s not a reader alive that doesn’t have a bit of a jerk inside. You want to build characters that connect with readers on a subconscious level. In other words, the more a reader can feel like “wow, I’ve been like that,” the better they will sympathize with a character. People are typically flawed, so your characters should be too.

Giving your characters undesirable qualities also makes them richer. They appear more real, more believable. They become unique and memorable, rather than yet another star-shaped sugar cookie to feed the mind of the reader. The more real they become, the more a reader will care about what happens to them, and the more likely their story will be read.

How can a reader love an asshole?

But why would a reader LOVE an asshole? Why would a reader cheer for a character that is so flawed they are more like a villain than a hero? Even when given a group of more heroic characters, many people will point at the asshole as their favorite, the one they have the most investment in.

Maybe this has something to do with seeing the flaws in the character, as said before, as similar to flaws within themselves. Some of these flaws are things the reader doesn’t like about themselves, or doesn’t want to admit to. The reader wants to see this character succeed despite their incredible flaws, because it gives them hope that somehow they can overcome their own.

It could also be a person’s hope that everyone is redeemable. They could cheer for this character to become a good guy, because they desperately want to believe there’s good in each of us. They are willing to forgive, in order to play the long game, where they hope the character will turn out to do the right thing. And, even if the character isn’t redeemed, they will mourn the loss rather than be disgusted at the character.

Or it could be the reader is more amused by the asshole tendencies of the character than by the goody-two-shoes heroes. Asshole heroes usually get to be the ones having all the real fun. The reader can live vicariously through the anti-hero, entertained and safely involved in all kinds of shenanigans.

Tips for creating a lovable asshole.

Make them wrong. Your characters should make mistakes, both in action and in voice. They should muck everything up once in a while, or say something that gets them into trouble, or pick the wrong path. Everybody makes mistakes.

Make them think about themselves. The stereotypical hero is selfless and sacrificing, but we all have a bit of a self-preservation streak inside. Make your characters concerned about their own health and future. Make them ask “what’s in it for me?”

Make them get angry. People don’t always turn the other cheek. Anger is ugly and the anger of heroes shouldn’t be the equivalent of a slap fight in a bouncy castle. Anger can be petty, crude, primal, and biting. Rarely do you see righteous anger that’s not flavored with some kind of condiment. This is also a good time to make them wrong.

Make them use real speech. None of your characters should talk like a poet the entire time. People fumble over their words, they swear, they make inappropriate jokes, and they’re sometimes just at a loss for words. Pay close attention to how people around you talk, and try to make your characters sound like that. If you want a truly asshole character, they shouldn’t sound like a kindergarten teacher. If you don’t know how, ride along on a morning commute and write down the expletives for future reference.

Make them break the law. Maybe not something deserving of the electric chair, but make them do things that are bad. They can have a good reason for doing them, or not. Maybe they steal, maybe they lie, maybe they cheat. Maybe these things are something to be overcome, but more often they’re something to be overlooked.

Make them conflicted. This can be one of the most powerful ways to endear an asshole to the reader. Show the reader the bad that everyone in the character’s world can see, then let the reader know the secret of WHY the character is bad. Show the softness behind the stony exterior and the pain behind the mean spirit. Just… don’t make it cliché. We don’t need anymore murdered parents in literature.

Make them redeemable. There always has to be hope, even if it’s false. Hope is the thing that makes a character an anti-hero instead of a villain. Maybe they aren’t ALL bad. Maybe they will change. Even if you don’t have them change in the end, there should always be hope. Even if that hope is only held by a naïve hero that refuses to give up on the asshole when everyone else has. The reader can grab hold of that hope.

Make good assholes.

So think about your next character, and how you can use asshole behavior to strengthen them. Even if you don’t make them into a complete asshole, you can give them the asshole traits we all carry inside ourselves. Your characters will thank you for it. Possibly with a hint of sarcasm.

The rejection is unique this time. It’s on a postcard mailed in an envelope. It is, of course, a form letter… but the name of my book was written with a blue pen by a real person. Even I think it’s pathetic how the thought of a real person taking the time to write the name of my book on a postcard would be a point of cheer. But it is.

My day has already been a pile of suck. Depression is flirting with my brain, and the little voice inside that’s more of a bully than anyone from my childhood is telling me things… I’m wasting my time. I’m dreaming too big. I’m causing undue strain on my family and friends. Why can’t I just be happy with the nine-to-five like a normal fucking person? I’m a hack, and it’s time I accepted it.

I won’t believe you if you tell me it’s not true. You see, I think you’re just “trying to make me feel better” and the voice knows this. Of course you wouldn’t comfort me by telling me I suck. It’s so… logical. My bully uses logic to convince me, because it knows I can’t argue with logic.

I’d like to tell you I teetered on the edge of that dark hole of depression, and by the heroic effort of my will I pulled myself back from the brink. That I decided to fight it. But that’s not why I’m still writing. If I’m honest with myself that’s never really happened to me, even if I like to think I’m being heroic.

I’m here because I need to write. Maybe it is a waste of time, and maybe it’s bad writing, but it makes me feel like a human being. Writing is the same as lighting a candle in the bottom of that pit. It gives me something to focus on, something to embrace.

So why am I writing this, rather than another book or an angst-filled poem?

Because I know how close I sometimes come to *not* writing. Somewhere out there, someone is asking themselves the same questions I ask myself, and they’re deciding not to write. So I want to say to that person: Write.

This isn’t a motivational poster. Those are impossible for someone at this stage to aspire to. Those ideals are already out of reach for us. Write because you love it and it makes you feel better. It doesn’t matter if nobody else loves it. Write for yourself.

Just write.

I’m also a reader.

I’ve had people tell me I should write my female characters stronger, or my male characters more rounded.

Thanks for your opinion, but I will write them how they are.

As a reader, I don’t want all the stories I read to be politically correct. I don’t want all the females to be strong and independent. I don’t want all the men to be good guys. I don’t want all the villains to be bad guys. I don’t want there to be an equal distribution of male/female main characters.

Stories are full of stereotypes for a reason. We reach people by showing them a familiar world, then helping them see it in a deeper way. I want to see stereotypes in what I read.

I want to read about a goddamned princess who meets a great guy that’s willing to kill a dragon for her. I want to read about the guy that gets the girl. These are relatively harmless stereotypes.

I don’t want to read about the prince telling the princess to make him a sammich, but I do want to read about how she tends his wounds after battle. I don’t want to read about the prince telling her to stay out of the way because all she’s good for is making babies, but I do want to read about how he wants to provide for her so she doesn’t have to worry about it.

I don’t want to read about how the male character is a misogynistic pig, but I do want to hear about how much of a jerk he is, and find out later that it’s because he’s in pain, and empathize with him. Or maybe just find out that he’s a jerk so someone else can be shown to be different.

Stereotypes provide a canvas for writers (and filmmakers, and playwrights) to paint a story. Stereotypes give us the familiar, so the artist can show us the spectacular.

Take this example: When is a candle truly useful? If the light is turned on and the room is brightly lit? Or if it’s dark, full of shadows and blurry shapes? A candle is only useful when it shines through the darkness, and only truly beautiful when shown against a dull backdrop.

The stereotypes allow the unique characters to shine. A strong woman stands out to teach us a lesson when she is unique. A thoughtful man stands out as wise when he is unique.

I understand that it’s wrong to think of women as weak or men as brutish, but frankly many people still do. It’s the norm. Someday it might not be, but then the stereotypes will have changed, won’t they? Then the stereotypes will be the strong woman and the thoughtful man. Right now, they aren’t. Right now we still need to put a spotlight on them.

People’s primal ideas of “how things are” don’t change by forcing them to view the world in a certain way. People don’t learn from stories by being slammed with “blanket truths”. People learn like children, when something sneaks its way in and takes root, becoming “ok”, then becoming “common”.

A story where there are no stereotypes doesn’t feel real. We know fiction isn’t real but those “PC” stories feel fake. The stereotypes feel real, so even if a story is fiction there is truth to it. Readers can sense the truth in them, and therefore begin to accept the spectacular in them as truth as well.

So don’t tell me not to write a female that needs saving, or a man that can’t deal with emotions. Don’t tell me I’m not representing a gender, or any other stereotyped feature “the way it SHOULD be” written. I’m just drawing the shades, so I can light the candle.

For instance, a fiction novel may use an epic voice to tell a story about adventure or tragedy, something that harkens to the days of long ago and kindles the flame of passion and danger in the reader. A poem may use an angry voice to incite the reader, or a voice of sadness to make them share the writer’s sorrow. A non-fiction paper, such as a thesis, will use an educated voice to lend authority to the words.

It’s often natural for a writer in those mediums to find the correct voice. We read a lot of those types of works, and we will naturally tend to a similar voice when trying our own hand at it. Many very successful writers are noteworthy for *breaking* these tendencies. A new type of voice for an old genre can make it unique and interesting.

What is more difficult to work with, is the voice of content writing and advertising.

Writing for Business

Content writing is an elusive thing to define. It can include online journalism in the form of blogs or e-zines, or creating the meat and potatoes of a website’s text. It’s filling in all the Lorem Ipsum that would cover the internet if nobody had any real content. It can be thousands of words, or just a few lines. We’re all familiar with what advertising is, and the writing applications of it include everything from posters to newspaper ads.

Why is voice important for content writing and advertising? Have you ever read an ad that made you wonder who they were trying to sell their product to? Have you ever browsed a website and thought it sounded too “technical” or too “patronizing” or too “casual”? Most of the blame for such things can be laid directly on the written content.

The *voice* of a website or an advertisement should be tailored to a specific audience, as well as to the product itself. While works of fiction harbor a voice of their own, meant to be heard, meant to be experienced, business writing should have a more subtle voice that serves to speak to the reader on *their* terms. The voice of marketing and content writing should invite the reader in and make them comfortable, make them recognize immediately what’s being said.

In the last few years there has been a real push with companies wanting to develop a *voice* and *image* for marketing. They’ve recognized the value in a content writer that’s able to stay true to that voice. But what does that mean? There are a few things that can be examined when determining if something you’ve written has the *voice* you intended it to have.

The Words

First, look at the actual words you’ve used. If you’re writing is supposed to be “casual” then your words should be as well. Don’t use words that the average person won’t understand. Write as if you’re talking. Make it *real*. Unless you want to target a very specific subset of the community, avoid slang other than universally accepted words. If you want to sound very professional, make your words count, make them worth every bit of the space they take up. Use professional words that convey an educated voice, without being over-the-top intelligent.

There are two layers of meaning to every word. There’s the dictionary definition of a word, what you’ll see when you look it up. That’s the denotative meaning. Beneath that is the connotative meaning, which is all about how the word makes you feel. It’s the word’s *voice*. The words “walk” and “strut” mean the same thing. They are both describing movement by putting one foot in front of the other, but they don’t feel the same when you read them, do they? “Walk” is empty, it’s a blank image. “Strut” carries connotations with it of arrogance, confidence, smugness.

Choose words that match your voice. Walk… strut… stroll… amble… dart… stagger… wander… Words paint a picture with their voice. Use the words in the content you write to paint a picture that matches the image of the company or site you’re writing for.

The Sentence

Second, the way the words go together can influence the voice. The length of your sentences can set the tone. Short sentences are more direct, and can be more forceful and assured. Long sentences can feel like rambling or they can lead the reader along like a boulder rolling down a hill, caught up in the moment, unable to take a breath for fear that they’ll miss something important that you have to say as you’re guiding them to the point you want to make and smoothly easing them into the next thought.

The written voice has a tone and a rhythm just like the spoken voice does. Mastering this tone and rhythm will give you the skill to manipulate the voice of your writing to fit the occasion. Read your sentences out loud. If there are places that *you* stumble on when reading, you can be sure that other readers will stumble as well. Strive for a natural progression in your sentence structure and don’t try to make your words seem smarter than they need to be. Readers will spot writing that’s more of a showcase of the writer’s education than a true message to them.

Also, pay attention to repetition. Read the entire piece back at least once when you think you’re done. In short advertisements, buzzwords get repeated so that customers will remember them in association with a product, but in content like articles or web pages, repetition can turn off customers and come across more as laziness or lack of creativity. Every word they read online takes up their time, and you don’t want them to feel that it’s being wasted.

The Punctuation

Third, punctuation frames your words. Too many inexperienced writers overuse certain forms of punctuation. How many times have you gotten an email where every sentence ends in an exclamation point? Does it feel a little fake? Perhaps you picture the other person with a huge Joker grin plastered to their face, eyes wide with maniacal glee? Then there’s the comma, a very useful little helper, unless you pepper them into your writing to the point that the reader is hitting them like speed bumps.

Of course, what discussion about the voice of the written word would be complete without mentioning the screaming ALL CAPS? Even used car salesmen don’t scream at their victims. Just as silly is over-capitalization. Don’t capitalize words just because you think they’re trigger words or buzzwords. It’s just as annoying as having a salesman constantly throw his fingers up in “air quotes” as he’s selling you something.

Homework

So as we wrap up this post, take a look at some of the commercial sites you encounter every day and try to determine what *voice* they’re trying to use. Look at whether they stay consistent in their usage of it, and whether it’s appropriate for the product they’re associated with. As you get better at manipulating the voice behind your writing, you only become more valuable to anyone you work with.

Write on, my friend. Though only the paper sees your words, and only the pen is washed clean inside with their meaning, write on. Only through writing will the writer live, and only through writing will his mind be set free.

Sometimes as a writer, especially a self-published or unpublished writer, we feel defeated when we think nobody is reading our work. Sometimes we labor for years on a story, suffer through everything our myriad characters suffer through, only to experience the ultimate tragic ending: to not have it be READ. There is something heartbreaking about lovingly creating an entire world only to have it, seemingly, ignored by readers.

As writers, we are all aware of how much of ourselves we put into our work. Few can say that nothing of themselves ever ends up on that page, that they’ve never created characters that don’t echo something within themselves. It’s hard not to take it personally when our work does nothing but gather dust on a shelf. It’s hard not to feel that it’s a reflection on US.

What we should remember is that we don’t have to write for other people. We don’t have to lay the lives of our characters on paper for the neighbor to read, or for some random person that finds it on the internet or while browsing a bookstore. We can write for the story itself. We can write for the sake of writing.

Relish the feeling that comes when you complete a story. Rest peacefully in the knowledge that you accomplished something, that you created something. Selling stories does not add value to your work, creating them does. If nobody had ever read Poe, or Kipling, or Shakespeare… would their work have had no value? Let your work stand on its own, even if it stands alone.

Writers are creatures of many layers, and we all write for different reasons. I’m willing to bet, however, that very few writers get into the line of work just to make money or get famous. Most of us will write for more personal reasons. Remember those reasons and don’t let money or sales cloud over your dreams.

Write on. Keep creating amazing things. Pour your damn soul out on the paper and stand back and say, “I did it. I’m a success. I’m a writer.”

Nothing can stop you.

The key to preventing this from happening to your writing is having a plan. Not every writer’s plan will be the same, just as not every writer feeds on words in the same way, but every successful writer will have a plan. In a very broad sense, this plan will have four key parts: ideas, focus, goals, and a schedule.

Ideas

This is usually the easiest part of the plan to think you have under control, when it’s actually in control of you. Writers are creative people, which makes sense considering they create whole worlds within their books, but too many creative people are led around by their ideas rather than owning them.

Take, for example, the following situations. You’re listening to music, the lyrics are pulling at you, and suddenly there are scenes flashing through your mind about a story that expands on the song. You’re sitting in front of a painting, the figures frozen in a single moment, and your mind begins to fill in the background of the scene. You’re weeding the garden and wishing your life was more exciting, your mind starts imagining all the different things that could happen to make the current situation more than the dull chore it is.

These are all ideas, and they come to a creative person effortlessly. They are all the basis for a potentially amazing story. At what point do they stop being your ideas and start owning you? When they start becoming the end of the creative process instead of the beginning. When you become buried in them.

Brainstorming is an important first step in any creative endeavor, but there’s always a time when the idea generator has to be set aside and the detail work begins. If you allow yourself to be completely open to incoming ideas while you’re working on a project, it’s easy to get sidetracked and have your focus shifted to another project. By all means, jot down any ideas that come across, but then set them aside to be pursued at a later time, and stay centered on the work at hand. Which brings us to the next part of the plan.

Focus

This can be the hardest part of writing. In today’s world there are so many things to distract us, and a writer often works in the very heart of distraction: the computer.

Many successful authors will tell you that the only way to prevent these distractions is to get rid of them entirely. Even though they work on a computer, they turn off anything that could distract them. They don’t open internet browsers, they don’t sign into social media, and they don’t play games on the computer when they get stuck. Some authors will go so far as to remove the access to these things from the computer entirely, reserving a separate machine for their writing so there is no chance of temptation. There is no shame in resorting to such drastic measures if that’s what it takes to get the job done.

Sometimes the problem isn’t avoiding temptation, so much as avoiding burnout. Focusing on one thing for an extended period can cause your mind to wander more the longer you try to force it into line. It’s important to step away from things periodically and let your brain reset. Even the greatest author can be reduced to a blubbering jelly bean after a marathon of writing. Step away from the words and do something refreshing to you. Get up and move around. You will return to the work with more focus after the break.

Some authors have to trick themselves into staying focused. This brings us to the third part of the plan.

Goals

A book can be a very daunting project at the beginning. Some books take years to write, and are hundreds of pages long. It can seem like a literary mountain that needs climbed, but even climbing a mountain can be broken into a series of steps. Set small goals for yourself, to keep focused and to keep moving forward, and to give yourself a sense of accomplishment along the way.

A common goal among authors is to set a word-count or page-count for each day. It’s never a bad thing to exceed your goals, and you may write an entire chapter in a single day instead of the three pages you set as your goal. That’s great! There will also be bad days where you have to force those three pages out of your tired and uncooperative brain, and feel exhausted and unsatisfied with the results. The important thing is that you wrote them, and eventually those three or more pages per day will result in a completed book.

There is also bribery. If you have to promise yourself an hour of television before bed if you finish the next chapter, and it will actually make you finish the next chapter, by all means bribe away. If you let yourself go out to eat for a celebratory dinner after every 100 pages you write, bon appetit. I’ve even known authors that deny themselves things they enjoy until they meet their goals. And of course, what are goals without structure?

Schedule

If there is no deadline for a goal, then the goal loses some of its importance. If you need a set “writing time” everyday in order to make yourself sit down and do it, then go ahead and pen it on the calendar. Many writers can get away with saying they will have a certain thing done by a certain time. It doesn’t have to be pages/words per day. It might be a chapter per week. Be wary, however, of procrastination. You don’t want to be sitting on Sunday with an entire chapter left to write.

Remember, too, that schedules can have some flexibility. If you want to work writing into an already busy schedule, block out chunks of dedicated time that flow around your normal workday. Schedule time when your favorite coffee shop is open and you can borrow a comfortable corner to get your writing done.

If you want your story done by a certain day, work backwards from that day to find out what you need to get done each day or each week. Don’t forget to leave time for editing. Eventually, you will hit your deadlines.

Write

Some writers don’t care if they ever finish their book, the joy of putting words on the screen is enough for them. Maybe writing will never be more than a personal hobby for you. That’s ok.

Some writers intend to publish, and would like to be successful. Those writers need to have a plan, and they need to see their writing for what it really is… a labor of love. It’s work, and hard work at that. Work needs structure, and deadlines, and a plan.

Every writer will approach their craft differently, so you’ll need to come up with your own plan, but when you do it’ll help you become a better writer. When you see your first book on the shelf, or the app store, or your website, all the hard work will be worth it. So make yourself a plan, and keep on writing.

So what is it?

A supercomma is the bastard child of the comma and the period. It’s the Long Pause. There are essentially two ways to use it.

The first, is to join two clumps of a sentence that could really stand as separate sentences in their own right. To check if you’re using this correctly, try replacing the supercomma with a period and see if it still looks grammatically correct… Then decide if you really need to use a supercomma, or if you can just leave the period there.

Used in this way, the supercomma helps to link the sentences together, but still provides that deep pause that a period would bring. It’s most commonly used when linking contrasting statements, showing a jump in thought within a sentence: “I really hate winter; my sister seems to love it.”

Be wary, however, of stringing sentences along in a giant conga-line of words. Periods give the reader time to gather their thoughts. Dragging out a sentence can result in the reader being unable to process the entire thing in one go, and makes reading a chore.

The second use of a supercomma is… well… as a super comma. You probably already know that when you list things out in a sentence, you put commas between them. Well, when you have to list things out that contain commas, it only confuses people to use more commas to space them out. That’s where the supercomma comes in.

You can use it for a list of things like cities: “I’ve lived in Backwards, FU; Nowhere, BO; and Cheeseburger, IC.” Or, if you’re being descriptive, for lists needing internal grammar: “I had dinner with my aunt, Maynard; my landlady, the one with the mole on her cheek; and a used car salesman, Stephanie.”

If you keep these examples in mind, and remember that the semicolon is just a supercomma, you should be much better able to decide when to use it in your writing. Good luck, and may the muse be with you.