A slight character problem

[Writer 1 Gregory]

Hi all, not quite sure how to classify this one; I'm having a problem with the ending of my elf story. I was originally going to have the story's princess get into trouble and have a male lead get her out.

The problem is that first, it would become the stereotypical fantasy damsel in distress story and second, the princess has thus far been very unlikable even to me so it makes no sense as to why the male lead would even bother to get her out of trouble in the first place.

Any thoughts?

 

[Queshire]

Why should whether or not the male lead likes her matter? Something happening to a country's princess could lead to all sorts of political fall out and it could come down to duty rather than personal feelings. The damsel in distress side of things is more problematic, though I don't know enough about your story to properly suggest something.

 

[Saigonnus]

You could change the ending so the male lead is faced with a choice, die or rescue the hated princess. Perhaps he does the former. Self-doubt and all that.


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[glutton]

If she is unlikeable it is probably less likely people will take issue with her becoming a damsel in distress... is she even supposed to be a character for the reader to root for or more like a minor antagonist?

 

[valiant12]

The problem is that first, it would become the stereotypical fantasy damsel in distress story and second, the princess has thus far been very unlikable even to me so it makes no sense as to why the male lead would even bother to get her out of trouble in the first place.

If she is such a bad person she can join the big bad.

 

[skip.knox]

Why did she get into trouble? What sort of trouble? Why can't she get herself out of it?

Why does the male lead want to rescue her? How will that benefit him? Is he in love with her? In it for the money?

What is your theme? What is the story trying to convey?

There are too many variables here to give any useful advice.

 

[R.H. Smith]

Hey Writer 1 Gregory,

To me it doesn't matter if the lead char liker her or not, what matters is that the reader is invested enough to care. Whether I, as a reader, love or hate her, i have feelings towards it. If you find that your feelings are not swayed by her, then maybe a char rewrite might be in order? Not sure how much of your WIP is done, but just a suggestion. If you find that you can care for her one way or another, then maybe just think of some plot points. Sit down, grab some index cards, and just start writing plots on them till you have a whole bunch, then look at them one at a time and see which ones catch your attention as a reader. Remember, before you played you were a fan Keep that in mind and you should do great!

 

[K.S. Crooks]

What if the male lead is forced to help her to prevent something bad happening in his own life.
The princess is saving herself and comes across the male who happens to be seeking a similar goal and puts up with her.
The male could be in the same trouble as the princess and helps her escape.
Switch the sex of the characters.

 

[Fluffypoodel]

Does this have to be the ending to the story? Maybe the trouble that you're having is that your characters need more time to flesh themselves out in the novel.

 

[lyl syly]

The problem is that first, it would become the stereotypical fantasy damsel in distress story ?

So change it up. Maybe have him get into such deep kimchi saving her that she has to save him (yeah, it has been done, but not much). Hey, Han didn't like the princess at first but look where that ended up :lol:

Oh, BTW, new here, first post, hi y'all

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

In general, avoiding a cliche just because it's a cliche is not a good idea. Cliches are to be avoided for reasons other than just being cliches...those being, they are too predictable, they have lost their ability to emotionally impact the reader due to being overused, they are lazy storytelling...things like that.

The damsel in distress cliche is disliked partly because it often portrays female characters as useless, incapable and dependent on men.

If you can pull off the "damsel in distress" thing without making your female lead seem useless, incapable and dependent on men, your situation improves.

I don't know what kind of trouble you're having her get into, so I can't really help beyond that.

Now, her unlikability...This is a more interesting problem. If she's unlikable, I say keep her that way; characters generally should be allowed to be who they are, and having a damsel-in-distress so unpleasant that the male lead doesn't even want to rescue her is...interesting, and could lead the story in unique directions.

You aren't very specific on the context, so I can't offer many suggestions, but here are some things I can think of:

He's forced into rescuing her somehow. He doesn't want to, but doing so will get him some kind of payoff (or not doing so will have some kind of consequence) so he does anyway.

He refuses to rescue her; she manages to get herself out of trouble.

Someone else ends up saving her, stealing the poor male lead's glory.

I can't think of much without more details.

 

[KBA]

As a reader, I'd have to want to princess to be rescued to continue reading if I were convinced it was what the male lead wanted. As others have suggested, since we don't like her, hopefully there's another reason why we want her saved such as that she has exclusive knowledge important to many others, or that someone the prince does like really wants her alive. I agree with the damsel in distress being an old stereotype I don't really want to read about again even if I don't like the princess.