![]() If the reader doesn‘t like a character, how else can you make them compelling? Click To Tweet If you can make a reader root for your troubled, violent, and cynical protagonist despite themselves, then you’ve succeeded as a noir writer. The great thing about noir is that you’re challenged as a writer to craft characters who are irredeemably unpleasant and yet also compelling – characters who the reader is simultaneously repelled by and drawn toward. Well, this abandoned plan for Harry Potter and the No-Good Dame may not have made it past editing, but that’s not to say it wouldn’t have been an effective piece of writing. Now, what if instead of all that, Harry was a philandering alcoholic with a history of drug smuggling? What if the first thing he did when he arrived at Hogwarts, age eleven, was isolate himself from the other children and smash in Malfoy’s skull, just because he felt like it? What if he refused to fight Lord Voldemort because good and evil are arbitrary and idealistic judgements that have no relevance in a vast and uncaring universe? What if the story wasn’t so much about Harry overcoming evil as it was about Harry getting wound up in some vague and violent domestic mystery and ultimately spending most of his time drinking, smoking, stewing in self-loathing, and entering destructive, hate-fueled relationships with other selfish, morally bankrupt characters? What if, instead of seeing Harry develop into a proud and noble wizard, we instead witnessed his moral, psychological, and physical decline? He defeats evil, stays loyal to his friends, and does what’s right. Rowling’s series continues, Harry develops, makes friends, becomes a wizard, and, though he has a few moments of brattishness, remains a pleasant, easy-to-root-for hero. We learn early on that his aunt and uncle are incredibly unpleasant, that his parents are dead, and that he sleeps in a cupboard. ![]() Harry, at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, is immediately introduced to the reader as a sympathetic character. Let’s look at one incredibly beloved fictional protagonist: Harry Potter. Protagonists don’t have to be heroic (or even likeable) Here’s what noir can teach you about storytelling. But he can teach you a thing or two.Įven if you like your stories cheery and your characters pleasant, noir’s methods of storytelling, its history, and its cohesive merging of thematic and formal concerns can help make you a better writer. He’s smart, philosophical, literary, engaging, and incredibly unpleasant. Today, noir stands as the slightly smug older brother of the crime genre. A successor of ‘hard-boiled’ or ‘pulp’ fiction, you’ll know the conventions of noir even if you’ve never read The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep – seedy urban underbellies, trench-coat-clad PIs, cigarettes, femme fatales, whiskey, flickering streetlights casting white pools on Chicago streets, nihilistic emptiness, loveless sex, unhappy endings. As an Amazon Affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases.įew genres have such a distinctive look and feel as noir fiction. This article may contain affiliate links and we may earn a small commission when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
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