Your Guide to Writing the Perfect Story

Changing Characters for the Worst

There may come a time that you decide that you want to change your characters into a person worse than the one they started off as. Now, this can be kind of upsetting for readers, because we generally like to read stories that end well. So if you're changing your character for the worst, you had better have a good reason. I'm going to go over some situations that it would be acceptable. Remember, again, that you may completely disagree with me but please don't bash me in the comments. I actually am a huge fan of tragic endings (I'm sort of strange that way) but most people really aren't.

So without me wasting any more time, here are some situations in which it would be considered okay to make a character a "bad" person.

1. Making a Point

If you are making a point about society or trying to convey your message more clearly and you need your protagonist to do it, by all means, throw them off the rails! Sometimes it is necessary for a character to become the person they didn't want to be initially because it makes a huge statement. People may be angry or disappointed at first because of the change of your character, but any well-read or well-informed person will eventually understand why you did it and how it needed to be done to do what you intended from the start: send a message to the world. 

In fact, it can be pretty eye-opening to see a righteous character turn to something less good than how they started. Obviously, readers will have to consider how they ended up that way and that could change their outlook on certain things. Changing your character for the worst when making a point is always intentional, not just a random thing you put together at the last moment. Make it count.

2. It Has to Get Worse Before it Gets Better

Why do people like seeing characters change so much? Because they want to believe that things can get better and they also like to see characters struggle internally. The farther they are away from becoming a good person, the more suspenseful and intense the journey will be. And that brings me to my point. If you start off with a reasonably good character, but they start gradually getting worse and worse how hard do you think it will be for them to redeem themselves? 

Pretty hard, but all the more satisfying when they do.  That is a good reason to make them worse because once they start changing for the better, readers will be cheering them on! When it is only temporary, the character has a chance to prove themselves as a good person and usually readers will be okay with that. In fact, most characters do have a low point at some time in the story.

3. Realism

If you put your character through absolute hell, a war, or torture, expect them to be different. Traumatic experiences can make them angry, sad, and doubtful of themselves. They might lack the will to live or to continue on the same path as they did before. Enthusiasm might be low and any charm they used to have probably would be severely affected, not to mention their mental stability. 

In a lot of books, it just isn't realistic for your character to remain the good person they used to be. People who have been hurt badly often want to hurt others, or are vengeful. Some believe "if this happened to me, why shouldn't it happen to everyone else?" Think about that when you are writing.

4. Necessary to Plot

There are times where desperate measures must be taken in order to solve the conflict. In this case, your character might be required to do bad things for the greater good, or at least in their minds. This doesn't make it right, but it is necessary to the plot. Other times, if your character becoming bad provides many different directions for the story to go, you can do that as well. If your character was completely good the entire time, it wouldn't be interesting, but if you make them bad you'll have more ways you can make the story awesome.

This all has to do with judgement on your part but if you believe making your character somewhat antagonistic is the best thing to do, I won't question it. 

That's it! This was a short chapter because it was something of a spin-off from the last. Like I said, what you do with your character arc is up to you but you need to use your best judgement to decide whether what you are doing is such a good idea after all. If you have more times changing a character for the worst would be good, I'd love to hear them. Just comment below. Thanks for reading!