Why Indie Authors Win: Unlikable Characters That Work

Corporate Publishing Neuters Storytelling

Everyone tells you to make your characters more likable, but in the modern publishing landscape, that’s often the worst advice you can follow as a writer. Netflix’s adaptation of Hunting Wives is just one example that proves flawed, unlikable characters are actually what audiences crave—not the sanitized, corporate-approved heroes flooding modern fiction.

Publishing’s obsession with “safe” characters is creating a slop epidemic of bland stories that say nothing and bore everyone, including the very people they’re trying to please. It’s time to let your characters tell uncomfortable truths and be genuinely human—even if that makes them unlikable.

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