Inspiration — Writing & Reading

Unlikeable Characters – Love Them Or Hate them?

In All Your Little Lies, Annie is a lonely woman who longs for social contact. Unfortunately, she’s terrible at making friends and, worse, has a secret that she feels is so shaming that it stops her from behaving naturally around other people. In fact, she’s so very awkward that she’s hard to like; her desire to please, alongside her social incompetence, leads to the very opposite outcome.

As writers we’re often told that our characters don’t need to be likeable but they do need to be relatable. That is, we need to make sure it’s possible for the reader to connect.

Writing, Reading, InspirationMarianne HolmesJanuary 27, 2021Unlikeable characters, Dark Places, Gillian Flynn, Louise O'Neill, Asking For It, Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout

Writing All Your Little Lies

When my son was 6, a local child went missing and many posters with their photograph were hung up on the streets around us. My son would come home from school every day and insist that he had seen the girl on the poster and ask that we all go out searching - he couldn’t bear the thought that there wasn’t some way we could help.

Writing, InspirationMarianne HolmesOctober 22, 2020All Your Little Lies, Social media, AnnieComment