My beloved and I tried to watch a show a month or three back. From the moment we met them—their very first scene—one of the characters was just awful. Blatantly ignorant and incompetent, and always trying to bluster past it. Insensitive to the point of almost being cruel. And incredibly self-centered. We watched three episodes before giving up, and in all of that I think said character maybe had two conversations that didn’t center around themself.
In fact, said character was the reason we stopped watching. Yeah, by then there were some hints of growth and improvement, but at that point they were so deep in the hole we didn’t want to watch another two or three episodes and see if they managed to climb out.
And just to be clear, this wasn’t a minor character. This was one of the leads! Arguably the lead, depending on who you asked and how the show had worked out billing. Pretty much from the start, the main character of the show made us not want to watch the show.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, first impressions matter. In the real world and in fiction. Maybe even more in fiction.
This ties back to an often-misunderstood idea I’ve mentioned once or thrice before– three act structure. No, really. As a writer, I establish the norm, I introduce some form of conflict into the norm, and then I resolve that conflict. That makes sense, right?
So when I introduce a character, nine times out of ten I’m establishing the norm. This is who they are. It’s how they act every day, how they usually treat people. These first impressions is where my character arcs are going to begin. They’re who my character is without the added pressure of that conflict I’m going to be introducing.
It may sound really obvious, but this is why we tend to meet protagonists doing good things (or at the very least, neutral things) and antagonists doing bad things. Because if I start with someone being a self centered idiot, well… they’re a self-centered idiot. And probably have been for a while. Which doesn’t always make for a compelling character.
Getting past that first impression can be tough, especially if it’s something that’s going to give my audience—my readers—a strong reaction. It’s not impossible, but I’m definitely choosing an uphill battle as my starting point. If your first thoughts are that my character’s kind of a rude bastard or just a general ass or maybe a bit creepy in the bad way… I have to spend time getting past those perceptions. And that’s time I can’t spend getting to, well, the plot.
Think about some of your favorite characters from books or movies and think about how we first meet them. How often are they doing essentially decent things, even if it’s just in a low-key, maybe even not terribly joyful way? It’s rare that a character’s first page is trying to convince us they’re a horrible person.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying they have to be so happy-go-smiley-sweet that Mr. Rogers goes into diabetic shock. I just don’t want them to be an awful person. That’s it. Someone can be frustrated, depressed, annoyed, or even full-on angry and still not do awful things.
This might sound a little weird because we had a big, maybe ten year span where it was really common to have main characters who were… well, jerks. They were rude. Petty. Sometimes flat-out cruel. We’d see it in movies and TV shows and even commercials. They’d show people doing unquestionably mean things and narratively treat it like “ha ha, that was great!” If you stopped to think about it, though… those people were jerks.
And there’s always going to be exceptions of course. It’s possible I could have a clever reveal planned, and this ruthless gang lieutenant we met in chapter one is revealed as an undercover FBI agent early in chapter two and hey wait did we actually see him do any of this stuff he keeps talking about? It’s also possible to structure my story so we’re first meeting someone a bit further along their arc, and that might change things a bit, too.
But I still need to introduce an interesting and semi-likable character. Or, at the very least, not an unlikable one. If my readers don’t enjoy following a character, there’s a really good chance they’re just going to stop reading. And then they’ll never see that cool twist I set up at the start.
So think about those first impressions. Because I only get one chance at them.
Next time, unless there’s some serious opposition, I’d like to talk about conflict.
Until then, go write.