Your characters should lose more often than they win. That might sound mean! You’ve poured your heart and soul into the characters on the page, and now I’m telling you to torture them, basically. But there are good reasons why defeat is more interesting than victory in fiction. It can also have a dramatic impact on how relatable your characters are. And, if that’s not enough, choosing to put your characters through a loss or two can give you a lot more to write about!
In case you’re not convinced, here are a few key reasons why your characters should lose:
A dose of defeat helps keep characters relatable and real
There’s a reason that characters where everything seems to come easily to them tend to be the bad guys. It’s hard to relate to characters that win all the time. Most people have encountered more than a few set-backs in their lives. Readers like to see that reflected in characters.
It’s such an unpopular phenomenon that it has its own name. Protagonists who seem to succeed naturally at everything they turn their hand to are often accused of being ‘Mary Sues’. Some well-deserved defeat can help balance your characters, so readers will believe them and be happy to root for them.
Of course, it’s fine for your characters to be good at things! But just make sure you keep some flaws in the mix, and let them get things wrong once in a while.
Your characters should lose because it helps drive home the stakes
Seeing what happens when the characters lose can clarify why it’s important that they win in the long run. If they’ve only ever won, it’s harder to see why it would matter if they lost.
One great example of this is in The Martian. The initial set-up for the book involves the main character being stranded on Mars. Not ideal, obviously. But if everything went smoothly for him from then on, it would be easy to relax. You could forget how incredibly dangerous his situation actually is. Luckily, the author doesn’t let that happen.
The protagonist regularly comes up against problems he doesn’t know how to solve. Or finds that solutions that worked at first are actually flawed, leading to problems down the line. These situations drive home the high stakes of the situation, keeping the sense of threat alive and well and making for a far more exciting read.
An early defeat in your story is an important opportunity to demonstrate what your characters stand to lose if they can’t triumph in the end.
Defeat means there’s still something to strive for
As long as your characters haven’t achieved what they’ve been working towards, you’ve got story left to write. There’s a clear driving force, obvious motivation for action. If they win, and get what they’ve been fighting for, it can be tough to know where to go next.
Victory means navigating that “what now?” moment, and this can lead to a real sag in a story. This can be navigated, of course. But if you’re approaching a moment in your story where your characters will win or lose, consider not giving them a total victory. Even if they succeed in part of what they’re aiming to do, leaving some part of their desire unfulfilled might help keep the plot moving in the aftermath.
Defeat can force growth or a reckoning in a way that victory typically can’t – your characters should lose so they can learn
When your characters are defeated, it’s the perfect chance for them to ask why. What did they do wrong? Why didn’t the plan work? It’s a great catalyst for character growth and important realisations.
This is a good opportunity to touch on different types of losses as well. Sometimes characters don’t succeed because of completely random factors. The weather turned unexpectedly, the horse stumbled at the wrong time, their number just didn’t come up when they needed it to. These losses are fine, and sometimes necessary for the plot, but aren’t that narratively satisfying.
What’s far more interesting is when characters lose because of things they could or should have seen coming. Things they could have prepared for if they’d thought ahead. People they trusted when all the signs said they shouldn’t, or people they didn’t trust even though they knew they couldn’t pull this off alone.
For optimal character development, your characters should lose in ways related to the flaws they need to work on. In these cases, defeat can be a really powerful moment of reckoning, a catalyst for truly satisfying character growth. After something like this, their eventual success will be all the sweeter.
How do you feel about your characters being defeated?
Are there any moments in your story where you have to choose whether your characters will win or lose? How do you typically decide which way those moments will go? Let me know any favourites in the comments!
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