I read a great blog post a while back by Jenn Bray Weber over at Musetracks talking about how villains need to be alpha too (Got Alpha?  Villain Edition).  In fact, her whole series on alphas is fantastic - check them all out. 

Anyway, the Villain Edition got me thinking about Bad Boys (and girls).  Maybe everyone doesn’t love them, but I certainly do.  And I know I’m not alone.  The sheer number of women into these two guys proves that:

I realize neither of those characters are actually the heros of their respective stories, but let’s not forget all the brooding immortals, rakes, and cads lining the romance shelves of  your local bookstore.  What I want to know is how do they get away with it?   

The Bad Boy, according to Tami Cowden is:    

… the rebel, or the boy from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s bitter and volatile, a crushed idealist, but he’s also charismatic and street smart. He hates authority and doesn’t buckle under to anyone, which is why he often chooses jobs where he’s his own boss. In western historicals, he’s the perfect outlaw. 

The female equivalent, the Survivor (a.k.a Seductress – but I don’t like that name so much.  To me, it implies that a woman must use her feminine wiles to survive)  is:

… a lady who is long accustomed to sizing up everyone in a room the minute she enters. Mysterious and manipulative, she hides a streak of distrust a mile wide and ten miles deep. Cynicism guides her every action, and her tough sense of survival gives her the means to do whatever is necessary to come out ahead.

Consequently, the passage above essentially describes the heroine of my WIP, Audrey.  Well, except for the lady part.  She’s lived, quite literally, on the road her whole life, raised by a truck driver and then on her own since she was 12.  The “whatever is necessary to come out ahead” definitely fits. 

And that is what has me frightened.  I’ve never written an antagonistic heroine (or hero) before.  While Corvin, Audrey’s counterpart in the story is more of a Lost Soul than a Bad Boy, I’m running into the  interesting dilemma of how to make them true to their characters and still make them likeable. 

How bad can a hero(ine) be? 

Where do you cross out of Survivor/Bad Boy territory, even beyond “anti hero” territory, and into the realm of unsympathetic characters?  How far can you push the “whatever is necessary to come out ahead” ?

The best example I can think of, and the one of the best Bad Boys I’ve read to date is Jack Winter in Caitlin Kittridge’s Black London series.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a protagonist really, truly hit rock bottom, but Jack does.  At times I was really torn between wanting to smack him and cry for him, and then plenty of times I just wanted to smack him.  And yet . . . it worked.  Despite his (long list of) bad habits and even worse manners, I wanted to see him happy.  Did he deserve happiness?  Probably not, from an outsider’s perspective.  While Jack does grow over the course of two books, it’s slow-going, with several lapses and bad decision after bad decision.  So . . . what is it about Jack that makes me forgive (and want) him?  There must be a redemption factor at play, right?  

Admittedly, the accent helps.  He’s just so damn cute.  But what I really think it is is the understanding that Jack is a product of his past.  For him to be any other than he is wouldn’t feel authentic.  Essentially we’re rooting for the underdog.  His life has twisted him, but we get the feeling that if given the chance, he just might come through and do the right thing, the unselfish thing – despite all the evidence to the contrary.  (To find out if he does, read the books, which I highly recommend, obviously.  )   

This is the same dilemma I have with Audrey.  She’s coarse and gritty and single-mindedly focused on her escape.  She believes people will use her given the opportunity and she’s not above using others to get ahead.  She drops the F-bomb twice in her first conversation with the hero, after knocking him flat on his a$$.  I’ve grounded these traits in her background and to me, they are simply a part of who she is.  I know she will grow and be worthy of reader affection in the end, but at the outset of her journey, she’s hard in every sense of the word.  I can’t change that and still be true to the character.  I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see what my test audience thinks of her, if I’ve gone too far.

So, my question to fellow readers is, how low can a hero or heroine go in your book?  Is there a line they cannot cross?  What bad behaviors or attitudes make you wish you could flip sides?  What characteristics do you think need to be present to balance out the bad?