Writing rebellious characters

[AmysGames]

So I've always been a pretty "lawful good" sort of person. Most of the time, I find it easier, safer, and more beneficial to just follow the rules, and I've never really understood the mindset of someone who would break the rules just for fun. A lot of my experiences with these sorts of people IRL have been decidedly unpleasant.

That being said, I find it awkward to write these rebellious sorts of characters, especially when trying to put them in a sympathetic light. When I try to explain their reasons for being this way, I can't tell if it feels realistic or like something out of a cheesy sitcom. Everything I write feels inherently biased, no matter how hard I try.

So I thought you guys might have some insight. What makes a rebellious character believable? What makes them sympathetic? How do you write characters so far outside of your own worldview without being super biased?

[Freemints30]

Here's the thing.

Laws themselves are subjective.
If there's a law in-universe about never dancing or loving music. A "rebellious" character would simply be one who listens to music cus.. they enjoy it and gives them something to look forward to,

Even in our world today there are laws that are very iffy, from "not collecting rain water in utah" to out right prejudicial to a group of people and being rebellious is going against it for the benefit of one's self or people they like. Think about it from that.

If you want sympathetic breaking minor laws from hanging out in abandon places cus its fun, can retain it.
Sneaking into a hospital past visting hours simply cus they know thier sick friend or family is dying and want to spend as much time as possible all retain sympathy.

The world has BS laws today, so take note of those,

Alot of freedom fighters are rebels at the end of the day.
Take it from thier perspective

[MovieNut14]

Usually when I write a rebellious character (such as I'm doing in my current WIP), I come up with a reason for why they behave the way they do first, then proceed with their arc.

(In this case, my OC dealt with the brunt of racist remarks prior to the start of the story. She responded in kind by turning to occasional pickpocketing but only to those who were cruel to her; she's more than willing to help out those in a worse spot than her.)

[SleepingPoppy]

You need to tap into that "chaotic good" energy!

Everything I write feels inherently biased, no matter how hard I try.

This kinda sounds like part of the problem isn't that you can't write them well, but that you still don't like them. So you need to figure out what would make them more likable to you? Then it will feel more genuine. So it's less about defending the rebellious behavior, than adding traits you enjoy.

I'd say the easiest way to write a sympathetic rebellious character would be to define what they're rebelling against as something worthy of resistance. If they're a rebellious student, maybe they're pushing back against a teacher who has been overbearing and cruel? Maybe the rules are unjust, unkind, or senseless. Maybe their parents or romantic partner are controlling, and they're rebelling in a self destructive way as a response? (in which the rebellion is a flaw, and something they'll improve on as they address their issues!)

If they're breaking rules for "fun" then it probably needs to feel like the rules they're breaking are silly/unnecessary, or very harmless. I'm also pretty straight laced, but I can think of times I ignored rules because they were pointless- and I'm not rebellious, I've literally never been punished worse than being asked to sit on the bench for climbing a tree during recess as a child. XD

(Admittedly, I got benched multiple times for tree climbing, so maybe I am rebellious?? =O )

[chestnutriceeee]

Usually, the best way to understand someone else's worldview is by changing your environment.

Rebellious people that break rules for fun usually feel very imprisoned by their surroundings. For such cases, I would suggest imagining or even applying some very constrictive rules in your own daily life that make you feel like your freedom is being limited. And then, imagine that everyone else in the world actually feels no problems with the same rules.

Once you are able to sort out your feelings with even very nonsensical restrictions, you could apply the same emotions to your characters.

This might seem like a very odd method but changing my daily life in a way similar to my characters has really helped me whenever I am slumped with how to express them properly. Try it out, maybe? Haha

[BOMB]

.

Lets say your character, we'll call him Tom for now, wants to smoke but he's too young. We know he wants to be like his older brother who also smokes. Tom is likely too young or naive to care about being caught. Maybe he knows what he's doing is wrong, but he feels it's such a small offense that no one will really care.

To break this down lets look at it as a logical problem.

1. Tom wants to be like his older brother
2. Tom is too naive to care or think about the consequences
3. Tom doest think stealing something small is a big deal

If you add up what Tom wants with what he thinks and doesn't care about, it leaves a solution. He's going to steal cigarettes.

Now this is probably a more matter of fact way of looking at things, and I probably could have illustrated it a little better, but I think you can apply it in a lot of different situations if you're trying to decide whether or not a character would do something and why without making them seem unrealistic. Sometimes applying logic can lead to illogical solutions and that's life. As long as there is some kind of logic behind what a character does, it has a chance of being realistic. Of course how far you can stretch that logic to justify specific actions is another question entirely.

[Legendofgenii]

I agree with a few people here - just make the rules/laws they are breaking dodgy, so they are rebelling for good reason.

Or push your character/s until they have no other option but to rebel.

[indagold]

I think you mean more mischievous or capricious than rebellious. I see rebellious can just cover any character going against something but it doesn't have to be an annoying rascal breaking windows and skipping class lol There are a lot of rebellious characters that aren't out spoken, frustrating to deal with or breaking rules. You can go against stuff quietly.

[DiegoPalacios]

-Sometimes people dismiss or disobey rules because they think they are stupid.....(they may be right or wrong depending of the situation)

-There are also cases where some teens break rules due to peer pressure and trying to be cool or gain their group of friends approval. These often come from insecurities in different aspects.

-Rebellion can also be a reactive situation. A teen with overly-strict parents may rebel against them out of frustration over what they consider an unfair treatment.

-There is also the opposite situation....a kid without regulations from parents/guardians. The negligent treatment meant that they were either too spoiled or ignored, so they got away with breaking rules way too often to the point that is almost a habit...

-Disappointment with society: when you look deeply, society has flaws.....corrupt people get in positions of power and
some see the circle of working for money as nonsensical. For one reason or another they think the system sucks....

Which motivation or motivations work better will depend of your character. They may be driven to rebellion for other reasons too....

Hope this helps!

[djourner]

Funnily enough I am the same way IRL, always following 'the protocol', but I write the opposite, all my characters end up rebelious in some way.

Generally a lot of people seem to think 'disobeying the law' is a bad thing, but here is the catch, it is not inherently an evil act. Lots of people disobey the law for various reasons... And you can also change 'law' to any conventional norm. Here is the think, there is an extent you can do that where it's not a bad trait to have in moderation.
Running over a red light hurts not one when there is no other car in the street and you are sure you won't hurt anyone.
Being loud is sometimes the only way people will get you what you want, and sometimes what you need as well (even in a life and death situation some people will just stare blankly and let it happen)
If you are too nice in your work and let others take promotions without a fight, you won't grow.
Being rude in the correct amount is key for life in society.

In my story one of my characters Azreth is a total rebelious guy, he ran away from his father (he is a prince, so yeah he is falls in the runaway princess trope), he generally is chaotic neutral (and sometimes he goes full chaotic evil), he likes to manipulate people just for fun, and anoys them just to see them mad... all of these sound like terrible things right? So how do I write him so that he can be relatable?

Well sometimes he does bad things for good reasons, he generally doesn't care for other peoples feelings other than the two other main characters, and even then only to a certain extent, so when he says and does something rude for the sake of protecting them (even from themselves), it feels less like he is the asshole and more like he got a point.

Like in one situation Grey (another main character) is having a particularly bad day and is acting up, Azreth notices that and bashes him for it pointing out that 'Sure you're sad, but that doesn't excuse you acting like a dick to us'.. Here his lack of restraint is used positively.
Another example is the fact Azreth has very little physical boundries, he is the kind of guy who just slides his arm over your shoulder and smiles like he is talking to an old friend, which is useful for dealing with Vernon, a generally shy and introverted character who is very touch starved and can't bring himself to admit he missed contact with other people... He is still just as selfcentered, and has his own reasons for getting so close to Vernon, but he ends up helping more than he hurts.
And don't worry, these traits are recognised as BAD inside the story, and will be adressed later as he develops as some times these very same traits cause problems to the group.

So you see... 'bad traits' can be used for good, just like chaos and rebelion can be used to make a character MORE relatable. A general dislike for following the rules or cultural norms, or a flat-out mischievous nature tha is not inherently bad, it is just a trait that is more common in villains rather than in heroes.
It is important to identify the kind of 'rebelion' your character does, and why the do it. so that you can be more in control of 'how' they do it... A character can just have a distrtust for authority due to a bad experience with a parent or governement figure, they could be mischievous and use pranks as a way to call attention cause they were taught that way from a young age... And so on..

TLDR: Bad behaviour and attitude can be used for good, give ample time for the character to show how those things are GOOD AND BAD and you will easily create the perfect rebelious character to be your resident 'bad boy'.

(Also, the bad boy with a heart of gold is one of my favorite tropes xD)

[An_Alias]

For the believable aspect, maybe try shifting your perspective?

To a “delinquent character”, laws aren’t unbreakable framework systems built for people to base their lives around. Laws are strong suggestions of what to do and what not to do. They aren’t real physical things. They only become real after getting caught (if they get caught). Everything is legal as long as they don’t get caught. Even if they do, it might be worth it.

Here is an example of this line of logic:

A law the character is violating:

A “Privat property no trespassing” sign. The fine for breaking and entering is $100.

Delinquent logic: The cost of exploring that abandoned factory is either $100 or free.

[Kaydreamer]

Delinquent logic: The cost of exploring that abandoned factory is either $100 or free.

I love this logic. There's a lovely little hidey-hole under the docks close by where I live with a similar fine for sneaking down there.

My partner and I pack picnics.

[samiluu]

I dont know what kind of rebellious character are you looking for, but I consider myself rebel, for example, because there's a lot of injustice on this world, specially coming from the governments and the societies the powerful control, and some social rules are just stupid.
For example, I wouldn't feel good dressing as my mum wants me to dress, I wouldn't feel good just being on my closet (i mean, I am a bisexual trans boy who enjoys wearing dresses, but that's myself and I wouldn't like to hide it) and letting my life pass in front of me while I suffer inside because I can't do the things I like just because these aren't correct, or more likely "out of the rules" is not something I could stand. Also I am on an LGBT+ collective on my city who fights for our rights and obviously we demand a lot of things to the governments. As for example the Spanish government ignored the trans laws they promissed us. It's not like I want to unfollow the rules, it's that i am authomatically out of them just to be myself and I want my place in this world too.

As other examples... in my country (Spain) there has always been a lot of fascism, that means a very hard repression, killing people for being themselfs, having their idologies, their likes, their sexual orientations... etc. My idiom and my culture has been repressed (I'm catalan) because they only wanted the spanish language and traditions and no diferences. On the second part of fascism, which was a bit softer than the first part, for example, there were a group of singers who sang in catalan and their songs had hidden meanings against fascism. This is also being a rebel... I mean, for me being a rebel can mean looking for justice in a world that wants us quiet. For me being a rebel is something good.

In another hand if you are looking more for the "bad guy" type of rebellion, it's baiscally what people said. This attitude can come from different reasons, and normally it is because they grew up without any limitations, at least not in that aspect, so they just find some things normal; like manipulating and hurting people, as they weren't told it was bad. call it lack of education or functional parents/ tutors.

Another reason could be a total lack of empathy. Some people have mental illnesses that cause them to be born and live without empathy, like the narcissists, and while most of them learn to not hurt other people cause they are good people, some others dont really care and look for themselves too much, acting completely in an egoistic way; that can cause them trouble too, since for them it is not easy to make friends (or even don't want to have them) and feel lonely.

A last reason that comes to my mind are the different ways of thinking. Like people who thinks that they are the first thing in life. that alone is not bad, in fact I think it's the healthier way to life, but the problem comes when you directly don't care for the others, on want to hurt the others for your own good. For example, i am in the fashion industry and I chose to don't exploit people, but other people just choose to go for exploitation even knowing that they don't only kill the planet but also have people working 24hrs a day in enormous factories and dying every day. why? because it's cheaper and faster (this is what fast fashion is about). This is directly connected with the lack of empathy thing; and they probably believe in the law of the jungle (the stronger wins). For me this way to act is evil, and they probably know but they don't care; I have to add that they either lack empathy or lack culture and don't want to know the suffering these people go through.

It was long but I hope it helped. My comic will talk about the relativization of good and evil, so if these kind of topics interest you, maybe you'll like taking a look? Also if you have any specific question you can always send me a DM, cause it's a very difficult topic to explain as every person is unique and has different personal reasons to act how they act
https://tapas.io/series/Black-Wings-/info

[DiegoPalacios]

[AmysGames]

Thanks for all the insightful responses!

I think maybe @SleepingPoppy hit the nail on the head that it's less that the characters themselves are unnatural, just that it feels unnatural to me personally. It's something I'm trying to work on, but it might take a while for me to be fully confident with it, haha.

But yeah, I'll definitely be keeping all this stuff in mind.

[kitschensyngk]

Any character who just breaks the rules whenever they want because they can just comes off as unlikable. Having a reason to fight the system makes them more sympathetic.

A character who throws a rock through a window of a building is a hooligan. A character who throws a rock through a window of a building because it's owned by a corrupt businessman who killed the character's father has more subtext and is more interesting.

[An_Alias]

This guy gets it!

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Kinda life moto