Your take on "wimpy" characters

[StillStunned]

How can a womanizer be wimpy? Isn't the point that he gets women to do what he wants?

If this is about my character Sligh, he's a smooth seducer. A lover, as it were, not a fighter.

 

[Djmac1031]

I am thinking here of characters that are not necessarily subby, but exhibit traits like cowardice, indecisiveness, who have a preference for stepping back and letting other characters take the reins. That sort of thing.

I don't necessarily see indecisiveness as "wimpy," lots of my MMC start out indecisive. But eventually they do step up and take the risk, make a move, take the lead, etc.

I'm sure some out there may find my male characters "wimpy" becaause they're actually sensitive and considerate to the women they're interested in, showing respect and making sure of their consent.

But that's their problem not mine.

 

[old_prof]

I don't like the term wimp. I've had commenters call some of my male characters wimps because they cried. Or because they didn't boss the women around. Just like women, men are human, with all our frailties and fears as well as strengths and dreams.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Also a lot of what looks like respectful affirmative consent practices in 2026 might have looked like bitch-ass wimpiness in 2000. Asking permission is for sissies!

 

[anthrodisiac]

Some of my favorite characters are cowards, Rincewind, Ciaphas Cain. But I wouldn't consider them wimps. Rincewind and his half-brick in a sock. Ciaphas Cain going one on one against a space marine.

Rincewind!!!! And Luggage.

I tend toward fairly cerebral characters, both men and women, so they're inherently indecisive due to thinking too much, agonizing over the pros and cons of each decision. Not at all based on my own brain in any way, and how dare you and you'll hear from my lawyer.

At least, that's the case for most of the stories I've written so far here. A lot of stuck in a rut kind of scenarios (probably a bit more mirroring than I'm used to in my work), but it's a good jumping off point for growth basis.

I don't even mind if someone is fairly cowardly, indecisive, and just happens to trip over good fortune, or let the universe bat him around until he lands where he's supposed to go. They tend to be more comic than compelling, though, so depending on the story and the arc of it, it can get tedious if all he ever does is run away from any little discomfort. At some point, there has to be growth. Or cosmically hilarious death.

 

[StrentWriter]

The consent thing and how some people here perceive is wild to me. Consent is necessary and I consider it a cornerstone of any relationship.

I had someone here message me telling me my novel would have been better if the main male character had simply not asked for consent - which he does do on several occasions.

I ignored that advice, of course, coming as it did from someone without a profile pic, any stories written, and seemingly the longest list of incest posting on the forum I’ve ever seen….!

 

[WeShallUnclench]

The consent thing and how some people here perceive is wild to me. Consent is necessary and I consider it a cornerstone of any relationship.

I had someone here message me telling me my novel would have been better if the main male character had simply not asked for consent - which he does do on several occasions.

I ignored that advice, of course, coming as it did from someone without a profile pic, any stories written, and seemingly the longest list of incest posting on the forum I’ve ever seen….!

1)

Weeeeell

If we take a step back, in *stories*, as opposed to real life, there is a bit of nuance when it comes to diegetic vs non-diegetic consent (again, not my idea, another one from a tumblr essay).

Meaning, in a purely fictional story, there are no real people involved! The only consent that truly matters is between the readers and the writer. That's the whole backbone of noncon and dubcon stories.

It's usually presented thusly: if you play a scene in a friendly game of BDSM, you negotiate enthousiastic consent with your partner(s), safe words, all that. Then, within the pretend-scene, things like noncon roleplay can happen ("Oh no, dungeon mistress, do not touch me THERE...!".

By contrast, in a story, the story IS the scene. You can in theory jump straight into the fantasy, as again, the only consent you require is the consent of the reader.

It goes even further than that - stories can be unfiltered in a way that real life cannot be. In a story, depending on how it fits into the general tone, you can have people with truly OUTRAGEOUS behaviours, saying truly unhinged things, things that would reveal them as crazy or evil in real life. And a story could potentially be *more* enjoyable that way than if everyone was as level-headed as you'd like real people to be.

So the question becomes, what kind of fantasy do you want to express.
Is it a dark noncon or dubcon fantasy, or is it a more "wholesome" fantasy involving people taking each other's boundaries seriously?
Are you going for cartoonish, or reality simulation, or something in between?
You can have dark noncon/dubcon BDSM stories, but you can also have stories about reasonable people *doing* BDSM with all the necessary protocolls.
You can have stories about someone being "ravished" with unfiltered zeal, or stories about the realistic formation of a healthy relationship.

2)

What makes the person you talked about an asshat is that they were telling you what sort of fantasy THEY wanted you to write, rather than judging your writing based on what you pretty clearly set out to do.

That is some of my least favorite feedback - it's like someone going to a Chinese restaurant and leaving a 1 star review because they wanted pizza.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I gotta ask, since the abundance of the he/him version of this trope is a pet peeve of yours - if you come across a story where the gender roles are reversed - super dynamic assertive guy, shy and passive girl with no characteristics - does that bother you in a similar way?
Do you think there are better narrative ways to make the latter one work out?

It might if I could find one. I'm sure there are a few out there. The vast majority of stories on lit are male written (even many of the 'female' written ones, I can tell that there is a good chance that the writer is actually male), and then so many of the actual female writers here write lesbian, so the chances of coming across a unicorn male who sweeps up the boring plain girl are about zero. I can't recall ever seeing one.

Of course, even if a story was written about a dashing assertive male and a boring woman, the chances that she would not be physically described would be damn close to zero too. Women characters tend to get described in great detail while male characters are often never even described at all, and when they are the details are minimal (because the visual male porn writer and reader totally wanna visualize this girl but aren't the least bit interested in the male body - other than the large penis for the self-insert). So even if the woman does nothing, if she is described in any detail at all, there will be something attractive about her and make things at least plausible. This may not make the story great but at least plausible. These invisible limp male characters getting laid by these hawt unicorns aren't even plausible. Most men don't get this. The women do because not only is the man not attractive, the story is so completely implausible that we have to lower our IQ to read it. Not only can we women not self-insert to this female character, we can't even relate to her, so not only are we not turned on, we don't even care about anything else in the story. If this woman is so confident and so assured, and so adept at 'getting what she wants' then why is she not jumping some James Bond type of guy who looks like Guy Pierce and can fly a helicopter, play the grand piano, do her taxes and build a car out of spare nuts and bolts like McGyver? Now the male character doesn't have to be all of these things, but this female lead is so fucking perfectly amazing that she should settle for nothing less. Am I making sense here? But the reason that 'hawt unicorn' jumps 'wet noodle', is because limp guy has a PENIS. News flash, so does every other man on the planet. The male character has to have something going for him that sets his penis apart from the rest, yet they never do. The guy is just some schlub.

One angle I could think of is to bully them until they do something interesting. You may say that doesn't count because they still didn't do anything without an external stimulant.

But at least he did something. External stimulus is fine. The character is faced with a choice/decision, and his choice drives the plot. This runs beyond even sexiness. This is just writing basics. You want motive and action to drive the plot, not serendipitous whim. There's nothing wrong with serendipitous whim, but 999999 times out of 1000000 it makes for a boring story.

Conversely, for me the worst wimpy characters are those who serve as a self-insert for the reader without any attributes, but crucially also no NEGATIVE traits besides the passivity, so they are still somehow "dignified". Nah. If you cast yourself as a wet noodle, the very least I expect is you don't hold back. Worse than a wet noodle is a wet noodle who can't even be vulnerable.

You sum this up very well. This is the most common het male character on lit. You actually use one of my own very fave phrases, wet noodle. That's exactly what it is, a personality so bland, so invisible, so non-existent that there is zero reason for confident unicorn girl to pick him out of the crowd to shag. We do not care about this guy in the slightest. Not even if he were the last man on Earth. Why should the female lead care? Dump this guy and bring in someone exciting. But we get this limp guy because ... now please don't take this wrong, I'm not trying to put anyone down, but just assessing the reality of the phenomenon and the logic behind it ... most of these male writers are writing their fantasy. What is their fantasy? To get laid. Why is this their fantasy? Because in real life they have difficulty getting laid. Why do they have such difficulty? Because their 'game' is weak. So then this begs the question: how can the male character have 'game' if the writer doesn't have much of it himself? Now again, please, don't crap on me for this. I'm not trying to insult anyone. I'm just tracing the logic to the source. And it is backed up by the fact that these stories are simply plotless fantasies of men tripping over pussy and getting laid. Now, there's nothing wrong with these fantasies, but they make for really boring stories for anyone who is actually looking for some plot, and especially if you are a woman.

And yes, it's a self-insert 99% of the time. I know this because it's the exact same mentality that I see with guys in the chat. They chat you and try to play scenes with you exactly like these stories are written. There is no tension, no friction, just happy flirting leading to kinkiness, and they usually grind to a halt unless the woman takes initiative, because the guy either a) is expecting her to be a slut b) is too lazy to escalate things or c) doesn't have the game to escalate things.

I find it unbelievably dull when a MC wins without conflict or achieves without friction.

And that is precisely what these uber passive characters do. They get laid by doing nothing.

He might be wimpy, but he genuinely cares about her and isn't a narcissistic or entitled asshole, so she digs him.

Rarely are these wet noodle characters narcissistic nor assholes. These are largely self-insert characters so they can never be bad or undeserving. They would be more interesting if they were assholes, but the writers here (and lets face it, the porn readers here) aren't interested in character depth. All they want is a self-insert fantasy. So these badly written characters get tons of 5s. Then the writer thinks that he did a good job and never improves.

I hate labels like “wimpy” for characters.

All of my characters have flaws and respond to their situations differently. Nobody is fully one thing or the other: that’s way too 2-Dimensional.

I agree that the word 'wimpy' is a bit misleading. We have some people in this thread who take it to mean, skinny, unphysical, unmuscular, unmacho. What we really mean is a character with zero agency who just refuses to drive the plot - a character who doesn't really do anything but instead things just happen to him. You can still have a 130 lb nerd who makes choices that (for better or worse) change his own condition and move the story along. These incredibly limp characters show up with a penis and someone comes along to get him laid FOR him, make his kinkiest dreams come true. Wow! Great story! : /

I don't necessarily see indecisiveness as "wimpy," lots of my MMC start out indecisive. But eventually they do step up and take the risk, make a move, take the lead, etc.

That's different because eventually they actually do make a move, a decision, a choice that moves the story along.

PSG's point, to yours, is that the male character doesn't do anything to get the woman to do what he wants; he's a passive observer who they choose to do sex at. The plot is often something like 'I am hot and lazy and do not want to do homework! If you do my homework I will give you a handjob! Oh my god your penis is so big I must put it in my bottom. I am addicted to the penis now. I shall worship it forever.'

I have read this EXACT plot. No exaggeration.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I have read this EXACT plot. No exaggeration.

I have also read this exact plot. It's the first chapter of a very successful series here, and, fortunately, the author took time to give his male character more agency and assertiveness fairly quickly.

The first chapter, though, is just straight-up "excuse to see penis -> penis is big -> girl likes penis."

ETA: There was a point at which I thought that story was going to develop in the direction of the male character becoming an ego monster and needing an intervention or to be taken down a peg, turning into the sort of bully who used to torment him. I was looking forward to that. The author chose to go a different direction, and that's all fine and cool. But it does speak a little to the glow-up that character got in terms of confidence and proactiveness.

 

[Britva415]

in a purely fictional story, there are no real people involved! The only consent that truly matters is between the readers and the writer. That's the whole backbone of noncon and dubcon stories.

Weeeeelll...

I'm gonna take a wild-ass guess that the story we're talking about was not a NC/CNC/DC story. In which case, a commenter saying "not enough NC" can f right off ffs.

Nuance my ass

 

[Djmac1031]

All they want is a self-insert fantasy.

You make a good point about the self-insert fantasy. Ill fully admit a lot of my early stories were totally self-insert. For better or worse. You'd probably say worse lol.

and thats fine. I can see why it wouldn't appeal to you, or to others looking for more characterization.

I think ive tried to make my male characters interesting and give them a personality but again I suppose that would be up for personal interpretation.

I will say it's definitely something to consider for all of us but especially us male writers. We write for a predominantly male audience. But it doesn't mean our male characters have to be, as you say, wet noodles.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I'd also say that Literotica is far from the only place where there's erotic writing, and there's a great deal of erotic writing by women that are either female self-insert fantasies or involve wet-noodle women and men so aggressive and assertive that there are some consent issues raised (to say nothing of the stuff that's published and wouldn't be allowed here). The audience here may be predominantly male, but there's a whole huge audience for erotica out there that's predominantly female reading books by female authors (or male ones under female pennames!), and they have many of the same storytelling problems that we do here.

 

[SmilingLez]

A wimpy cowardly whiny cuck watching his wife and her bull go at it would make for some fun reading

 

[Britva415]

I don't partake of the cuck fantasy, but I imagine it's like - the cuck isn't sexy, he's watching sexy.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

Weeeeelll...

I'm gonna take a wild-ass guess that the story we're talking about was not a NC/CNC/DC story. In which case, a commenter saying "not enough NC" can f right off ffs.

Nuance my ass

I'm a bit confused here. My comment was a two-parter. Surely didn't reply without reading the second part. That one was kinda important.

 

[MisterWolf26]

I am thinking here of characters that are not necessarily subby, but exhibit traits like cowardice, indecisiveness, who have a preference for stepping back and letting other characters take the reins. That sort of thing.

Do you ever have fun with characters like that?

Do you ever make them the protagonist?

Do you ever deliberately write them as sexy and desirable, despite or because of their nature?

What does a character like that require to become a character you enjoy writing or reading about?
What would be a red line that makes them insufferable?

a character who starts out this way but grows could be fun.

Like the premise to "Failure to Launch"... often people make big changes when a new relationship forms.

More common in a literotica like context is the cuckhold who isn't brave/decisive/forceful enough to stop it from happening. I have mixed feelings about this. I've found it hot in the past, but I've never been big on bullies. But those who have sexual shame or humiliation kinks.... most of the appeal for most people are the sex gods that are the alpha man bull or the extra extra hot wife

 

[WeShallUnclench]

I will say it's definitely something to consider for all of us but especially us male writers. We write for a predominantly male audience. But it doesn't mean our male characters have to be, as you say, wet noodles.

Now I cannot CONFIRM this, it's purely extrapolation, but I have an hypothesis about at least one fellow member I know of who at least claims to be a woman:

- She (?) writes stories about wet noodle boys who get sexed at by amazing pro-active women
- She (?) gushes in other threads about how much fun it is to give blowjobs to men, how it makes one feel powerful and sexy, as it's all about "running the show" with the guy completely at one's mercy

Now if she WAS telling the truth about her gender, then my hypothesis is that you might see a connection between those two points. Or several connections.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

Yes, I do this all the time. It's probably my single biggest blind spot as a writer. I'm thinking of asking the building across the street from me if I can hang a big banner visible from my window that says "Don't Make Another Observant, Reactive Narrator With An Awesome Best Friend."

You can get away with it if you're writing the next Gatsby. But I'm not that good.

IDK if this inspires you, but if you look at The Great Gatsby just a bit sideways, the main character is Nick. Someone told me once that he's the devil. When you realize what a thoroughly dishonest narrator he is, a lot of interesting things emerge.... You can think about how the story might have gone had Nick not been there (or had he made different decisions). I'll leave it at that and let you make your own mind up about it.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

I've never been big on bullies.

I kinda LOVE fictional bullies, but the big caveat is that both they and their victim must be interesting and/or sexy in some way.
Ideally the victim should at least squeal in a way that awakens primal instincts...

 

[MisterWolf26]

Now I cannot CONFIRM this, it's purely extrapolation, but I have an hypothesis about at least one fellow member I know of who at least claims to be a woman:

- She (?) writes stories about wet noodle boys who get sexed at by amazing pro-active women
- She (?) gushes in other threads about how much fun it is to give blowjobs to men, how it makes one feel powerful and sexy, as it's all about "running the show" with the guy completely at one's mercy

Now if she WAS telling the truth about her gender, then my hypothesis is that you might see a connection between those two points.

I actually thoughy about making a post about accounts on here pretending to be women.

I know I did it in chat rooms the late 90's.... anything to get people to ACTUALLY interact with you.

 

[MisterWolf26]

I kinda LOVE fictional bullies, but the big caveat is that both they and their victim must be interesting and/or sexy in some way.
Ideally the victim should at least squeal in a way that awakens primal instincts...

Well, I think the appeal of a truly wimpy cuck is in the humiliation kink. A strange catharsis in seeing someone else bear your shame.

 

[MisterWolf26]

I do kind of like stories where a woman rewards boys for good behavior. Teachers, mothers, whoever. Study this week and I'll let you play with my tits. Pass that quiz and I'll jack you off. Get an A in the class and my asshole is yours.

This.... genre... is very open to young men who are imperfect in important ways. They CAN be very sexy, and that can be nice, or they can NOT be. Clearly they are not perfect though, or they wouldn't require such drastic measures

 

[big_cane_sugar]

The characters that interest me most are rich, handsome, confident, charming, amoral heterosexual men (i.e. who I am tempted to wish I had been when I was young), but it seems wrong to me to write something like, "I'm the best-looking guy you've ever seen," so I've tried writing from the POV of jealous guys a few times. I published one of them here and basically no one cared. It wasn't a good story anyway, regardless of the narration, but I've worked on it a lot since then and might try publishing a better version of it here. I got the idea back when incels were in the zeitgeist and I thought what if an incel and a Chad were college roommates? I do think it's a fun premise....

 

[StrentWriter]

Weeeeelll...

I'm gonna take a wild-ass guess that the story we're talking about was not a NC/CNC/DC story. In which case, a commenter saying "not enough NC" can f right off ffs.

Nuance my ass

Absolutely agree!

 

[Belegon]

Most of my characters have at least some of my own charateristics and that includes my tendancy to overthink things so much that it gets interpreted as my being unable or unwilling to make a decision. The unable thing is actually true far more often than the unwilling thing is.