Wattpad Pet Peeves

Clichéd Characters: The Bad Boy

Welcome to my first mini-series, Clichéd Characters! The title is pretty self explanatory; I will be going over everyone's favorite character stereotypes that live here on Wattpad. First up, the most infamous, The Bad Boy.

We all know him. Every guy envies him. He has dark hair, that always falls into his intense eyes, which are probably blue, or green, or some other totally rare color, like gold. His name is probably something cool-sounding, like Jake, or Chad or something. He's very tall (If he's not more than 6'0", he's not qualified to be a bad boy). He has a motorcycle that he cares for more than his own family. He has a troubled past, and a nasty temper. All of the other boys fear him. He gets all the girls, except for that one girl, who plays hard to get, that our bad boy falls for harder than anything. He has the toughest personality, but he has a soft spot for that one girl, even though he constantly hooks up with other girls. Everybody thinks he's a meathead, but he's actually an intellectual. He probably writes poetry or something. And for whatever reason, the bad boy always takes his coffee black.

He is The Bad Boy.

So, what makes the bad boy cliché? Do I even need to answer this question? He's EVERYWHERE. Thousands of bad boys live here on Wattpad, so many that they all seem like the same person to me. He's so common that Wattpad authors use the fact that he's cliché to get more reads. They're totally aware that there are tons of other bad boys out there for him to compete with. I guess it's not the worst thing to read about, but do my recommended reading lists always have to be loaded to the brim with bad boy romance novels?

So what makes the bad boy one of my pet peeves?

I don't like him. The bad boy's temper is as short as a freshly mowed blade of grass. The bad boy gets into fights. Sometimes he's completely ruthless. I'm not attracted to impatient guys with explosive tempers. In fact, these kinds of characters are hard to root for. I think the reason many straight women like the bad boy is because they associate his anger with high testosterone (I'm not sure if that's true or not), but I struggle to root for him because his behavior hurts others.

Although, sometimes the bad boy has a character development, as he finally realizes that his actions have consequences. This is a good character development, but I've noticed that a lot of authors that like to develop their bad boys seem do just do it over night. That's not how it works. He's not just gonna fall in love with some girl and immediately become a better person. That takes trial and error. Sometimes, the bad boy is so bad that the only thing that can convince him to change for the better is hitting rock bottom. Now that's a good story.

Fellow writers, take this as a lesson to use the bad boy trope in a good way. Give him redeeming qualities. Make the audience swoon for him. Even if he's a tragic character, make him have a turnaround, make him hit rock bottom or something. The bad boy actually has serious potential, but a lot of writers don't know how to properly utilize him.

Next up, we will analyze the bad boy's counterpart, The Good Girl. See you then!

- Vanessa