User blog comment:Creeper50/How to Make an Unlikable Character Worth Rooting For/@comment-4715955-20160804102711

''If he's a serial killer, let me know that instantly. Otherwise, I won't root for him anymore once I learn of it.''

So you would root for him knowing from the get-go that he's a serial killer, but not if he turns out to be one later? Makes perfect sense.

''An internal weakness is a personality trait that is so awful that it ruins the character's life. Give your character one. It can be a tramatic past incident, a fear, or a negative emtion. Even better, give the character a conflict that requires overcoming the internal weakness.''

Whatever they do, be sure they have some motive behind any and all actions.

''Don't all plots revolve around a goal? Yes, but the character should have a goal aside from the main storyline in order to make him unique.''

''Giving characters traits that set them apart from everyone else make them interesting. These quirks may or may not contribute to the plot.''

This is the essence of making ANY character!

And I'm sorry, but your serial killer is a poor example. The black hair thing is nonsensical, even for a murderous maniac, to the point where I can't take him seriously, and making him read comics isn't a noteworthy quirk: it's an arbitrary superficial trait for the sake of "but hez still human" and nothing else, like a preference for hawaiian shirts, or a love of smoothies, or any other thing that applies to tons and tons of other people. Quirks are supposed to make characters distinct, not just like everyone else.

You wanna make your reader root for an unlikable character? Make that character more human than everyone else. Tony Montana was a ruthless drug lord and a killer with a massive ego, but his peers do worse things than he does: they scheme behind his back, or they don't do their own dirty work, or they're corrupt cops, or they're willing to murder children to get what they want, or they dismember people alive with chainsaws. Even the guy that finally kills him shoots him in the back, instead of the front like Tony would have done. He's a scumbag, but he's the only scumbag with parameters in a world full of scumbags. Same goes for the title character in Gotti: he's a criminal, but he's the only criminal in the cast with something resembling a moral compass.

Actually, there's another way: make the character really good looking, like Dexter. Then nobody will care how fucked he/she is.

Everything you've just described is Character 101 as described by a student who still doesn't quite get it. Before you write essays on how to write, you need to get a better handle on the craft yourself.