o. writing help! ( THE TEN ELEMENTS TO A MAIN CHARACTER! )
' to create a great main character '
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great main characters – heroes, protagonists, deuteragonist, whatever you want to call them – have ten things in common. ten things that are easily developed, once you know what to create within your character.
1. WEAKNESSES
main characters should be flawed, but i'm not saying this because it will make them more realistic (though it will) – i'm saying they need to be flawed because if they're not, they shouldn't be a main character. story is another word for change, or more accurately, character growth. not character as in "fictional person", character meaning "heart and soul". story is someone's character changing, for better or worse.
main characters at the beginning of the story are lacking something vital, some knowledge of themselves, some knowledge of how to live a better life, and this void is ruining their lives. they must overcome these weaknesses, if they're going to become complete, and reach a happy ending. there are two types of weaknesses: psychological and moral.
psychological ones only hurt the main character. moral ones cause the main character to hurt other people. easy.
2. GOAL
characters exist because they want something. desiring something, and the fight against opposition for that desire, is the lifeblood of story; and because character is story, it's also desire that can breathe life into words on a page, and begin the process of creating a real person in a reader's mind. it's this 'desire for something' that sparks that first connection between reader and character. it makes us think "well, now i have to find out if this person gets what they want."
this is a powerful link. (how many mediocre movies do we suffer through, when we could easily stop watching, because we're still trapped by that question of "what happens?") so if this is powerful enough to keep people watching an annoying movie, imagine how powerful it can be in an excellent story.
like in up, the goal is to get the house to paradise falls.
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3. WANT
if the main character wants something, they want it for a darn good reason. usually, they think that attaining the goal will fill the void they can sense in their lives, the deficiency they can feel, but don't know how to fix. and they're almost always wrong. getting the goal doesn't help anything; which is why, while pursuing that goal, they discover a deeper need that will heal them. which brings us to ...
