Fifty Horror Clichés That Need to Die in a Fire

#20: Dull Main Protagionists

  Although as a medium the horror genre has always been innovative and kept up with the times in order to write iconically scary material for multiple audiences, a major flaw has always been persistent.  You could be reading a psychological horror book about an author being tortured by the demands of a deranged super fan, or watching a creepy film about a summer camp's counselors slowly being picked off one by one in a twisted scheme for revenge.  The stories for both of these horror mediums could be fantastic in execution, becoming well know icons of the genre.  They could be the most beloved examples of their genre, still being talked about even decades after publication.  However, the hidden flaw in these stories still remain and is unconsciously making other writers fall into the same pitfall.  That flaw is one of the most important aspect of any story, be it horror, fantasy, romance, or any other genre that exists.  This flaw is the protagonist, who for the most part ends up becoming a dull sack of air that pale in comparison to the conflict going on around them.
   The role of the protagonist has always been an important one to represent well in medium.  Creating complexity for your protagonist allows the audience to find immediate attachment to the storyline, even if you make the mistake of fumbling up a few things in the beginning.  They introduce you to the main setting, the cast of characters we will stick around with for the majority of the story, and the main conflict that depending on the circumstances inside the story may or may not get resolved.  They are the first character you see, and give an impression of how the story's quality will end up being when done well.  The protagonist is a glue that sticks the story together on its hinges.  Without a strong protagonist to represent the story, you risk the glue on these hinges wearing down or at worst completely falling apart.

  For horror, the role of the protagonist is just as important as any other kind of story.  Though you might get saved with a flat protagonist by the story's major conflict luring readers in, it is much more likely the story will fail if the protagonist is not created to be complex enough.  This balancing act of complexity is vital if the writer wishes to secure their storyline and the message they are trying to share with audiences.

  A great example of the complexity of the main character being used in the horror genre to increase the value of the story is Jack Torrance in The Shining novel.  In that book, readers are introduced to a man on the brink of losing their mind from the misfortunes they have had to suffer.  Jack Torrance has struggled hard with alcoholism, getting fired from his dream job due to his anger issues flaring up at the wrong moment, a falling apart marriage, struggling to finish the play he has been trying to write as his first major publication, and slowly becoming broke from a combination of these elements in his life.  Immediately when meeting Jack for the first time, readers immediately become interested in his conflict, relating to him on a personal level from the realism of his situation, or wanting to find out how this man plans to try to turn his life around.  We thus cheer for him when Jack gets the job as caretaker of The Overlook Hotel, and when at first, it seems his problems are slowly starting to resolve themselves from a huge change of scene through the move over there.  So when the ghosts of The Overlook Hotel slowly prey upon his insecurities by targeting his anger issues and alcoholism, slowly driving him to insanity, we feel at a loss for Jack.  We feel the horrific toll these ghosts had on Jack's mind, being forced to watch him become something terrible; a monster willing to kill his family in the false illusion that doing so will save the hotel.  Jack Torrance is the reason The Shining has the great impact it has as a horror story, and without him, the scares would not hit half as effectively. 

  The best solution to the all too dominant problem of a dull horror protagonist is to directly connect them into the main narrative as well as the major conflict unfolding around them.  Your main character has to gave a strong hint as to what kind of story you are trying to sell audiences, and react to the situation in a unique way that allows the story to work well around their complex personality.  They can be the hero that stops Jason, the person who becomes consumed from grief and becomes insane from the false hope of reviving loved ones, the rising villain that takes on the mantel of the killer after everything is said and done, or the average person trying to stay alive in the zombie apocalypse.  No matter what the role the main character takes on, it has to connect them to the story and give them a strong layer of complexity.