Young Writers Society

My longer writing sucks. I have thought and thought and thought on what the problem is and I finally have the conclusion:

The Main Character or "The Hero."

My villains are entertaining, I love writing them and their deeds and I feel the plot around them develops well. However when it comes to the good guy I have a flat, uninteresting character - the thing is I have no idea how to make the good guy interesting to write?

Any ideas?

What makes writing a villain so different from a hero? I think defining that might be a good first step.

Maybe the problem is that my main characters are bad characters? Then maybe I need tips on how to define a unique character. My main characters usually want a silly cliche thing: revenge etc... I really need to change that.

Stop thinking that it's cliched as the first step. Once you have done that try to think about your character's goals, flaws etc. and mould them into a real person.

In reality, nothing is really original anymore so you might as well go for revenge if you want to. Add your own special twist to it just to make them unique but if that fails convince us through character developement to carry on reading.

Just give them a horribly twisted or tortured past--that's what I do. But for real, I personally find that delving into my main character's backstory and history gives them more depth than anything else I can do.

How to make your Hero 3D is challenging, it is very easy to slip into stereotypes. What I am trying to do with my main characters, my 'Good Guys' is give them some flaws. I get most of my ideas from my own weaknesses. Check yourself out, and try to graft a few of your own problems onto your hero. Sometimes it takes some tweaking to get them to fit.

Of course some people have no flaws of their own and if you are one of them you'll just have to borrow some from an irritating brother or neighbor or what-have-you.

I also read somewhere that you have to make a character care about something to make them believable, whether that is another person or gaining fame or fortune.

Hope that helps. I think there is a usergroup here that is devoted to developing character. You might want to check that out.

Shireling

Make him a villain, but with opposing objectives to the other villains! Seeing as you said your villains were fun.

Thanks for the advice, keep it comin' YWS

Elelel - I've never looked at it like that lol. I suppose evil is subjective. This is interesting, one shall muse on this.

Someone might have said this already... oh well.

Give them goals. That sounds so much more like a way to create a plot, but sometimes goals also shape characters. Of course, plot shapes characters too. Gah, things are so intertwined.

Anyway, back to characters. If their flat, brighten them up. Give them a quirk. Are they perfect? They shouldn't be. My characters tend to have the worst quirks in the world, or at least the character I want to have the most fun with. Then some of mine just have interesting personalities, like Audrey. She's just a bright, spunky actress with a cool way of talking. But she's incredibly vain, and tries to hide it. Which is really funny, because everyone knows she's vain, but she just wants everyone to accept that she is better than them. She's an odd sort of vain.

Just make them interesting? Perhaps I fail at explaining how to make good characters....yoi. If any of this helped you, I'll have to think up more things to say.

You could have a rather bland, straight hero, and then a quirky supporting character.

Think Pirates of the Caribbean: there's the bland and honourable hero, Will Turner... and then there's Jack Sparrow, the supporting rogue character.

Or you could use the Harry Potter series as an example: Harry himself is actually a rather bland hero character (honest, honourable, misses his dead parents; the good guy), and it's Ron and Hermione and their more eccentric attributes that brings flavour to the trio's adventures.


But, if it is your hero character that you want to be interesting, simply try adding in some eccentric habbits, or perhaps a few character flaws.

Take the Doctor Who series as an example of this: the Doctor is honest, honourable, loving, etc, etc. But he also has a quirky sense of humour and calm exteriour that remains with him even under intense pressure. (Well, apart from when lives other than his own are at risk.) And it is this unusal behaviour that makes him an endearing character.

Or look at Lyra from the His Dark Material's trilogy. She has the usual hero attributes (loyal, brave, etc), she also has a rather fierce temper, and lies often. These character flaws serve to make her a more interesting character.


But, ultimately, I think it's up to you how you got about it.

Perhaps make your good guy not so good. Definitely, do not do a Paolini and make him the noble, powerful, able to turn his mind to anything, good-looking, always-gets-the-girl type. That is incredibly boring. He could be weak, be it in body or mind. He could have very few morals, the only reason his objectives fit into the 'good' category is because they coincide with whatever he wants for himself, which is quite Terry Pratchett-ish. Basically, do not make him perfect - it's boring to read, and boring to write.

As people have already said original ideas are hard to come by. I suggest combining things. Like, I'll use the main character of my book. I'll show him as a guy who wants revenge, but not to satisfy his own desires. He wants to do it to keep other people from feeling his pain. That gives him the look of a guy who tries to cheer people up, but is also very serious and straight to the point. Did I help?

the thing is I have no idea how to make the good guy interesting to write?

For some reason, I get the feeling that if your character is good/honourable/heroic, he is 100% good. All of the time. Does he have flaws? If not, give him some! Otherwise, he will be kinda boring to write. I'm sure this character could benefit from some less-than-redeeming qualities.

The problem I encountered with my protagonist characters is that when they're faced with choices they tend to choose the right option all the time.

This makes them unrealistic.

When you give your character a choice to make, have them choose the wrong option. And make the consquences of this wrong option massive so that you can give the character a side of regret to his persona. It would help open up a few emotions; anger, sorrow, loss, sadness, indecision.

That makes them more interesting.

I tend to have the opposite problem. I feel I can make real MCs, but the villains often fall flat. Then again, my "heroes" are borderline villains anyway, the "dark hero" type. I can pretty much agree with everybody else in making sure your hero isn't a goody-to-shoes (or whatever the term is). Do-gooders are rarely all that interesting, as not only are they horribly predictable, they're unrealistic.

Also, make sure that they don't have a one track mind. If they're out for revenge, make sure there's more on their mind than that.

And make your heros real people. Can you see them existing in the real world. If they're nothing but wheels for the plot to drive on, you have a problem. Use your mwthods for villain making, as mentioned before, and apply them to the hero, maybe even some of the darker aspects.

Other than that, I don't know how to help. I lean towards loner, reluctant, dark heros.