How to Make a Great Leading Character

Anyone who likes a good story will tell you that what drives them to read on is wanting to know what happens to that central character. They want to follow this person’s journey from the first page until its final conclusion. And in order to make the reader want to remain loyal to this person, they need someone who is compelling, who is charismatic and more importantly, they want someone who is filled with intrigue and personality. Not just a plain persona made out of the heroic mold. They want someone who they can relate to, someone perhaps they can see themselves as being.

We can see this in some of literature’s greatest protagonists; Odysseus, who longs to return to his family and kingdom; Frodo Baggins, who desires to spare his homelands from the ravages of war; Harry Potter, who must face a destiny that is beyond his control; or even Henry V from the William Shakespeare play, who must prove his maturity and ability to lead a nation in the fires of war and death. And that is just to name a few, and what’s more, this need for compelling characters are not just limited to just males, or even humans. They just need to have that intuitive spark that captivates their audience into wanting to be like them, and to be with them until the end.

So then, now that we covered the basic ‘why’ of the main character (MC), it’s time to examine how to make one from scratch. I’ll go into greater detail as to what is needed to be considered for your MC.

Personality

First and foremost, you need to develop a personality, whatever that may be. Will your MC be friendly, distant, rude, arrogant, kind, humble, boisterous, greedy? There are thousands of characteristics that need to be taken into consideration, but you only need a few. Keep in mind that you cannot have a perfect character. No one wants to read about a person who is perfect. They’re not interesting, at all. Look at Superman and DC Comics for example, he was virtually picture perfect in the first two years of his run. This was somewhat acceptable, because his audience was very young, but as these children grew with the comics, and their literary tastes matured, they began to look for characters with more poignancy and depth to them, which was what helped make the Marvel Comics, and their flagship stars popular with their older audiences.

Another example of forgettable MCs would have to be those seen often in the romance genre. Now to be fair there are other genres that are guilty of this flaw,  but having read Janice Radway’s essay on this particular genre, I can use this area better than with the other points. But I digress. Mass produced romance novels are normally produced on a massive scale and for the most follow a very clear-cut system of clichés and formulas. You often find a supposedly independent intelligent woman, falling for and become virtual slave to the man they are trying to woo. And somehow, the couple comes to an understanding that benefits the two at the end of the book. MCs in these novels often seem very two-dimensional, so much so that it is sometimes hard to remember one very vividly and clearly from the other.

So in short, give your character flaws, real flaws, human flaws. My advise, pick at least one sin and stick with it. For my case, I used wrath, a lot. I mean A LOT. But this is just my case, and with what you are writing you need to tailor your MC to how you see fit.

Back-story

Onto the second aspect to work on. Where does your character come from? Were they a villain before? Were they a victim? Did they have a family? Did they kill their family? These are just a few questions that you will have to ask yourself when you are working on your character’s back-story. Thankfully, once you answer your first question, the rest tend to answer themselves, unless you want to make a new twist in the tale, which is never a bad thing.

Usually it helps with the story, and with the character’s drawing power, if the back-story is influential in what their personality is during the story. Learning what happens to a man’s family is important to why they are on a journey of vengeance, for example. A man searching for redemption to a past sin is another good one. To give your character reason for doing what they are doing. And again, it has to be a believable back-story, anything too far into the imagination will just make the readers think the story is just weird, period.

Own Worst Enemy

Finally, while a physical obstacle is usually required for the MC to have to face in the novel, I always like it when the worst enemy that MC has to face… is themselves. For a reader to read about someone who must face themselves as well as a ‘traditional’ antagonist can strike a very personal chord within the reader, which in turn will make them want to read on further and see if your MC is able to overcome their personal demons. Now this isn’t to say that this demon has to be completely eliminated in the end, look at George MacDonald Fraser’s “Flashman” series. But to see someone who has to face their flaws on a regular basis is rarely one that readers would come to dislike.

We ourselves have to face our demons at certain points in our lives, and to read and take some form of escape that helps to reinforce our resolve to face these demons helps to connect the MC to the readers on an intimate level. And because of this connection, there is a relationship with these characters that is more poignant then if the MC is a simple cookie-cut character.

What are your main characters like? How have you filled them with “character” to create a living, breathing, interesting person? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Images courtesy of  Suki No Yumi and MTV.