Sunday, June 6, 2010

Can the Good guys be too good?

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about the bad guys have feelings too, and now I wanted to see if anyone can relate to me in wanting to make your protagonist, your hero, the one you love and cherish too good? For example in a story that I wrote a long time ago, way way way back before I was even thinking of making writing my life, I made this one guy who was perfect in every way. Now that sounds cool, and should work well, but then I read it again, about a year ago, and realized that he was boring.

The reason he was boring, you might be asking? Or maybe not.

It was because no matter what sort of trouble he got into, or problems arose, there wasn't anything he couldn't do and things were never too hard for him. I couldn't make them too hard for him because he was perfect. You get what I'm saying. Now some of you might say, what about Superman or others like him, they are pretty perfect. You have to remember about Kryptonite. That was his one weakness.

So you have to make a flawed character for two reasons, because that way your reader can better relate, as well as it makes your story more suspenseful.

What are some of your character flaws? Alcoholic? Gambler? or do you go smaller than that? Say Cheater? or bigger? Kicks puppies? So let me know, what are some of the flaws of your dream character? If you don't want to mention one of your characters, maybe one in one of your favorite books?

2 comments:

  1. I read a novel by a best selling author, years ago, where the MC was perfect. She did everything right, and when things went crazy around her, she was never personally hurt. I *hated* that book!

    One flaw in my favorite MC is that he reads tooooo much. ;-)

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  2. This was actually part of the inspiration of my first book. The main character was a young wannabe heroine, who was caught between two role models - the admirable but boring good guy, and the villain who was nasty but much more fun. She, of course, found her own way to be good and not boring....

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