I think what you're trying to ask is, how do I have a main character who isn't given a bunch of nice things by the author just to make them stand out. How do you have a chracter who isn't given "wise thinking, good luck, a charm, in some cases special powers, too"?

To be sure, there are a lot of successful stories out there that have protagonists with special abilities. But this isn't always true. There are also a lot of stories where the main characters are perfectly ordinary, then are thrown into some extraordinary circumstances. Frodo and Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are two excellent examples of this kind of character. The Lord of the Rings is set in one of the most highly-developed and deeply magical settings in literary history, and yet Tolkien went out of his way to make his main protagonists hobbits, a race hand-crafted to be as mind-bendingly unadventurous and plain as possible. The result is that when Bilbo and Frodo are dragged into the world outside of the Shire, the simple lifestyle they're used to is contrasted against the dangerous and chaotic situations they keep on finding themselves in. And because they're such ordinary men, they consistently have to solve their problems with quick thinking, strength of character, and raw bravery, all of which they have to learn on the way. They don't get to rely on any special powers or unearned wisdom to get them out of danger.

Frodo and Bilbo do obtain the ring during their stories. But they don't start out with the ring as something core to their characters - it's something that comes into their lives during their adventures. And when it does, it complicates their stories and defines what happens to them. And everyone else around them on their journeys is dealing with equally as weighty responsibilities or magic. When you write a story, your main character will be thrown into some unique situations, whether they're ordinary protagonists or not. But done well with an ordinary main character, these situations could potentially happen to anyone in the story - they just happen to fall into the laps of the characters the reader is most invested in.

I'm also wondering if you've gotten burned out on Mary Sues in bad fiction and want to avoid writing Mary Sues yourself. A Mary Sue is a main character who the author is clearly in love with but is insufferable to the reader. These characters consistently have a few ugly traits:

• Mary Sues are always able to solve problems by using special powers or strength of character that they had at the beginning of the story. They're never forced to change because of or struggle with a problem.
• Mary Sues are always treated as being morally in the right, even when they do things that would be unacceptable from anyone else. For example, anyone they insult or get angry at is treated as though they deserved it, but anyone who responds in kind to the main character is treated as though they're out of line.
• With the above two problems, readers aren't going to have much of a reason to care about a Mary Sue character. Bad writers try to compensate for this by giving their characters tragic, edgy backstories.

That first point can be badly exacerbated giving a poorly-written character special powers or a good luck charm. But giving a unique character special powers does not automatically mean that they never run into a problem they can't solve without that power.

The Incredibles I and II provide some positive and negative examples of this. At the beginning of The Incredibles II, the main characters battle The Underminer but lose the fight and trash much of the city in the process. For anyone else in the story, this would have been treated as incompitent at best and the start of a slide into villainy at worst (a la Incrediboy's decent into becoming Syndrom). But the movie instead treats the Inredible family as having done their best and undeserving of the consequences that follow failure. This is a very mild case of a Mary Sue - The Incredibles II is a great movie at the end of the day. By Pixar's high standards, though, the way this doesn't quite sit right is one of the valid criticisms leveled against the film.

In contrast, the first movie still gives the family the exact same powers. But the core conflicts aren't about those powers. They're about Bob being torn between protecting his family and wanting to relive the good old days of openly being a superhero. This conflict cannot be directly addressed by the application of superpowers, so the characters have to deal with the core issues in other ways. It's not until Bob is willing to prioritize his family over playing hero that the main characters are able to work together as team well enough to defeat Syndrome.

If you're worried that you can't write a main character with unique gifts without making them fall flat, the solution is simple: Make sure that they encounter problems that can't be automatically solved with the abilities they had the start of their stories, and when they fail, make sure they face the consequences for those failures. As I discussed earlier, you don't have to give main characters special powers to make them successful characters. But you don't have to go out of your way to avoid giving them special powers, either.

posted over 5 years ago

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Kevin‭

175 reputation 0 32 35 8

I think you misunderstand the MC; the MC doesn't have to be extraordinary in any particular sense; and in most good stories the MC has weaknesses or flaws to overcome.

The reason an MC is the main character is only because that is the character the reader most identifies with. That is the character whose thoughts and feelings and troubles are shown. They don't have to be special.

Even when they are special, the stories tend to be about problems they can't necessarily solve with their special powers -- Superman's biggest problem (the traditional Superman) was that he is lovesick for Lois Lane, and can't be with her, and can't have a romantic relationship with her. All his super powers can't fix that problem. (In more modern tellings, Superman may hook up with Lois, but again it can't last as a permanent relationship.)

As others have noted, you can bypass the problem a bit using a Main Crew instead of a Main Character, or use a series of leads like GoT, but then they still tend to have a Main Character whose arc we are following for awhile, a fan favorite.

The main rule of writing is the writing must be interesting. We identify with characters doing interesting things. Both IRL and in fiction, we like hearing about extraordinary people, we like hearing about brave people fighting for what is right, defeating evil and cruelty.

So you are going to have to give your character some problem to solve. They don't have to be extraordinary; but also don't make them extraordinarily stupid or gullible or clumsy or foolhardy. They don't have to be a genius, but being so dumb the reader knows they are being dumb is going to be difficult for the reader to relate to emotionally; unless you are writing a farcical comedy (e.g. Dumb and Dumber). In the case of Flowers for Algernon, the character begins mentally disabled; but we relate because he becomes special, and the end is a tragic return to disability.

But these are special cases, you can write an engaging character that is not special in any sense, other than having a problem they feel compelled to solve. Without the latter, you just don't have what most of us consider a "story".

posted over 5 years ago

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Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37

Adding to linksassin's good answer about having a cast of characters rather than a main, I want to point out what you said:

The author takes special care of them. Provides them wise thinking. Good luck. A charm. In some cases special powers too. Sometimes readers bind that character to themselves, that's how they keep engaging with the story.

This is an incorrect assumption. It's true that the MC in a lot of genres (I'm thinking about young-adult fiction and fantasy, mainly) is often special in one way or another, but it doesn't have to be the case. It changes depending on the genre. This kind of stereotypical main character, who wins his struggles because he's special, is completely unnecessary. Fiction is full of protagonists that, while they do have skills and perks, are not "special" nor covered by plot armor.

The real difference between a main character and a secondary one is time; how much time the author spends to show his struggles, describing his emotions and his thoughts, how much time is taken to develop his arc and so on. The more you write about a character, the more the audience will know him/her, and the more they will care (hopefully).

If you don't want one MC, the easiest thing is to have two. Balancing two (interesting) characters, giving each one the same depth and an equally strong story arc, is surely challenging, but it can lead to interesting results. Also, chances are that the readers that won't be able to "click" with one of your MCs will be able to relate with the other. A classic example of this is The Betrothed by A. Manzoni, where both Renzo and Lucia are equally developed main characters.

If you want you can add even more characters and move towards a group cast of main characters. GoT is a good example, but there are many more in literature. Remember that a group cast tends to subtract emphasis from the struggles of a single person to underline the struggles of a group of people, of a political situation, of a nation and so on depending on the book.

posted over 5 years ago

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Liquid‭

770 reputation 44 140 116 3

It is harder to keep the reader engaged without one

As you say a main character is someone for the reader to connect with. Ideally they will empathise with them and come to care about the character. Wanting to know what happens to them is enough to keep the pages turning.

If you choose to go without a main character this can be harder to obtain. Instead you will need to draw from a cast of character, each having to work to connect with the reader. For a cast of 6 that can easily be 6 times as much work, plus additional work to manage the transitions. Even more work in preventing readers from disconnecting from the characters you haven't talked about in a while. Writing a good story that doesn't have a main character or characters is hard.

That doesn't mean it can't be done.

Game of Thrones is the most prominent example but there are many others. In GoT the 'main' characters are constantly rotating and we are unsure of who it is meant to be. The main character is whoever the POV is at a given time, each character is treated as equally important.

posted over 5 years ago

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linksassin‭

215 reputation 11 37 34 0