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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44962
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44962
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I don't think it is important at all for main characters to be outstanding in the looks department; if fact it can be a detriment. They can be more sympathetic to readers if they aren't that good looking, and know it. How many movies have you seen where the main character is NOT the best looking member of their gender? Or where some other side actor is clearly intended to be the beautiful one?

Novels are the same. Noticeable physical beauty comes with positive attention and privilege, popularity with both sexes, as friends and potential lovers. Beauty smooths the path to early success in life, it opens doors locked to those that aren't going to be contenders for the crown in any beauty contests.

It is harder for readers to believe a noticeably beautiful or sexually attractive character struggles for success in life. We expect the noticeably beautiful to be given opportunities not available to the rest of us; and to exploit their beauty in subtle ways. It is easier for a beautiful person to get minor favors from strangers, for example.

It is easier for readers to empathize with the guy/girl in the middle of the pack, which is where most self-aware people see themselves. We aren't going to be hired for any jobs because we are sexually attractive, we are going to have to do something more than be fun to look at.

I avoid good looking characters as my **main** characters and as love interests; the only outstanding beauties in my stories are there as **contrast** to my main characters: To prove my MCs aren't the most privileged or beautiful or attractive in the world and my MCs know it. Although my MCs do always have something they are extremely good at it, it is never natural beauty or sexual attractiveness. That is too easy and too obvious, and readers know it. Whatever my MCs excel at, it is never outwardly obvious to those that do not know them, and usually something the MC would have to choose to reveal to a stranger. For example, my MC may be a world class chess wizard, a result of both natural talent and training, but you wouldn't know that by looking at her.

I wouldn't use beauty as a shortcut to anything; I consider it clichéd writing, for either gender.

Original score: 7