Inventing Reality: A Guide to Writing Science Fiction
Main character
Main characters usually are the hero of the story. The tale often is told from their viewpoint.
Quality main characters typically:
n Possess likeable traits but also have a major flaw - Your main character may be brave, intelligent, a natural leader and handsome, but he also ought to be indecisive, obsessed, or hold some other negative quality. Your character runs the risk of being melodramatic (or too perfect) if he doesn’t possess some flaw. Such stories may be fun for kids to read (and possibly even instructive for them) but is not a believable story for an even slightly discerning adult reader.
n Faces a challenge that attacks him at his weakest point: his major flaw -To succeed, the main character should must grow and develop in such a way that he confronts and overcomes his major flaw. Oftentimes, to overcome his major flaw, he must surrender something of “inestimable value” to himself. In exchange, by overcoming this inner conflict the main character should gain something of inestimable worth. Such challenges maximize tension in a story and allows the reader to take something with him when he’s finished the story.
n Overcomes conflicts that allows him to grow - All conflicts the main character faces should serve to point or direct him toward ultimately overcoming his major flaw. By overcoming such challenges, the main character inches closer to realizing what he must do to solve his major flaw, which in turn allows him to overcome the problem that set the story in the motion.
n Don’t give up - Main characters almost always fight to main control of their lives. They want to determine their own destiny.
You Do It
Create a main character by opening a magazine to a random page and writing about the model on that page as if he/she were the hero facing a major problem. Give the character a major flaw that would make solving the problem difficult. For example, to overcome a villain, the main character must address his major flaw of not believing his involvement can make a difference.