3 Tips for Creating a Memorable Main Character
Hey Story Crafters,
Whether you prefer character-driven stories over plot-driven ones or vice versa, your main character—or main characters—is the bridge that connects your readers to your story.
Without a main character, your readers don’t have an avatar to live vicariously through to experience the world of your story. So it’s important that you really take the time developing your main character(s) before you even get to the meat of your story.
I spend a lot of time journaling about my characters, my MC especially, before I start doing a detailed outline of my stories, since the narratives tend to develop naturally after I learn about my characters. The type of character journaling I’m talking about here is deeper than knowing your MC’s appearance, ethnicity, career and relationship status, family structure, and other details.
These details are important and help give a fuller picture of your characters, but they don’t necessarily create the action that drives your story forward. The deeper details of your MC are what make readers care about her, and invest in the time to read your story to the end.
It comes down to this question: How well do you know your MC?
Three deeper details about characters that I find helpful in creating more life-like characters are core personality, character motivation(s), and the relationships with other characters.
1) Know your MC’s core personality.
Is your MC a hard worker? Is she competent at her job, and driven to rise higher in her chosen professional field? Is he an antisocial loner who will take drastic measures to never step into a room that has more than five people in it?
Your MC should stick out to the reader in a unique, but relatable, way.
[Side note: Unique doesn’t necessarily have to mean special, like being the most handsome boy in class or the most powerful sorceress in the world. But your MC should stand out from the other characters in some way, for a noticeable or a secret reason, so your readers are intrigued by her and want to stick around to learn more about her.]
Every decision your MC decides to make over the course of the story has to be rooted in his core personality. If, say, the dedicated antisocial loner decided to throw a party at his home without proper buildup to this drastic attitude change, this out of character behavior will take your readers out of the story.
Your readers may even feel betrayed, because the MC they had started to care about, and who they thought they fully knew and understood, acted in a completely unexpected way without explanation. They may lose trust not only in your ability to represent your MC, but also in your ability to tell your story. That loss of trust may be worse than any character inconsistencies.
2) Set your MC’s motivation(s).
Along the same lines as knowing your MC at her innermost core of being, you have to know what motivates her to take action.
Your MC may have more than one motivation, which is perfectly fine. It can make for interesting tension and conflict in your story, if your MC has to choose which motivation is more important to follow while trying to achieve the overall goal of the narrative.
As an example, let’s look back at the antisocial loner. He may have had a traumatic childhood experience that drives him to avoid social gatherings with his classmates, like hanging out at McDonald’s or another popular fast food joint.
But then he finds a new motivation that opposes this aspect of his core personality—he forms a crush on a female classmate. She isn’t the most popular or beautiful girl in class, but she’s social enough to hang out with other classmates. His new desire to get close to her, to maybe even ask her out, will drive him to go against his initial motivation to avoid social interactions.
3) Your MC’s relationships with other characters.
The relationships your MC has with other characters can reveal a lot about their core personality and their motivations. This is especially true if your MC’s core personality, or private behavior, doesn’t match with the persona she shows in public.
For example, a stoic, rude MC who’s the class loner may have a soft spot for her shy younger brother, and only shows that caring side when she’s with him.
You have to be careful not to make the mistake of shoving secondary characters into caricatures or stereotypes, like the bad-boy in class who can’t help pulling the MC’s metaphorical pigtails, or the bitchy ex-partner who always tries to sabotage the MC’s current romantic relationship.
It’s not that you can’t use these traits, but they are shallow and one-dimensional if used on their own. If you use a stereotype, you have to give that character more layers that help the reader empathize with them.
Bring it all together: the before/after, how it started/how it’s going comparison.
These three deeper character details should drive your narrative forward, and result in some kind of change (physically or emotionally) or growth in your MC. Or more simply put, there should be a noticeable difference in a before and after comparison.
With the antisocial MC who develops a crush on a female classmate, he may grow from the antisocial loner to a thoughtful, caring boyfriend who others want to befriend.
To create a memorable MC, digging deeper by journaling to learn her core personality, her motivations, and how she interacts with other characters (her relationships) is a good starting point. It has the added benefit of helping you shape your overall story.
Your readers will be satisfied if they have an MC they can care about, or at least relate to (they don’t necessarily have to like your MC), to stick with for an entire story, and that your MC has undergone some kind of change or growth.
Happy writing!
Leah
P.S. This stage of your writing process is the best time to put your relationship map to use! It’ll let you put these three details—core personality, character motivations, and relationships with other characters—for your main character, and your major characters, on one diagram.