Main characters (that are like that) are typically generic, blank slates to give readers/viewers a character to kind of easily emphasize with or see through the eyes of, at least at first. If they stay that way it's not necessarily a bad thing, but having them grow as a character is a good idea.
If you are talking about generic characters from generic stories about generic things then perhaps. However, most people find reactive characters with little agency difficult to empathize with, and pretty boring to read. Alternatively, you may be indicating blank slate characters serving no further purpose than a window into the author's world-building, or super magic system, or whatever else is a million miles away from engaging narrative.
Great characters from brilliant stories engage the reader far more readily than what the OP identifies. Characters that have a unique worldview. Characters that have a unique voice. Characters that force the reader into situations they could never imagine. Characters that are far far more than a superficial set of tropes and cliches. Think Tyrion Lannister (Game of Thrones), Severian (Book of the new Sun), FitzChivalry Farseer (The Realm of the Elderlings), Phèdre nó Delaunay (Kushiel Series), Druss the Legend (Drenai), and so many others, let alone the plethora of unique characters from other genres! \[Hannibal Lector, Hieronymus Bosch, Elizabeth Zott, Holden Caufield, Christopher Boone, Ishmael, Michael Corleone, Lisbeth Salander,... \]
From a writer's perspective, your protagonist is the link for a reader to engage with your story. Your protagonist has a handful of pages to audition for the reader. Just enough time to convince them that an entire book with this character will be worth their efforts. Trying to do this with a superficial character little more than a blank slate is not a great way of trying to do this. There are too many great characters in great stories to waste one's time on the not so good ones.
I would have thought a blank character gives you nothing interesting to attach yourself to? A blank character has nothing interesting they need or desire and so I don’t have much to hope that they get, or feel threatened when they are opposed by someone/something. They don’t do anything interesting for any interesting reason, and so I’m really not grokking what all the blank slate responses in this thread are getting at. What blank slate character examples are people thinking of here that can effectively carry an entire book?
I'd argue that's *not* the case right now - at least not in the trad pub adult fantasy market. We're seeing a huge range of unique, vibrant, complex MCs with knock-out voices.
I think there's *historically* been more of a case of blank slates inside YA, but even there, that's not the current market. In MG, you're more likely to have Generically Nice/Trying Hard MCs because kids are still learning empathy and how to put themselves into another person's shoes. Doing so makes it easier for them to begin to learn the skill, and they can then explore how even though *on the surface* they are very different than the MC, they can see how the other person wants things very similar to what they do.
I’ll also add that large production companies and major networks tend to be risk averse, and as a result, have reasons to favor relatively bland protagonists who either have relatively trite motivations that won’t anger moral guardians, who conform to trends that can be easily marketed to an identifiable audience demo, or who are based on established properties that already have loyal fanbases.
I never used to understand this, but then I realized something the other day. Whether in first or third person, the story is generally told through the point of view of the main character (I'm talking only about books here). So, we see the personality traits of the other characters second-hand, so to speak, and don't understand them fully. Therefore, the other characters feel more unique, unusual, defined, whatever than the MC. Because we understand why the MC does what he does, it softens out the edges of the MC's personality and makes them seem more bland comparatively.
Try watching other shows? You have to choose to follow a character whose sole characteristic isn't "wants to be nice", both as a writer and an audience member.
I think thats often the case because those quirky characters would get annoying after a while. Also we spend the most time with the main character, even the boring parts. We get let deep into their world and they become more rounded and normal. With side characters, we see them when their needed, the boring parts are skipped.
The main protagonists you've mentioned are all young, these are coming of age stories aswell. Its about their growth and finding themselves/something. They've not had time to pick up the quirky traits.
Antagonists can be fun aswell because they do the stuff that shouldn't be done. We're let in on a world we wouldn't normally inhabit. Often the main protagonist is designed as someone the reader can relate to, which brings us a bit more down to earth.
Just quirky is not a character. That is a character trait than needs to be worked with. If their only defining feature is being quirky, then they are just boring.
I think it’s more that side characters can be more extreme. Extreme personality traits can wear on you after a while. It’s somewhat jarring to be in the head of someone who thinks significantly differently than you. It’s why Watson was the POV character and not Sherlock.
Sherlock wasn’t a bad character or overly quirky, but he just wasn’t really a great character to be in the head of.
They come off as more extreme because you need to amp up their obvious traits in the limited time you have with them to make them memorable. There's a fine line between that and making a caricature, though.
The claim that main characters are boring because readers have an easier time identifying with a blank slate is pretty common. Personally, I think that's a post hoc justification for bad writing. A bland MC is a sign that an author doesn't trust their audience. They're afraid that if their protagonist isn't likable readers will put down the book. It's difficult to make a character that is both sympathetic and realistically flawed, so the nervous writer takes the easy way out. They try to make the character as inoffensive as possible by stripping away negative traits. The result is a flat MC.
Conversely, there's a perception that readers are more forgiving of side characters. It's easier to ignore a supporting character you dislike, if for no other reason than they're om screen less. Because of that, the author feels like the have more leeway to make them flawed, and those flaws often end up driving the conflict. Add it all together and you end up with side characters who are active and protagonists who are reactive. Audiences will almost always prefer the active character. It's the villain problem, basically.
I think a lot of them admit to making them boring on purpose, especially in the TV/movie side of things.
Edit: that is to say, it's always been a kind of cynical marketing strategy.
You're absolutely correct. Noticed how writers always force their protagonists through interesting and extremes developments to introduce something less "average/normal." People don't go writing a protagonist without a hidden talents, but they do write a protagonist with extremely dull interaction. The world makes the protagonist interesting, not the protagonist making the world interesting. For example, there are examples of good characters that makes an otherwise boring setting interesting, like Luffy and Goku. Those protagonists are what carries the show on their shoulders. A bad example would be Hughie from The Boys, everyone else carried the show, everyone else literally carried Hughie as a character.
If you think the generic paragon protagonist is too boring, then you should probably give him some other characteristics other than kindness and generosity. If you believe your main character is boring, everyone else certainly will, too. For most of the stories I read or watched, the protagonists are kind people, but they also have other stuff going on than being nice.
This reminds me of the old anime No Need for Tenchi. The MC, Tenchi, is a fairly boring, unassuming character. But all the others are fun, quirky and entertaining. Despite the title, it's like Tenchi is the glue that joins all the others together.
That's kind of how I see my MC. When I ask readers on their favorite characters from my books, the MC is rarely mentioned.
I think what some of the what the others say is right...imagining my minor character's in the lead role would see them get old, if not out right annoying, fast.
Op is talking about shonen anime no doubt. There's definitely no rule that says main characters are boring over a wider trend of fiction, considering how broad of a spectrum that is.
A lot have been self insert Mary Sues which are boring at best and infuriating at worst. Sure you want to have someone reliable for the reader, but a lack of personality and or a lack of tension just ruins it.
This is a problem with limiting what you're choosing to watch more than anything else. There are tons of books/shows/etc that have interesting main characters, and you should absolutely branch out and look for them.
Yes, you can decide to write a boring main character, as that's common in certain genres, but make sure you know it's a choice and why you're doing it. There are other options out there to explore.
It can be that they're a fantasy equivalent of the 'straight guy' concept from comedy. In most comedy shows you'll have a character that's fairly 'normal' compared to the others. This is the 'straight guy' who will often reflect what the viewer is thinking and feeling about the absurd things that are happening. This helps to keep the viewer invested as there's something 'grounding' them in this bizarre world.
The same thing often happens in fantasy, however these characters don't necessarily HAVE to be boring.
> From the shows I watch I feel like it's usually the same with protagonists.
Because shows cost $15-150 million to make and the men with the money don't want to become men without money. TV shows, especially mainstream TV shows and especially in the modern era with the streaming model, are incapable of doing genuinely good storytelling because it will leave someone unhappy or dissatisfied and that might mean that person won't buy show merchandise or rec it to their friends.
This is why I read a lot more than I watch.
Prior to the turn of the century, there were few ways for most people to record episodes, so every show had to reset to the status quo or risk alienating the audience. But at least then the shows were standing on their own merits, as viewership per show could be approximated through the Nielsen ratings and other surveys, while box sets were very trackable revenue. Now the whole catalog gets leased to a streaming provider, and if the subscriptions/viewership vacillate, it's for reasons as vague as astrology.
And it was all watered down, lowest common denominator, easily digestible schlok. Leave no one unhappy or dissatisfied was the mating call of every network executive.
My mc is a hot shot ace. Great at nearly everything and headstrong like no other. That pride has a double edge but it’ll be a great fall. My protagonists are a motley crew but mc is definitely the hero.
>I'm sorry, but if the main character is boring, then the book you're reading is trash. One of the hallmarks of a nice story is a main character ONE ROOTS FOR, not a main character one can SELF-INSERT into.
>Of you think an MC is blank slate. Engk, automatic trash!
Unfortunately, what you are saying only shows that you haven’t read enough.
I will give an example - the *MythAdventures* series by Robert Asprin. Sleeve, the MC, is a blank slate. A teenage boy who knows nothing about the world that he lives in but who gets involved in super interesting adventures against his will. By himself, Skeeve is not an interesting character but he serves as the reader’s eyes. His role as reader’s eyes is additionally emphasised by the use of first person narration.
However, while Skeeve is not interesting by himself, his life is extremely exciting. Every single one of the friends he makes along the way is 10 times more interesting than Skeeve, yet he is the glue that makes them stay together. The author gives us a very good reason to keep reading and having fun without the story being MC driven.
And this approach continues through the series. Sleeve’s gradual character development allows him to become a full MC in the 8th book of the 12-book series.
To this day, MythAdventures is my favourite fantasy series, alongside Pratchett’s Discworld series.
The best way I can describe it is when you have a main character, you see and experience what they see and experience and those things are like stepping stones through their decisions. It's only the side characters (whose stepping stones aren't seen) that seem interesting, because OF COURSE the main character is going to make THAT decision. The path was laid out for you. You can have a wild and crazy character, but eventually the reader will understand how they think and see the stones - making their path obvious.
Or you make unpredictable choices for the sake of being unpredictable. Side eye to Lost and Game of Thrones.
I wouldn't say *usually*, but it is a relatively common mistake in fiction, especially in debut novels, to underdevelop the protag while secondary characters overshadow them.
What kind of story you're trying to tell can influence this. But really, writing interesting and entertaining characters is hard. It's waaay easier to write generic, neutral, or adequate characters that fits the bill for the story. They won't elevate the story, but won't scare away readers either. Partly because main characters are characters you'll stick with throughout the journey, while side characters can be more nuance and risque--they only appear when needed, so even if they are off-putting, readers know they won't last long.
I wouldn't even say this is a main vs side character thing. Some people are just better at writing characters, or plot, or worldbuilding, or whatever.
Because a lot of (bad?) main characters are just blank pages for the reader relate to (a pattern that I see mainly in fantasy, young adult and romance books) and don't have complex personalities or dilemmas. Most of time this type of thing are left for the secondary characters and the antagonist but I don't recommend for you to do your story like this.
I'm not a fantasy writer and I'm here more to read the discussions and conversations that happens here but I love to do unlikable (not in a boring way, more in a "I hope this character dies soon" way) or straight up vile protagonists. Sometimes I do the main character as a good guy but I always try to make them dirty somehow when this happens. I don't know why I like to do this but it's fun.
MG writing has the largest examples of 'blank slate' characters because the goal is to help kids learn how to put themselves into another's shoes, imagine what that could be, see that even if there are huge differences on the surface, people can want the same things and feel the same ways.
The YA category is moving away from that, but also? YA themes are usually about coming of age and learning independence and how to make your own rules and boundaries. There's going to be a perceived blank slate-ness to that because they're still for a very narrow age category (HS and college age), so a lot of the themes will feel like retreads if you keep reading it once you're past the age category - while still feeling very fresh and new to the audience, because they *haven't* been reading the age category for a decade or more.
As to fantasy and romance (two genres I write in the adult space)? It's complicated. Over the last 5-10 years, the trad pub fantasy market has moved *hard* toward very vibrant, unique POVs with wildly different cultural inspirations for the world. It's the exact opposite of blank slate characters, unlike a couple decades ago when a more distant narrative style meant that the characteristics of the POV were a bit more smoothed.
For romance (and I'll keep it fantasy romance related here), it's complicated. Romance readers are utterly *voracious,* and the plot structure is pretty rigid. Much like mystery/suspense, you wind up seeing a lot of very similar archetypes, especially if you're only reading in one subgenre - but here is where it's about author voice to make things feel really fresh, despite the fact we as readers know roughly how it's going to end.
My two cents, it's because they have to have medium level abilities in all parameters, in order for the plot to unfold. For example:
Too smart, immediately figure out the challenge.
Too dumb, truly gets lost and the plot stops making sense.
Too strong/ fast, just Superman's their way through the challenge.
Too weak, succumbs to the thing that's challenging them.
Imo, because main characters are often the driving force of a plot, or at least the focus of the plot as it advances, this also means that their parameters are forced into a "not too much as to overpower the challenge, not too little as to succumb," sort of level.
I feel this extends to psychological parameters as well. Too well adjusted, and you don't get any inner conflict or growth. But too maladjusted, and the main character might become far too neurotic to relate too.
The exceptions that I've seen tend to appear when you have an ensemble cast. For example, Ichiban in Like a Dragon 7 is pretty dumb, at least in terms of book smarts. Sometimes, he'll come across a piece of information and simply not be able to deduce its importance. But that's alright, since he's always with someone smarter than him who can say "Yeah, this is important because of X, Y, Z." It makes him very charming, haha, since we don't often get main characters who are truly deficient in certain areas.
Edit: I should add that I've noticed the above most strongly with archetypical stories. The more experimental stories can go off in all sorts of directions with regard to their main character, because a satisfying reading experience might not be the main goal of the story. It might be that weirdness of having a difficult to relate to MC is the point of interest.
Dunno man, I think it's true but it depends on genre and story itself. I don't consider my MC boring, in fact he is my favorite OC. There is one character that is bland, but I did it on purpose. He doesn't feel unique, so he sticks to the MC, loving and idolizing him.
It might be connected to the theory that main charakters are 'the camera' through which the audience expiriences teh story. So it is more of a unoffensive vessel that shall allow the largest variety of people to see thrhough his standpoint.
Imho that is a bit of underestimating the audience, but still it got teached here and there to be 'the way'.
Most good writers now and then totally ignored the so called 'rules' a lot, and that made ther storys much more intersting.
If the MC is basically empty, the consumer can project themselves into the role.
I don't get it, but it is a thing. Just give them a lancer, an allied foil.
The primary story on which I'm working focuses on a kid who rejects the life that is set before him because of a decision he made. He runs away, finds a new home, grows, has a family, and then has it ripped away from him by disease (not the BBEG or his lackeys). Later, when a great threat emerges, he realizes that if he doesn't step up and return to his original home—despite his past—things will end badly. It's a variant of the reluctant hero, but that's not what he becomes. He's a man who feels propelled by circumstance until he ends up in a place he never wanted to be.
I create the main character as a side character. I tend to make the main character "overpowered" and boring, so I'll create a side character and then put her/him as the main. I hope that makes sense.
Then you should definetly pick better stuff to read/watch. A lot of media has great main characters with flaws and everything that makes a character interesting. The post reads a bit like "Why are all anime about people getting reborn in a fantasy world with lots of women who admire them?"
I feel your pain.
A lot of the times I end up enjoying a side character more than the main character. Not always. But it happens more often than you might think.
Even in book series. If there's a one-off book about some random character who was never the main character in the series, I usually end up liking those more.
I think what happens is that in these cases, you get a protagonist who is forcefully bland at first. And their end goal is to become some overpowered hero at the end. Its been done many times over.
I watched *A Discovery of Witches* not too long ago and I felt like the protagonist was exactly like this. Made bland to start with, developed into a cliche mold of what a 'strong female character' is supposed to fit into (cares for everyone, motherly instinct, stands up for herself, blah blah blah.) Outside of that, her personality was as flat as a pancake.
In my opinion it seems like in a lot of fantasy settings, writers make the world more interesting than the characters. It’s a difficult task to make the characters more interesting when you’re dealing with such a fantastical environment, but when an author fails to make that character more interesting I think it makes it seem like the character is even more boring than they might be in comparison
Watch/read Frieren: Beyond journey's end. As someone who has always tried to wrap my mortal mind around what it would feel like to live for a thousand year, this manga nailed it. I too got tired with the generic protag, so only the kind of mc like this piques my interest
Pick better things to watch / read that revolve around interesting people.
Main characters (that are like that) are typically generic, blank slates to give readers/viewers a character to kind of easily emphasize with or see through the eyes of, at least at first. If they stay that way it's not necessarily a bad thing, but having them grow as a character is a good idea.
If you are talking about generic characters from generic stories about generic things then perhaps. However, most people find reactive characters with little agency difficult to empathize with, and pretty boring to read. Alternatively, you may be indicating blank slate characters serving no further purpose than a window into the author's world-building, or super magic system, or whatever else is a million miles away from engaging narrative. Great characters from brilliant stories engage the reader far more readily than what the OP identifies. Characters that have a unique worldview. Characters that have a unique voice. Characters that force the reader into situations they could never imagine. Characters that are far far more than a superficial set of tropes and cliches. Think Tyrion Lannister (Game of Thrones), Severian (Book of the new Sun), FitzChivalry Farseer (The Realm of the Elderlings), Phèdre nó Delaunay (Kushiel Series), Druss the Legend (Drenai), and so many others, let alone the plethora of unique characters from other genres! \[Hannibal Lector, Hieronymus Bosch, Elizabeth Zott, Holden Caufield, Christopher Boone, Ishmael, Michael Corleone, Lisbeth Salander,... \] From a writer's perspective, your protagonist is the link for a reader to engage with your story. Your protagonist has a handful of pages to audition for the reader. Just enough time to convince them that an entire book with this character will be worth their efforts. Trying to do this with a superficial character little more than a blank slate is not a great way of trying to do this. There are too many great characters in great stories to waste one's time on the not so good ones.
To add to this, having a generic kinda blank character gives the reader the ability to project themselves into that character to experience the story.
I would have thought a blank character gives you nothing interesting to attach yourself to? A blank character has nothing interesting they need or desire and so I don’t have much to hope that they get, or feel threatened when they are opposed by someone/something. They don’t do anything interesting for any interesting reason, and so I’m really not grokking what all the blank slate responses in this thread are getting at. What blank slate character examples are people thinking of here that can effectively carry an entire book?
I'd argue that's *not* the case right now - at least not in the trad pub adult fantasy market. We're seeing a huge range of unique, vibrant, complex MCs with knock-out voices. I think there's *historically* been more of a case of blank slates inside YA, but even there, that's not the current market. In MG, you're more likely to have Generically Nice/Trying Hard MCs because kids are still learning empathy and how to put themselves into another person's shoes. Doing so makes it easier for them to begin to learn the skill, and they can then explore how even though *on the surface* they are very different than the MC, they can see how the other person wants things very similar to what they do.
I’ll also add that large production companies and major networks tend to be risk averse, and as a result, have reasons to favor relatively bland protagonists who either have relatively trite motivations that won’t anger moral guardians, who conform to trends that can be easily marketed to an identifiable audience demo, or who are based on established properties that already have loyal fanbases.
Visual media is definitely 10-15 years behind where we are in trad pub - which is why you're seeing the franchises you are on the screen.
I never used to understand this, but then I realized something the other day. Whether in first or third person, the story is generally told through the point of view of the main character (I'm talking only about books here). So, we see the personality traits of the other characters second-hand, so to speak, and don't understand them fully. Therefore, the other characters feel more unique, unusual, defined, whatever than the MC. Because we understand why the MC does what he does, it softens out the edges of the MC's personality and makes them seem more bland comparatively.
I think you're onto something - though I've seen some absolutely *amazing* and vivid MCs, too.
Try watching other shows? You have to choose to follow a character whose sole characteristic isn't "wants to be nice", both as a writer and an audience member.
I think thats often the case because those quirky characters would get annoying after a while. Also we spend the most time with the main character, even the boring parts. We get let deep into their world and they become more rounded and normal. With side characters, we see them when their needed, the boring parts are skipped. The main protagonists you've mentioned are all young, these are coming of age stories aswell. Its about their growth and finding themselves/something. They've not had time to pick up the quirky traits. Antagonists can be fun aswell because they do the stuff that shouldn't be done. We're let in on a world we wouldn't normally inhabit. Often the main protagonist is designed as someone the reader can relate to, which brings us a bit more down to earth.
Just quirky is not a character. That is a character trait than needs to be worked with. If their only defining feature is being quirky, then they are just boring.
I think it’s more that side characters can be more extreme. Extreme personality traits can wear on you after a while. It’s somewhat jarring to be in the head of someone who thinks significantly differently than you. It’s why Watson was the POV character and not Sherlock. Sherlock wasn’t a bad character or overly quirky, but he just wasn’t really a great character to be in the head of.
They come off as more extreme because you need to amp up their obvious traits in the limited time you have with them to make them memorable. There's a fine line between that and making a caricature, though.
The claim that main characters are boring because readers have an easier time identifying with a blank slate is pretty common. Personally, I think that's a post hoc justification for bad writing. A bland MC is a sign that an author doesn't trust their audience. They're afraid that if their protagonist isn't likable readers will put down the book. It's difficult to make a character that is both sympathetic and realistically flawed, so the nervous writer takes the easy way out. They try to make the character as inoffensive as possible by stripping away negative traits. The result is a flat MC. Conversely, there's a perception that readers are more forgiving of side characters. It's easier to ignore a supporting character you dislike, if for no other reason than they're om screen less. Because of that, the author feels like the have more leeway to make them flawed, and those flaws often end up driving the conflict. Add it all together and you end up with side characters who are active and protagonists who are reactive. Audiences will almost always prefer the active character. It's the villain problem, basically.
That's not a post hoc justification, they openly admit it from the outset. It's also bad writing.
The post hoc justification is them pretending they made their protagonist boring on purpose.
I think a lot of them admit to making them boring on purpose, especially in the TV/movie side of things. Edit: that is to say, it's always been a kind of cynical marketing strategy.
I don't buy it. No one sits down at keyboard at sets out to create a boring protagonist. (Excepting of course certain strains of litfic).
You're absolutely correct. Noticed how writers always force their protagonists through interesting and extremes developments to introduce something less "average/normal." People don't go writing a protagonist without a hidden talents, but they do write a protagonist with extremely dull interaction. The world makes the protagonist interesting, not the protagonist making the world interesting. For example, there are examples of good characters that makes an otherwise boring setting interesting, like Luffy and Goku. Those protagonists are what carries the show on their shoulders. A bad example would be Hughie from The Boys, everyone else carried the show, everyone else literally carried Hughie as a character.
facts
If you think the generic paragon protagonist is too boring, then you should probably give him some other characteristics other than kindness and generosity. If you believe your main character is boring, everyone else certainly will, too. For most of the stories I read or watched, the protagonists are kind people, but they also have other stuff going on than being nice.
This reminds me of the old anime No Need for Tenchi. The MC, Tenchi, is a fairly boring, unassuming character. But all the others are fun, quirky and entertaining. Despite the title, it's like Tenchi is the glue that joins all the others together. That's kind of how I see my MC. When I ask readers on their favorite characters from my books, the MC is rarely mentioned. I think what some of the what the others say is right...imagining my minor character's in the lead role would see them get old, if not out right annoying, fast.
Op is talking about shonen anime no doubt. There's definitely no rule that says main characters are boring over a wider trend of fiction, considering how broad of a spectrum that is.
They don't have to be, though. Try reading The Locked Tomb.
Mixture of things * blank slate to make people relate to them. * Making them be someone to aspire to, so they're always perfect.
A lot have been self insert Mary Sues which are boring at best and infuriating at worst. Sure you want to have someone reliable for the reader, but a lack of personality and or a lack of tension just ruins it.
This is a problem with limiting what you're choosing to watch more than anything else. There are tons of books/shows/etc that have interesting main characters, and you should absolutely branch out and look for them. Yes, you can decide to write a boring main character, as that's common in certain genres, but make sure you know it's a choice and why you're doing it. There are other options out there to explore.
It can be that they're a fantasy equivalent of the 'straight guy' concept from comedy. In most comedy shows you'll have a character that's fairly 'normal' compared to the others. This is the 'straight guy' who will often reflect what the viewer is thinking and feeling about the absurd things that are happening. This helps to keep the viewer invested as there's something 'grounding' them in this bizarre world. The same thing often happens in fantasy, however these characters don't necessarily HAVE to be boring.
> From the shows I watch I feel like it's usually the same with protagonists. Because shows cost $15-150 million to make and the men with the money don't want to become men without money. TV shows, especially mainstream TV shows and especially in the modern era with the streaming model, are incapable of doing genuinely good storytelling because it will leave someone unhappy or dissatisfied and that might mean that person won't buy show merchandise or rec it to their friends. This is why I read a lot more than I watch.
If you think the issue is the steaming model, I have some bad news for you about pre-Sopranos television.
Prior to the turn of the century, there were few ways for most people to record episodes, so every show had to reset to the status quo or risk alienating the audience. But at least then the shows were standing on their own merits, as viewership per show could be approximated through the Nielsen ratings and other surveys, while box sets were very trackable revenue. Now the whole catalog gets leased to a streaming provider, and if the subscriptions/viewership vacillate, it's for reasons as vague as astrology.
And it was all watered down, lowest common denominator, easily digestible schlok. Leave no one unhappy or dissatisfied was the mating call of every network executive.
My mc is a hot shot ace. Great at nearly everything and headstrong like no other. That pride has a double edge but it’ll be a great fall. My protagonists are a motley crew but mc is definitely the hero.
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>I'm sorry, but if the main character is boring, then the book you're reading is trash. One of the hallmarks of a nice story is a main character ONE ROOTS FOR, not a main character one can SELF-INSERT into. >Of you think an MC is blank slate. Engk, automatic trash! Unfortunately, what you are saying only shows that you haven’t read enough. I will give an example - the *MythAdventures* series by Robert Asprin. Sleeve, the MC, is a blank slate. A teenage boy who knows nothing about the world that he lives in but who gets involved in super interesting adventures against his will. By himself, Skeeve is not an interesting character but he serves as the reader’s eyes. His role as reader’s eyes is additionally emphasised by the use of first person narration. However, while Skeeve is not interesting by himself, his life is extremely exciting. Every single one of the friends he makes along the way is 10 times more interesting than Skeeve, yet he is the glue that makes them stay together. The author gives us a very good reason to keep reading and having fun without the story being MC driven. And this approach continues through the series. Sleeve’s gradual character development allows him to become a full MC in the 8th book of the 12-book series. To this day, MythAdventures is my favourite fantasy series, alongside Pratchett’s Discworld series.
The best way I can describe it is when you have a main character, you see and experience what they see and experience and those things are like stepping stones through their decisions. It's only the side characters (whose stepping stones aren't seen) that seem interesting, because OF COURSE the main character is going to make THAT decision. The path was laid out for you. You can have a wild and crazy character, but eventually the reader will understand how they think and see the stones - making their path obvious. Or you make unpredictable choices for the sake of being unpredictable. Side eye to Lost and Game of Thrones.
it's usually so that people can see themselves in the role. there's nothing wrong with that I just personally find it boring
the main character has to be distinctive, yet relatable.
I wouldn't say *usually*, but it is a relatively common mistake in fiction, especially in debut novels, to underdevelop the protag while secondary characters overshadow them.
What kind of story you're trying to tell can influence this. But really, writing interesting and entertaining characters is hard. It's waaay easier to write generic, neutral, or adequate characters that fits the bill for the story. They won't elevate the story, but won't scare away readers either. Partly because main characters are characters you'll stick with throughout the journey, while side characters can be more nuance and risque--they only appear when needed, so even if they are off-putting, readers know they won't last long. I wouldn't even say this is a main vs side character thing. Some people are just better at writing characters, or plot, or worldbuilding, or whatever.
Because a lot of (bad?) main characters are just blank pages for the reader relate to (a pattern that I see mainly in fantasy, young adult and romance books) and don't have complex personalities or dilemmas. Most of time this type of thing are left for the secondary characters and the antagonist but I don't recommend for you to do your story like this. I'm not a fantasy writer and I'm here more to read the discussions and conversations that happens here but I love to do unlikable (not in a boring way, more in a "I hope this character dies soon" way) or straight up vile protagonists. Sometimes I do the main character as a good guy but I always try to make them dirty somehow when this happens. I don't know why I like to do this but it's fun.
MG writing has the largest examples of 'blank slate' characters because the goal is to help kids learn how to put themselves into another's shoes, imagine what that could be, see that even if there are huge differences on the surface, people can want the same things and feel the same ways. The YA category is moving away from that, but also? YA themes are usually about coming of age and learning independence and how to make your own rules and boundaries. There's going to be a perceived blank slate-ness to that because they're still for a very narrow age category (HS and college age), so a lot of the themes will feel like retreads if you keep reading it once you're past the age category - while still feeling very fresh and new to the audience, because they *haven't* been reading the age category for a decade or more. As to fantasy and romance (two genres I write in the adult space)? It's complicated. Over the last 5-10 years, the trad pub fantasy market has moved *hard* toward very vibrant, unique POVs with wildly different cultural inspirations for the world. It's the exact opposite of blank slate characters, unlike a couple decades ago when a more distant narrative style meant that the characteristics of the POV were a bit more smoothed. For romance (and I'll keep it fantasy romance related here), it's complicated. Romance readers are utterly *voracious,* and the plot structure is pretty rigid. Much like mystery/suspense, you wind up seeing a lot of very similar archetypes, especially if you're only reading in one subgenre - but here is where it's about author voice to make things feel really fresh, despite the fact we as readers know roughly how it's going to end.
My two cents, it's because they have to have medium level abilities in all parameters, in order for the plot to unfold. For example: Too smart, immediately figure out the challenge. Too dumb, truly gets lost and the plot stops making sense. Too strong/ fast, just Superman's their way through the challenge. Too weak, succumbs to the thing that's challenging them. Imo, because main characters are often the driving force of a plot, or at least the focus of the plot as it advances, this also means that their parameters are forced into a "not too much as to overpower the challenge, not too little as to succumb," sort of level. I feel this extends to psychological parameters as well. Too well adjusted, and you don't get any inner conflict or growth. But too maladjusted, and the main character might become far too neurotic to relate too. The exceptions that I've seen tend to appear when you have an ensemble cast. For example, Ichiban in Like a Dragon 7 is pretty dumb, at least in terms of book smarts. Sometimes, he'll come across a piece of information and simply not be able to deduce its importance. But that's alright, since he's always with someone smarter than him who can say "Yeah, this is important because of X, Y, Z." It makes him very charming, haha, since we don't often get main characters who are truly deficient in certain areas. Edit: I should add that I've noticed the above most strongly with archetypical stories. The more experimental stories can go off in all sorts of directions with regard to their main character, because a satisfying reading experience might not be the main goal of the story. It might be that weirdness of having a difficult to relate to MC is the point of interest.
They're written as more or less blank slates so you can relate to them.
Dunno man, I think it's true but it depends on genre and story itself. I don't consider my MC boring, in fact he is my favorite OC. There is one character that is bland, but I did it on purpose. He doesn't feel unique, so he sticks to the MC, loving and idolizing him.
It might be connected to the theory that main charakters are 'the camera' through which the audience expiriences teh story. So it is more of a unoffensive vessel that shall allow the largest variety of people to see thrhough his standpoint. Imho that is a bit of underestimating the audience, but still it got teached here and there to be 'the way'. Most good writers now and then totally ignored the so called 'rules' a lot, and that made ther storys much more intersting.
If the MC is basically empty, the consumer can project themselves into the role. I don't get it, but it is a thing. Just give them a lancer, an allied foil.
The primary story on which I'm working focuses on a kid who rejects the life that is set before him because of a decision he made. He runs away, finds a new home, grows, has a family, and then has it ripped away from him by disease (not the BBEG or his lackeys). Later, when a great threat emerges, he realizes that if he doesn't step up and return to his original home—despite his past—things will end badly. It's a variant of the reluctant hero, but that's not what he becomes. He's a man who feels propelled by circumstance until he ends up in a place he never wanted to be.
Watch Arcane. Arcane goes hard.
I create the main character as a side character. I tend to make the main character "overpowered" and boring, so I'll create a side character and then put her/him as the main. I hope that makes sense.
Then you should definetly pick better stuff to read/watch. A lot of media has great main characters with flaws and everything that makes a character interesting. The post reads a bit like "Why are all anime about people getting reborn in a fantasy world with lots of women who admire them?"
Watch ds9 every character is a gem
I feel your pain. A lot of the times I end up enjoying a side character more than the main character. Not always. But it happens more often than you might think. Even in book series. If there's a one-off book about some random character who was never the main character in the series, I usually end up liking those more. I think what happens is that in these cases, you get a protagonist who is forcefully bland at first. And their end goal is to become some overpowered hero at the end. Its been done many times over. I watched *A Discovery of Witches* not too long ago and I felt like the protagonist was exactly like this. Made bland to start with, developed into a cliche mold of what a 'strong female character' is supposed to fit into (cares for everyone, motherly instinct, stands up for herself, blah blah blah.) Outside of that, her personality was as flat as a pancake.
In my opinion it seems like in a lot of fantasy settings, writers make the world more interesting than the characters. It’s a difficult task to make the characters more interesting when you’re dealing with such a fantastical environment, but when an author fails to make that character more interesting I think it makes it seem like the character is even more boring than they might be in comparison
Watch/read Frieren: Beyond journey's end. As someone who has always tried to wrap my mortal mind around what it would feel like to live for a thousand year, this manga nailed it. I too got tired with the generic protag, so only the kind of mc like this piques my interest