Open Door Critiques [CLOSED]

🚪 Bus Partner Protagonist

Creating a main character is like crafting a dating profile, and also a little bit like selecting a bus-partner, someone you'll be sitting beside for a long time to come.

If you see a man sitting in the back with drool in his beard and no pants on, and a woman sitting near the front with a cute hat full of flowers, you're probably going to sit with the woman.

If a girl is gossiping loudly on her phone, bright acrylic nails flashing as she talks, and a quiet boy is sitting by the window while a muted Lana Del Rey song is playing from his headset, you're probably going to sit with the boy.

Oftentimes, when it comes to writing characters, we don't have to like them, though that can most certainly help. What a character actually needs – requires – is likeability. The difference is subtle, but it's there.

Are they attractive? Kind? Rich and powerful? Smart and funny? Put another way, these are all traits we desire for ourselves. This is a vital point because of one thing: books are a kind of media.

People dive into media to be entertained, to be swept away, to live out for even a moment a different experience or fantasy or desire. No one wants to be an ugly dweeb. No one wants to be mean and poor and dumb.

But wait, you say! Peter Parker was considered an ugly dweeb at one point! And Harry Potter, while certainly not mean or dumb, lived in squalor.

And in comes the second thing a character needs: intrigue, or a fairy-godmother moment.

Do they have a family secret? A hidden magical ability? A powerful heirloom? Is there a mystifying rumour surrounding their reputation?

This is what makes Peter Parker work. He was an 'everyday guy' that was caught up in a web of intrigue – a radioactive spider. This is what makes Harry Potter work. Before we're even introduced to him properly, we're shown the web of awe surrounding his life.

So you can write a character that looks down on her peers and thinks all cheerleaders are dumb and has no incoming fairy-godmother moment. You really can do that. Just don't expect any readers to want to sit with said person on the bus, much less date them for the duration of the story.

Hook us. Court us! Draw us in like the fish we long to be!

TL;DR:
1. Would you sit beside your MC on the bus?
2. Would you scroll through a wiki page to learn about the intrigues surrounding them?