How to Get Along With Your Main Character.

One of the things I struggle with is writing a main character that I enjoy writing and I think that it is a crucial aspect of writing to connect with your main character. If you prefer long, drawn out, epics a la Harry Potter, there's no way you could ever write a series about a main character that always pulls against you. So, the big question is: how do you make your character work?

Well, I personally think that the best way to do that is to go in without expectations. Don't expect your character to be a bad-ass, or the nicest of the nice. He or she doesn't have to be a good guy, doesn't have to be the best at everything, or even anything. What you need is to connect to your character. When I started writing, all of my main characters were, with minor changes, me. And they revolved around the things I wished I could do: fight dragons, have sex with supermodels, have mystical powers. And I think that an argument could be made for writing those stories and seeing if they work if the main character is modeled after yourself. But at the end of the day, it isn't productive.

Once you have the idea for your story, make your character have some feature or aspect that you have. If you played piano as a child, give your character a little musical whimsy. If you were a tomboy, make your female lead a little rugged. Above all, make your character interesting. That doesn't mean he or she is the 'most interesting man in the world.' It means you want to know what happens. Who cares if some people find him boring? If you're worried his inattention to the people around him will cause him to commit suicide, follow that worry. Invest yourself in your character.

For an exercise, and don't knock it 'til you try it, pretend he or she exists. Jeremy, the children's birthday party clown with an obsession for antique wicker chairs, is a pretty normal guy under the makeup. Get to know him. Talk to him as if he were sitting in your room. Yeah, maybe wait until everyone else is out of the house or lock your door first, but really listen to him. If he would go inside the McDonald's to eat his cheeseburger to be around more people, don't make him drive through the drive-through. Turn his personality into a living, breathing organism and you won't have to decide anything for him, he'll know what he wants.