Your main character should be obvious…right? I mean the reader should have no doubt who is in the lead during the story and when they close the book, they should be fairly clear on who the hero was and who was the psychopath… right? Well I think so, but you would be amazed at how many writers end up with a manuscript where finding the main character is akin to Three Card Monty. I don’t know about you, but Three Card Monty annoys me…and so does not being able to figure out who the main character is.
One would think that it is a simple task, deciding who is in charge of telling your story. Every story begins with the narrator. No matter what your POV is (point of view for those of you who hate acronyms….me, me, me…) someone has to tell the story. So what is happening when a writer doesn’t define who their main character is? In my opinion it’s a condition called, schizophrenic character modulation…and it can be very bad for the writer in terms of return readers. (shivers……)
Okay, made that up, “schizophrenic character modulation”, but it could be a real thing. In my opinion (and we all know how important that is…) SCM is what happens when a writer can’t decide who their main character is because they, as a writer, are all over the page with everyone doing everything. It’s like when my daughter was younger and she would bring her dolls into my office to play. Not wanting to be the idiot parent who one day in a therapy session would be accused of somehow hindering her growth by NOT having played with the dolls, (who were usually, for some unknown reason, always naked) I would stop what I was doing and play for a minute. I, being a writer, would ask her, “okay, what’s the back story” and she would launch into this tirade of verbiage that always made me sorry I asked.
Daughter: Well Sonny was in her car and Dolly made a face at her so Sonny stopped her car and said, “why did you do that” and then Carl came over and said, “yeah, why did you do that” and Dolly would be like, “I didn’t do that” and Ken turned to GI Joe and said, “Sonny made a face at Dolly but Lisa wants to go get pizza”. Then Sonny’s mom said that she couldn’t go because she had to change her shoes.
Me: Really? Pizza? Why not tacos?
Daughter: (rolling her eyes) Because Deena is allergic.
Me: Oh…..
For Jes, (who was 7 at the time) this story made perfect sense. (Did I say she was 7?) In her story EVERYBODY was the main character because her story was about EVERYBODY. (Have I pointed out that she was 7?)For Jes she didn’t have to pick out just one person to tell her story because they could ALL tell her story. (DID I MENTION THAT SHE WAS 7?)
I told that story to say this….it’s really important that you, as a writer, figure out who your main character is and then stick with it….if you don’t your story will sound like a 7 year old wrote it and I am pretty sure that you want your audience to be a wee bit older than 7. (Unless you are a children’s author in which cause….carry on….) The main character is the person that your reader is relating to and if you tell a story in such a way that your reader can’t determine who the main character is…well…who are they gonna relate to? Keep in mind that I am not saying that you can’t have several strong leads, you can, but in the end there has to be a relate-able person who ties it all together for your audience whether it is the hero who saves the day or the serial killer who slips away into the night…the reader has to be able to close that book and say, “whew, he saved the day” or “*shutter*, “he got away”…either way your reader has to be able to relate…otherwise, they will put your book down and just go have pizza with Deena…cause she’s allergic….see what I mean?
© The Writer’s Advice, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
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