As you MAY (not definite) have seen from my intro thread that I posted yesterday (HERE), I am working on a personal series set on the future. It's a brand new idea for my, so I don't have much on it (which is why I'm glad places like this exist). I will share whatever info I have. Here I need a little help thinking up a profile/persona for a vigilante. Backstory of the character: He's a hacker, a genetic engineer, and a huge believer in secret societies and 'End of the World' theories. I want him to be smart, clever and to know what he's doing. A bit like Sheldon from Big Bang. But also flawed in some way (again. Like Sheldon). What role he plays: He will hack into computers and genetically modify police members he has captured, large amounts of action will occur until he shuts of electricity in a city of America (which leads to a futuristic electric fault, with sparks flashing around everywhere). Then bomb threats will occur, and the navy and Air Force is called in, to take down him and a small group of hackers as the whole of America is evacuated. EDIT: Forgot to mention he kills 12 Government officials before all this, also the whole place is under strict police law/control.
This is an interesting profile. Make sure you do your research. You are proposing a highly technical plot and you don't want a good idea to be stalled by inadequate research.
You know, it seems that all the writers always make their main protagonists intelligent and clever; a born leader. For once, I'd like to see a book where the main character is rather dull, and is always following other people. Who is bold enough to attempt that?
I'm not sure if that's what @EpicChris is thinking about. He says his character is intelligent and clever, but flawed, like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. Is Sheldon a born leader? Who'd follow Sheldon? Leadership does not always go hand in hand with high intelligence.
I wouldn't call that bold, but rather more like... deliberately writing yourself into a corner. You cannot tell a story without proactive characters - the character who sits there and does nothing or simply follows people is not an active character, and there is no story to tell. The paradox comes when you successfully write a dull character and convey excellently how dull he is - because then all your readers will also find him dull and... what do readers do when they find the book dull? They close the book. They remember the author's name and say, "Next time I'm not buying your books." I think there's good reason why people don't deliberately write dull characters. But of course, if you're a good enough writer, anything is possible. Bravo to the writer who manages to write a dull follower of a character and still engage scores of readers. The only question is: are you a good enough writer? Besides, frankly, as a writer, I really have no interest in writing a dull follower MC. It's not about the challenge - just because it's a challenge doesn't by its very nature mean it's a good idea, or that one should accept the challenge. Don't do something for the sake of being different, and difference is not automatically good. One perhaps very obvious thing I've noticed - if you as the author find your character dull, then you're screwed lol. And if you find him interesting, you will naturally write about it - and when you do, all your readers find him interesting - so where has your "dull" character gone? And if you simply meant "mundane" - that's quite different and there're plenty of characters who are mundane.
The protagonist of my soon-to-be-WIP is just a regular guy, all be it from a rather wealthy background.
People should be able to write whatever character they want. It gets tiring hearing the: "everyone always writes that" response. People can write the same thing but put their own swing on it. It's cool. It works out well. It's easy to get panicked over the fact that: This Has Been Done. Everything's been done- just about. Your writing is your own and your charaters are your own, try not to concentrate too much on what everyone else is doing. Of course, it's important to a degree, but you don't want that to shape every inch of your writing! And research, don't let that slow your writing too much. Sometimes it's good to write and put a little mark where things need research. Write first; research last. But that's just an idea- feel free to do whatever you want! And your story sounds super interesting! I must say that I've never watched TBBT, but I'm sure your book will be cool!
