So I have the plot of my novel but I have three potential characters that could be the main. It's quite a complicated book so I think I do need one central character. I just wanted to know what do you think is important to consider when choosing from a few potential main characters. Things like which has the potential for the best story arc, originality, who has the most to lose That sort of thing. Thanks guys
Most sympatric. Readers relate on an emotional level (as is just starting to sink into my thick head. ) Write for an eight year old. Humans, in my experience, are just not very bright.
Don't forget: "Are they likeable?" That's not required, of course. But when I cast my mind over main characters that stuck in my mind, they were seldom dislikeable. That was usually a trait saved for the antagonists.
I don't know how well this would work for what you have in mind, and I don't know how easy this is to do, because I've never attempted it, but for the last half century or so, an increasingly popular option is to shift POV from chapter to chapter (or sections within larger chapters). I'm sure you're familiar. Sometimes this is done with one central character remaining the focus of the narration, but increasingly, authors have found valid ways to turn either third person limited or focused omniscient into ensemble frameworks. Personally, if forced to choose, I'd go with the most sympathetic character every time (sympathetic with whom we identify, not sympathetic sad, obviously). I'd rather follow a character I like or at least understand than I would a character who has a more interesting arc. If you're torn between characters though, especially for these reasons, it might be worth considering a shifting third person POV ensemble. You can still focus on one character to carry us through a complex story while constantly checking in on the thoughts and struggles of equality interesting characters. It's worth a thought anyway.
Depending on what sort of story you want to tell. There's the classic "Wizard of Oz", right? But there's also the same story told by a contemporary author from the viewpoint of the evil witch. Same story, different POV character, both work great. The original is a story about "Kansas girl goes to magic land and kills evil witch", the contemporary story is "witch in magic land gets mistakenly killed by Kansas girl". This one is tweaked slightly to make the readers sympathise with the fate of the main character, who is not portrayed as an evil witch anymore. So there's that.
The main character is the one whom the story mainly follows or revolves around. Therefore, the main character needs to a good viewpoint for the audience. The audience sees the story through the MC's perspective (directly, or occasionally through a sidekick type secondary character), so you want the MC to provide a suitable perspective. The main character needs to have a certain amount of sympathy (this builds emotional investment), relatability (helps the audience to understand the character, and understand the world based on how they react to it), interest (boring people don't make interesting stories) and involvement in the plot (we want to follow the important people to see what they do). You can vary how much you use each element depending on what you're doing with the story. A less sympathetic character (like an anti-hero) is a good for a story with a mixed moral message. An unknowledgeable perspective character in a hidden fantasy/sci-fi world story is usually more relatable. Leader characters are often good because they are influential. So what kind of story are you telling? What are the important things you need people to understand?
You can use multiple POVs. Alternately--what is your theme? Which character's transformation most effectively furthers that theme?
Honestly, I find it's easier to have a main cast, and have them all--protagonists and antagonists--being kinda equal focus characters. Partly because branching story arcs tend to spawn a diverse cast, and partly because it helps sidestep such decisions. Also with a wide array of main characters, or focus characters, this means killing one or more off doesn't jolt the reader as much. Frankly Game of Thrones does this brilliantly, there are about six main heroes and at least three main villains, still alive, with a variety of "in-between" neither good nor evil main characters like Tyrion. So like, they set up Joffrey as this huge threat, the literal king of the villains...then he dies out of nowhere and it makes both perfect sense from a story standpoint and is a SHOCKING turn, but one that doesn't take away the central villain, like Snoke dying in The Last Jedi does. The show goes on, new villains, a few even as "big name" as Joffrey, show up and again it makes perfect sense. So instead of a focus character, my suggestion is a host or array of characters without a central protagonist and antagonist.
It's funny you guys mentioned using both because I thought that the night I posted this question. One of my main themes is power and corruption. I thought I could do a positive arc with one of the girls and a negative arc with the other - showing that some people can over come the temptation of power and others can't. Thanks for the help
Choose one character--not the one who has the most to lose, but the one who wants something the hardest. Find out which character in your group is willing to risk everything, to overcome any obstacle, to get to their story goal. Choose the character who will stop at nothing to obtain the thing they know they want, and follow them on that path. Follow them wherever it leads, whether they end up being a hero, or a villain. And steer them in the direction you want them to go. Find out if what they really wanted was what they thought they wanted. Explore what they're willing to sacrifice to get to it. See how much they'll bleed for it, and if that character's struggles move your heart, give them an ending they deserve. And please, for the love of dog, don't switch perspectives.
Because of all the times it didn't work out for Stephen King or George R.R. Martin? Third person multiple POV is pretty standard stuff these days. Rife with pitfalls as it may be, it combines the intimacy of limited perspective with the scope of omniscience. I finally read "It" this year. You could easily classify it as third person omniscient, but even the scenes that don't feature the main cast follow the rules of third person limited, following minor antagonists or a random stoner for a few pages. It works. It's a brilliant book. @Infel, please forgive the sarcasm. It's meant in fun, not derision. You probably got that, but it's so easy to accidentally start an angry forum feud these days by sounding snarky.
There are a lot of good ideas here. I guess what makes a character the most compelling character is kinda a mixed bag. I think the main character is the main character if there is an external goal that serves as the object of their desire, from the inciting incident, to the end of the book. That character can be made more compelling by giving them an internal arc that they overcome at the same time as they reach their external goal. If a character can get what they want before the end of the book, then they aren't the main character (edit: or the book is running on too long).
Hmm, if the story is about a villain who follows his next victim then that victim is the one with the most to lose - their life! But the MC in the story might be Sherlock Holmes, the detective chasing after the villain. POV can be from a minor character, so having POV doesn't make them MC. Who's the MC in The Great Gadsby again? Easiest way to make it a story about nothing in particular, just people running around. That's great but the story still have to have a direction: it could be the story of a person who fights corruption, or it could be the story about a corrupt person who seeks to change their ways, or it could be the story of a corrupt person trying to avoid prosecution, etc. That will show you who's the MC.
No offense taken! We're here for discussion after all! I think there's always a way to do something well. Even multiple PoV's. In particular, I think it works very well over long-form story telling--something that's going to be ongoing, where you'll really be able to dive into the characters you want to explore. Television shows are a great medium for that. My personal favorite example is Avatar: the Last Airbender, where shifting perspectives really allows the viewers to dive into each character and learn to love or hate them. It can do that because it's episodic--it has time to turn cutouts into people. It has time to spend three episodes on Zuko's angst, or Katara's mother. Shows like this almost cater to multiple PoV's, and allow them to be done exceptionally well--and I don't even need to mention Game of Thrones. Additionally, it allows the creators to explore each individual characters interactions with each other character, rather than in a single PoV where one character is watching two other characters interact. It can get very intimate, and in those works, I do like multiple PoVs. I think a case could be made for third person omniscient as well: however, I might follow that up by saying third person omniscient stories excel more at telling a story of an event, rather than a story of characters. It's a tour through a world, and the people and events occurring in that world. I could be dead wrong on that, though. Now, all of that said, I still take a stance against multiple PoV's in written work. I worry that its much, much harder to do in a novel: especially in a FIRST novel. It's easy to want to do them, because an author usually has so many characters that they like, but then end up developing all characters unsuccessfully as a consequence. It's too easy to go off the rails, and if you do, you end up with a mess. Nobody expects one episode of a show to be a complete story, but a novel ought to be a complete story. Characters need to go through their arcs, change and grow--whether negatively or positively. Not to mention, the benefit of a show is that so much information is instantly transmitted to the viewer because of the media: it's a visual media; a LOT of time is saved. But a novel, even a 100,000 word novel, is a LOT tighter on space than one might initially believe. It's so, so nice to follow behind one character, on their mission, to their conclusion, knowing their desires, and wants, and wishes, rather than trying to keep track of those things for several people. By diving into only one perspective, you can get deeper, and more personal, and more visceral with that character--I think you can reach your audiences soul more effectively. I think you can write a better story that way. And that's my opinion on that!
Just start writing, do a person a chapter and your main man will show themselves. It's also fine to switch character pov's when you need to move the plot forward. Done well it's very interesting and compelling to read.
I think the most important thing is for you to choose the character who 'speaks' most strongly to you. Which character do you identify with? And force yourself to answer the question: Why? Why does this 'person' stand out for you. As a person who writes character-driven stories, this never is a problem for me. I start with a character, quickly add in a setting, and go from there. The plot develops as I write or envision the story. However, if you start by constructing a plot, then creating characters to fit into that plot and carry it forward, then I think at some point you need to back off and think about which of these characters means the most to you. And why. Once you figure that out, then it should be easy to choose your POV character and figure out if this is the character who will be your main protagonist. This POV character can be a narrator type, whose influence ON the events may be less than other characters—but the story is seen through their eyes. Or your POV can be the character who, as @Infel suggests, is the person who does the most to impact the plot. By the way, using multiple POV characters is perfectly okay. Some people like Infel don't enjoy this method of storytelling, but it's not only perfectly acceptable, but it's often done to great effect. Just make sure you're not head-hopping or jerking the reader in and out of the heads of your characters too often. You can make any transition between POV characters smooth, by leaving the previous POV character's immediate situation resolved in some way. (They have just finished a task, or just arrived at their destination, or have just been captured, etc.) If there is a 'finish' to a POV's section of the book, then the reader will be fine with finding out what happens elsewhere—and discovering what the impact of the previous POV character's action is having on others. The Lord of the Rings (book) is a good example of how this can work (although the POV is quite distanced in this work.) Think about the scene at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, where Frodo and Sam grab the boat and disappear, and Merry and Pippin are captured by Orcs. The next scene, the opening of The Two Towers, focuses on Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, who figure out what has happened to their friends, decide to leave Sam and Frodo to get on with it, and decide to follow the orcs to rescue Merry and Pippin. We're okay with this, because it's good to know what's happening to all of the fellowship. I don't see for one minute how The Lord of the Rings could have worked, if Tolkien had stuck with only one POV character. It is extremely important to the development of the plot that we know what's happening simultaneously in various parts of that world.
Well aren't you sweet. Considering I can name several well-known, well-respected series both in books and in television and movies that do literally that I think your logic is a bit flawed. And again, I referenced one of these series, Game of Thrones, which is a massive multimedia empire now that has millions of followers and fans and is considered one of the greatest fantasy series around today...so yeah, no. You can have more than one "POV" character. ALSO, for that list: Babylon 5 Deep Space Nine Game of Thrones Peyton Place Avatar: the Last Airbender Firefly The Walking Dead Lost Heroes Literally EVERY soap opera ever made The ENTIRE Marvel Cinematic Universe Take note most of these are vast, multibillion dollar franchises and even those that aren't still garnered millions of fans and lasted for several years on television, with perhaps the SOLE exception of Firefly which was more "shitcanned by the network" than actually failed in any way and still is viewed by their millions of fans as an extremely innovative and well-written series. If want to dive into less world renown but still highly successful series, I can pull up literally a dozen more.
I think this is a fantastic point to make. The Lord of the Rings is one of my all time favorite works, and I absolutely agree--it wouldn't have worked if Frodo--or even Aragorn--had been the main PoV character. We, the readers, would have missed so much if it had followed only one of the many players through to the end, and although Tolkien used a single PoV successfully in The Hobbit, LotR would have been a worse series if he had tried to use it there. Because the novel switches perspectives, we get a broader, fuller sense of the world and the individuals in it. It's an excellent example of multiple PoV's done right. That said, however, it might be a hard argument to make that the Lord of the Rings books are focused on the characters. The point--the story--is the quest, and how the people in the story embark, pursue, and react to the quest--not how the characters are molded, shaped, and changed when exposed to the quest. It's a chronicle of an event, a story about this massive, world-altering journey and the people who get caught up into it. The characters grow and change, sure--most notably Gollum and Sam--but their change isn't the focus, it's a consequence of the focus. Aragorn even had to have his character altered to this angsty exile in the films because his actual arc wasn't really that interesting (according to Peter Jackson). That's not at all to say that Aragorn is a bad character--not by any means--but his personal journey, and any growth he might have experienced, is largely sacrificed for the sake of focusing on the overall journey--his role in the quest to destroy the ring. Because the event is the focus, we can include many characters who participate in the event. However, because there are many characters who participate in the event, and the event is the focus, there isn't enough room to dive deeply--really deeply--into how the characters are feeling and changing. In any story--even long-form stories--you have to choose what the most important thing to showcase is. You don't have time to show it all all at once, so you have to pick one! You have to pick the best one for the story that you're trying to write, and there are some tools more effective at showing certain things than others. @jannert is absolutely right--there are many examples of multiple PoV's done to truly marvelous effect--it not just a perfectly acceptable way to write a story, it can be the absolute best way to write a story: and I say that even though it's not a personal favorite of mine. But it's a tool that should be used for the proper job--and if you have a stand alone, character driven novel--100,000 words to emulate a scenario where human beings journey, suffer, heal, and grow--if you really want to tell a story about people, a single protagonist, and a single point of view, might be the best tool for the job. Or at least that's my opinion on the matter!
Yes, you're right about the type of story LOTR is. It's not really a character-based story, is it? It's more about the world and how it works than about individual characters. Maybe that's why the different POVs didn't seem irritating. It's more a shift of focus than an actual shift in POV. I do actually get what you mean about irritating POV shifts. It can be upsetting to start following 'somebody else.' And if the shift is done too frequently and too abruptly, it can be detrimental to the story. I think the key, like so many other things, is in the transition. I try to bring each POV segment to some sort of a conclusion that means 'that part is over for now,' and then move to another POV. I have four POV characters in my novel ...two major ones and two minor ones. I think it works. At least I haven't had any beta mention that they found the switch upsetting. Fingers crossed.
Whichever character is the most effective vehicle to relay the story to the reader would be the best focus character.
I agree with this. But how do you decide which character would be the most effective? What sorts of things would you keep in mind while choosing?
I think through elements of the plot, from beginning to end, and determine which character's involvement weaves through most closely. This can be especially tricky with first person POV, because it can be so limiting. But there are always methods for the POV character (and thus, the reader) to obtain the needed information/content, and accomplish the task--with adequate planning. This is where plotting vs. panstering is beneficial.
