1. Michelle Angelo

    Michelle Angelo New Member

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    Which of these would be the most interesting main character?

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Michelle Angelo, Sep 21, 2016.

    I pretty much have the basic plot of my story down, but I came up with a positive problem, I have many characters that have potential to be an interesting MC.
    My story is steampunk-fantasy, the world has magicians, but the most powerful magic is technomagic built by engineers specialized in it (the engineers themselves don't need to have magic powers), and yes, this is important for the plot.

    The story centers around a situation where the royal bloodline has died and the nobles are competing for the favor of a council to be selected as next king or queen.
    A man named Wackov has decided to be selected no matter what. He arranges kidnapping of his greatest competitor, a woman named Prisley. This is done by his most loyal infiltrator and assassin, woman named Silvia and his brightest engineer (who is there to breach a few locks). He also commands said engineer, a boy named Victor (mentioning their names because it's easier to refer to them later then) to build a mass destruction weapon. Wackov has twin nieces, one of them is very supportive of his desire to be a king (her name is Arylla), while other realizes his uncle wants to start a war against smaller neighbouring nation and tries to secretly prevent him from becoming king (her name is Irina). Elsewhere two Prisley's friends become very worried and start looking for her (names Tommy and Fiona).

    Now, the tone and the focus of the story changes pretty much depending on who is the MC.

    If Irina is MC the story will involve a lot of secret and less secret political discussions, a lot of insight into Wackov's motivations, but little action, since Irina (unlike Arylla) doesn't have fighting skills. It would go over Irina's troubled relationship with Arylla in detail. It'll involve Irina and her assigned spouse trying to prevent having to get married, too.

    If Victor is MC the story will be mostly about trying to find self-respect and freedom after years of mental and physical abuse (Wackov took him off the streets after noticing he is a genius and made him train without rest or "thank you" to become capable enough to be able to build things he needed (Victor wasn't the only one to recieve this treatment, but he was the smartest which made him subject of special interest of Wackov)). Wackov has installed a device which allows him to kill Victor any time on Victor, which pretty severely limits what he can do as main character, because he has to do exactly what Wackov says (or die, which would end the book short). He could still make pretty interesting MC althou his lack of self-respect could annoy the reader.

    If Tommy or Fiona is main character the story would pretty much be about playing cat and mouse with Silvia and putting pieces of the mystery together. A lot action, a crime novel type structure.


    Which would you choose, and why? I feel like they all have stories I'd like to tell.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2016
  2. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Why not just use both as MC?
     
  3. Michelle Angelo

    Michelle Angelo New Member

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    Do you mean using both Victor and Irina or using both Tommy and Fiona?

    I could propably pull off using either of these pairs, but using all 4 would make story jump around too much and lose tension and consistency, or at least I feel so, I'm not too experienced writer.
     
  4. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Well pick the pair that you find have a much more interesting role in the story.
    Or if you are feeling particularity up to a challenge you could use all 4.
     
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  5. karldots92

    karldots92 Active Member

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    I agree with @Cave Troll I think it would be really great to have the story told form the 4 different points of view. From a reader's point of view I prefer reading multiple POV rather than sticking to one character as to me the characters can come across very 1 dimensional - the baddies are always bad and do things because they're bad. I prefer to have "baddies" that have a perceived justification for the things they do.
     
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  6. IHaveNoName

    IHaveNoName Senior Member Community Volunteer

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    I second using them all. As you say, they all have something to contribute, and it seems like you'd need all those different facets (politics, mystery-solving, and the inside view) to tell the story properly. It's not unusual to kill off a POV character (*cough* Game of Thrones), so you needn't worry about Victor getting axed at some point.
     
  7. sarah_we

    sarah_we New Member

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    I think using all of them would be a great idea. This way we have to story covered from different POVs. What I learned about your story from the introduction gives me a feeling that this would work very well.
     
  8. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I just wanted to vote against using all four points of view. I know that multi-POV braided stories are popular right now, but...OK, mainly, I hate them. But I think that it's also a much more difficult task, and the more difficult you make the task, the higher the odds of failing, especially since you say that you're not an experienced writer.

    If I were making this decision, I would consider being LESS powerful and less in control to be good things in a POV character, assuming that the character will nevertheless be involved in the main events. In the Wizard of Oz, Glinda was exotic and knowledgeable and powerful and had some control over events; Dorothy was ignorant and powerless and buffeted by events. Dorothy was a far more interesting character to follow. So I guess that means I'd vote for Tommy or Fiona.
     
  9. Robert Musil

    Robert Musil Comparativist Contributor

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    This is totally just my opinion, based on my own subjective preferences in what I would want to read, but I would vote for Victor and Irina being the most interesting. I reason thusly:

    Wackov/Silvia/Arylla are all straightforwardly antagonistic, or at least unsympathetic. They kidnapped/helped kidnap/condoned kidnapping someone, which is pretty bad.

    Prisley/Fiona/Tommy are all straightforwardly sympathetic. They were kidnapped/are trying to save someone who was kidnapped, which is a pretty noble thing to do. Also, in your capsule description you didn't tell us much about Tommy/Fiona, so it's hard for me to get into them (although who knows, maybe you have big plans for them you just didn't tell us).

    Victor and Irina are interesting, to me, because they seem to have the most potential for having divided loyalties, internal struggles or some other sort of barrier that prevents them from being (at least at the beginning) either simply good or simply bad.

    Victor helped Wackov kidnap his victim, which is bad. But Victor is himself a victim! Also, presumably he's gotten something from Wackov besides mistreatment--the guy took him from a life of hard knocks on the streets and gave him an (at least to him) important job. I wouldn't underestimate the kind of loyalty Victor might feel toward Wackov, despite all his abuse.

    Likewise, Irina is Wackov's relative, and her sister Arylla also supports Wackov in what he's trying to do. She may think his idea to start a war is misguided, but she might not realize just how much of a villain he is. And even when presented with evidence of such, might take a while to be convinced--people don't just turn on their family members that easily, unless there's some previous history there which you haven't told us.

    Just my $0.02.
     
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  10. Kitk37

    Kitk37 New Member

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    It sounds like the best MC would be attempting to thwart Wackov's scheme to be King no matter what. That would be Victor and he would have a dilemma to resolve because he is under the control of Wackov. If the other characters have a story to tell it should be done in such a way that drives the main theme. If they are not significant to that then, they would have to go, IMHO. Otherwise you are going to have a huge book; the length of your book is up to you, of course.

    I have found it helpful to enroll in some creative writing courses.

    I hope this helps,
    Kitk:)
     

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