Have some sides with that Main

alot of people I know are writing books or short story's. They know that I write and have asked me "Aaron read my story and tell me what you think? I say sure and think "bwah ha ha your gonna get it." Then I read it....then I BLAST them with my opinion.....score!. This has happen so many times this year that i decided to share with you some simple writing tips.
        Lets start with my most asked question. "Is My main charictor is interesting enough, or does he or she have enough flaws?" My reply is “Your Main Character is fine. It’s the supporting characters that suck.” You see, the main character is the most important character of your novel, however, interesting is found in his or her relationships with the supporting cast.  In fact, these all important characters make or break your main character. Harry Potter was a humdrum boy who lived until he met Ron and Hermione. And that relationship was just ok next to the fires lit by Malfoy. In another example Eragon was just an ok dragon rider, but when you mix in all of the other characters, ZAMMO! I hate him! The reason why is a principle of its own, In Eragon all of the supporting characters are either more interesting or more mysterious then the main character, this is what I call main character multi-tasking. I’ll get back to this. Another big example (the one that taught me the principle) When Walt Disney created all his crazy character, he made them to interact with Mickey because by himself, Mickey wasn’t very interesting.

 To bring personality to your costars, think about people you know, book’s you’ve read, games you’ve played. Maybe mix a few of these together. One writer I know based his two main and co-characters exactly off his children. Remember, the point of your co-characters is to make your main character more interesting, but don’t let that stop you from letting your readers become emotionally invested in them. Please let us become invested, but don’t waist the readers time. In Atlas Shrugged by Ann Rand, Mrs. Rand would build characters, let you become emotionally tied to them then kill them before they became a real part of the plot, its like reading mini stories with depressing endings.

Find things for your co stars to do that add or take from you main character. This adds tension and stress that makes things interesting for the readers to read. Yet be careful of main character multi-tasking, this is when the writer has turned every co-character into the main character; this is a delicate dance, a hard tiring delicate dance wherein each co-main character needs equal time in the lime light. When equality is not achieved then you have an unbalance that confuses the reader. In Eragon, I enjoy every part of the book that Eragon is not part of or when one of the co-mains are interacting with him, he failed by making the other characters interesting but also remained individual from Eragon, neither adding or taking from him, hence Eragon as a character fell flat.

Start slow, if you are a novice just focus on one main, have fun with the supporting cast, have fun letting them cause the main character pain or stress in hurtful or embarrassing, surprising, or even funny ways. In the Dresden files, it is so much fun watching the spirit that lives in a skull give Harry a pounding headache because of its porn addiction. Or that Harry’s car can’t stay out of the fight and gets totaled in every book, each piece of damage, half ass repaired, becomes part of his stress in the next book, as a good character should. (I need a whole post on this, but don’t be shy to treat animals and landscapes and even large scale action as a character, but I’ll go more into that later.) But what the writer never does is use his supporting cast to detract from their job to interact with Harry; all we know about them is what Harry knows. Do that.

Most of all practice makes perfect. Just write and write and write.  I have a technique I use that I call A-sketching, I’ll post that one next.

Also see my wikihow article