The "perfect" protagonist

[pink_silk_glove]

Are you writing about a God who's fed up with their creation and the whole story is just a missive of present observations of the creation and its failures? 'cause if so, most of that list is probably what you're aiming to create and it's not wrong to do so.

Sure, but I think you're overthinking this. Obviously in art no rule is ever written in stone, but the list is very good general practical advice.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is blatant in romance. The main characters are often perfectly physically hot (but not always) but more importantly (and more vomit-inducing) they are emotionally perfect. They have to be to be perfectly deserving of the emotional justice, the HEA that we know is coming. They are far too plucky for whatever predicaments have befallen them and they never deserve those ills. This is what I absolutely detest the most about romance.

I'm copying across some of my content across to Theoreads, where a lot of it is a good fit.

I'm in conversation with the owner about my Arthurian novel, and this is the latest query

Would you be at all open to positioning Merlin just a bit younger? While a Fantasy audience may be ok with the big age gap, romance audiences look for a certain formula.

"Certain formula" would require a thematic make-over, since much of the point of the novel is that my Maerlyn is an ancient magickian, not some twee bloke in a cape and puss-in-boots type boots doing stage magic.

The owner is also fretting about a father daughter incest theme - which would be simple to tweak out and make non-explicit - I'm not fussed one way or another about that.

It'll be interesting to see if I compromise my principles about the age thing, or whether I'm even bothered doing the edit.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Well, you are of course correct. BUT in the very best short-stories the protagonist does change (or we can see the shape of that change) and it is clear that there is a past (even if we don't get all the details).

Try this: "the one about Ann Summers" by @rusureaboutthis under 4k words, but a lot of change and the background sits there under the surface, like an iceberg. It's hit too!

Or my own 750 word gay male one... not claiming it's the very best BUT change and background are there.

Of course, you are correct.

My point was that a short-story protagonist would have a hard time ticking all those boxes. I'm sure you could do it, you're a talented writer, but I do expect it would be more of a tour-de-force than a work of art, if you follow me.

--Annie

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

When I finally got around to adding Moms, they were everything real Moms never are. Not only confident, capable and in full control of every minute of the day, but DY-NO-MITE. Tall, lean, trim, fit, active, often former dancers who retained their physique, faces and hair too great for even Cosmo, bodies for an SI Swimsuit cover, not a bit of sag anywhere, all of this despite being in their late 40s.

Absolutely unreal in every way.

But it helped separate fictional stories from the weird obsession some might have with their own moms.


Some of you write realism as real as you possibly can, including flaws. Nothing wrong with that at all.


Others write pure fantasy.

 

[old_prof]

This is blatant in romance. The main characters are often perfectly physically hot (but not always) but more importantly (and more vomit-inducing) they are emotionally perfect.

This is interesting to me. I have not read a huge number of "real world" romance novels, but this is not my impression from any of the ones I have read. FMC is full of emotional turmoil. That is the only thing about them worth reading. Now I do have a complaint that almost every character other than FMC is shallow and unchanging. Or changes suddenly in unrealistic ways. (FMC "saves" him, usually.)

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

^^ The wreckage of lives is one of the things I hated about Hallmark and Lifetime type 'romance' flicks. There always had to be some kind of life altering drama or trauma that made one or more characters basket cases on the verge of doing something stupid enough to make national news.

Everybody says do conflict, you ain't got no story without no conflict.

Screw that.

I don't read here for conflict. I read for people having fun doing odd things real people may or may not do.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

FMC is full of emotional turmoil.

Yes, but none of it is of their own doing. They have done nothing to deserve their issues. They did not cheat on their former lovers, former lovers cheated on them. Or former lovers unfortunately died. Or some con artist ripped them off and left them destitute. Or a war tore their home and family apart. Or they're depressed because their devoted mother died of cancer. None of it is their own fault or their own doing (and whoever the evil bastard is who did this to them has absolutely zero redeeming value whatsoever - just as cardboard thin as our heroes). Our heroes deserve none of this. They are perfect and they trudge along because that is what good people do, and the happiness that they deserve somehow comes to them, although some teeth usually need to be pulled before they eventually accept it, even though we can see right from chapter 1 which two people will end up together in eternal bliss. (bleccchhhh)

 

[old_prof]

Yes, but none of it is of their own doing. They have done nothing to deserve their issues. They did not cheat on their former lovers, former lovers cheated on them. Or former lovers unfortunately died. Or some con artist ripped them off and left them destitute. Or a war tore their home and family apart. Or they're depressed because their devoted mother died of cancer. None of it is their own fault or their own doing (and whoever the evil bastard is who did this to them has absolutely zero redeeming value whatsoever - just as cardboard thin as our heroes). Our heroes deserve none of this. They are perfect and they trudge along because that is what good people do, and the happiness that they deserve somehow comes to them, although some teeth usually need to be pulled before they eventually accept it, even though we can see right from chapter 1 which two people will end up together in eternal bliss. (bleccchhhh)

I can imagine it turning into this, but it's not what jumps off the page on the ones I have read. Maybe I have just not run into this or I'm too dense to notice. Either is possible.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I can imagine it turning into this, but it's not what jumps off the page on the ones I have read. Maybe I have just not run into this or I'm too dense to notice. Either is possible.

In romantasy, FMCs seem to mostly be either women whose only flaw is that they're too perfect or evil assassin murder bitches (who secretly want to snuggle with kitties and bake cookies <3). What contemporary romances are like, I'm not really sure, admittedly.

I quite like happy endings and characters having their eternal bliss. I appreciate Moirin and Bao retiring to the hills to raise fat little babies. I also appreciate that they have to spend three years of their lives in suffering and hardship to fix a mistake she made because she was too cowardly and besotted to do the right thing.

 

[StillStunned]

Oooh... New writers challenge, the Mary Sue challenge...

I'm *really* tempted to set up a Mary Sue Writing Exercise, but I think the short form wouldn't do the concept proper justice.

But it could still be a contender for the worst challenge (how did that thread ever get to 7 pages?).

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Yes, but none of it is of their own doing. They have done nothing to deserve their issues. They did not cheat on their former lovers, former lovers cheated on them. Or former lovers unfortunately died. Or some con artist ripped them off and left them destitute. Or a war tore their home and family apart. Or they're depressed because their devoted mother died of cancer. None of it is their own fault or their own doing (and whoever the evil bastard is who did this to them has absolutely zero redeeming value whatsoever - just as cardboard thin as our heroes). Our heroes deserve none of this. They are perfect and they trudge along because that is what good people do, and the happiness that they deserve somehow comes to them, although some teeth usually need to be pulled before they eventually accept it, even though we can see right from chapter 1 which two people will end up together in eternal bliss. (bleccchhhh)

Not every character needs to be "perfectly deserving" and have little to no part in the bad things that have happened to them, but the opposite also doesn't have to be true. Not every real person is directly responsible for their own tragedies and trauma, and being fucked up due to something which was not your fault certainly doesn't make you perfect.

Danish cinema has for decades mostly gone in the opposite direction of what you describe. Every movie is about sad and deeply flawed people living miserable lives in which everything is and remains shitty, mostly because they're too flawed and sad to do something about it. This is why I almost never watch movies in my native language, I'm sick of it.

Sometimes the journey can still be interesting, even if the destination is obvious and the hero is generally a good person. Sometimes it's more interesting to follow someone who is genuinely an asshole, even if they stay that way. I feel like there's space for both, especially on a free site for amateur writing.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I'm *really* tempted to set up a Mary Sue Writing Exercise, but I think the short form wouldn't do the concept proper justice.

We'd have some way to go to beat the mainstream ones.

 

[Britva415]

In a short story, many times the protagonist doesn't change and/or we don't learn their background, for example.

I think some really good short stories function as inciting incidents for a story that could be told. The character or their life circumstances will change but not within the short story.

 

[Britva415]

Everybody says do conflict, you ain't got no story without no conflict.

Screw that.

Another of those "rules" which are made to be defied.

Also: What they really mean is that conflict makes for good stories. Or interesting stories or relatable stories or compelling page-turner stories.

Shit can happen without there being any conflict, and "can't have no story without no events" is the REAL rule. And even that rule doesn't say "you can't write like that." One could still write a bunch of stuff, but if nothing happens, then whatever the piece is, it isn't a story.

Also also: Some stuff is still conflict which doesn't seem or feel like what we usually think of as conflict. "Wanted to get laid, got laid" is still a conflict-and-resolution, even if there isn't much of any obstacle to getting the lay.