Here are some possibilities–feel free to mix and match.

Problem 1: The character doesn’t have a distinct personality.

A) Make sure the character has distinct traits.  Can you name 3-4 adjectives that fit your character really well but not most other protagonists in your genre?  If not, please see this list of character traits for some possibilities and this article about how to use traits to develop characters.

B) Give him at least one flaw, a trait that makes it harder for him to achieve his goals and preferably leads to some conflict with sympathetic characters.   Some authors back into rarely-interesting “flaws” like being overly modest or “caring too much.”  If you can use those flaw(s) to create conflict or obstacles, that’s fine.  For example, maybe he wants to succeed in a job where modesty is an obstacle (e.g. marketing, sales or politics).  If you can’t use the flaw to create conflict, I’d recommend trying a different flaw instead or possibly rewriting the plot to accommodate the character.  For example, if you were really dead-set on a character whose signature flaw was his total inability to play the didgeridoo, maybe he’s growing up in a culture where mastering the didgeridoo is a critical rite of passage and/or the main way to pick up ladies.  For more on flaws and challenging characters, please see this article.

C) If all else fails, play up traits to the extreme.  Anything is better than having your character do and say “whatever the author feels like today,” and unfortunately I see many WTAFLT characters.  It’s generally easier to rewrite a character whose traits are too strong than one whose traits are too bland/unclear.

D) Make sure your plot gives your protagonists chances to make unusual choices. If 99% of protagonists from your genre would act the same way if they were in your plot, you’re not giving your protagonist a chance to distinguish himself.  If there’s a goal, a principle or a possession your character values much more than most other protagonists would, your character might make an unusual decision to protect/advance it.  For example, the fugitive protagonist of Point of Impact breaks into an FBI-guarded morgue to reclaim and properly bury his dead dog. It’s a memorable scene because the character is putting himself on the line for a goal that wouldn’t matter to most action protagonists–almost every protagonist would just skip to getting revenge or clearing his name.

E) Flesh out his perspective–what are some things he would notice or comment on that most other people wouldn’t?  What are some things he would draw connections between that most people wouldn’t?  For example, in a superhero-style world where people like Lois Lane or Mary Jane get kidnapped repeatedly, a veteran superhero (or investigator) might guess that anyone that’s been kidnapped by a supervillain for no readily obvious reason is probably very close to a superhero.

F) Force your main character to do or say at least one thing per page that he would do but you wouldn’t.  Don’t let your character get hemmed in by what you would do–most authors aren’t interesting or honest/circumspect enough to make an autobiography work.  Also, if at all possible, please force your main character to do/say at least one thing per page that your other characters wouldn’t.  That will really help the main character feel distinct.  If that’s not possible, I would recommend reevaluating whether the character has distinct traits and whether the plot is giving him opportunities to show those traits.

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First, I’d like to reiterate that superhero names generally don’t matter very much and probably won’t mean the difference between getting published and getting rejected.  That said, if you can’t come up with a name, here are some possible sources of inspiration.

1. Something thematically and/or symbolically appropriate.  For example, Captain America is probably more interesting than “Shield Throwing Man,” because the America and military angles matter more to his story than the details of his superpowers.   Alternately, Oracle can’t actually predict the future, but her name sort of makes sense because her main role is providing information and assistance.

2. An emotional impression.  Some characters have names that evoke the right emotions, but aren’t related to the characters’ powers. Some heroic examples include Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter, as opposed to villainous examples like Venom and Carnage.

3. Something in the character’s origin story.  For example, Green Lantern is named after the source of his powers (and his organization) and Batman is named after a bat even though his powers aren’t actually bat-related.  (Unless bats are master ninja scientist detectives.  That’d go a long way to explaining how the bats trapped in my attic have survived this long, actually).

4. The character’s goal.  This is more common in team names (e.g. the Avengers or any name with Guardians in it), but some names like The Punisher or The Question make it pretty clear what the characters want to accomplish.

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Do you have any questions about how to write a hero for your story?

If your novel starts with a superhero-to-be that does not yet have superpowers, is he/she interesting before getting superpowers? If not, you have several problems.  First, asking readers to wait 20+ pages with a deliberately average (read: forgettable) character will probably not go over well.  Second, if the character is not interesting before getting superpowers, he probably won’t be after, either.  Some possibilities you can consider:

1. What is the character’s personality like? What are his key traits?

2. What are the character’s goals/motivations like?  How do those tie into the character’s personality and background?  (I guess it’s possible that there’s a not-particularly-bright athlete out there whose burning life goal is to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but trying to make the varsity squad would probably be more intuitive).

3. What sort of unusual decisions does the character make that other superheroes (or superheroes-to-be) wouldn’t?  In particular, why does the character choose to become a superhero?  Is there anything in the character’s personality or background that influences this decision?  (I’d look at that especially hard if the character wasn’t notably brave or violent before getting superpowers).

4.  How is the character different from other superheroes-to-be?  

5.  How is the character different from other characters in the story, particularly other superheroes (if applicable).  

6.  Are there any ways this character’s background, personality and/or skills make him a good (and/or bad) fit for the plot?  Either could create drama.

• Sherlock Holmes is a good fit against a villain like Professor Moriarty because Moriarty is so dangerous that only someone as competent as Holmes could stop him.  That raises the stakes and makes it easier to challenge Holmes.  (Challenging protagonists is key to generating drama–if the protagonist easily outmatches his obstacles, it probably won’t be as interesting as it could be).
• If a character is a bad fit, he’d have to work harder to overcome obstacles.  For example, Chuck, Bad Company and The Taxman Must Die are about relatively normal people thrust into super-dangerous spy jobs.  The characters’ lack of preparation and personalities help create tension/conflict with teammates and helps writers wring drama out of obstacles that might have been mundane/forgettable for a spy with years of experience.
• It’s possible to do both.  For example, Dexter is a serial killer that works as a police crime scene analyst.  On one hand, he’s less likely to get caught because he knows what they’re looking for and can sabotage the investigation.  On the other hand, they’re unusually close to him and have started to ask questions about why he misses so much work.

1. If something would be boring and/or undramatic for a male character, it would probably be boring and/or undramatic for a female character.  If you’re writing a female character (particularly in a major role), I’d recommend thinking about whether you’d want to read about a male character in that situation or with that trait.  If not, then you’re probably boring your readers.

2. The character is useless.  Have you made a main character more or less helpless for most of the story? Does she watch as the story happens around her?  Does she get repeatedly saved by other characters when the going gets rough? Please think back to #1.  You’d probably be bored reading about a more or less helpless guy, right?  So why will your readers be any less bored by a helpless female?

3. The character is mute.  This broadcasts that the author has serious trouble writing dialogue for female characters, which is especially problematic if you have a major character that is a female.  Additionally, I can’t think of many situations where a mute character would be more interesting than one that could talk.  Finally, depending on the context, it could be creepy.  (For example, do you have any females that do talk?  Do they sound remotely believable?)

4. The character’s only defining trait is being hyper-smart or (more rarely) a total ditz.  That’s fine for one character among several, but if she’s your only significant female character, it’ll raise questions about your ability to handle female characters at a more relatable level of intelligence.  If you’re having trouble with more relatable female characters, I’d recommend checking out some Meg Cabot books, Mean Girls and/or Pride or Prejudice.

4.1. The character is totally pure.  A character that always does the right thing and has no motivations besides being friendly/agreeable/nice is probably pretty boring.  100% pure characters strain the suspension of disbelief, are less relatable and usually less dramatic.  For whatever reason, those sorts of characters are mostly women.  In the comments below, Jonie Legaspi suggests this rule of thumb: if a woman is older than 15 but never swears, she’s probably too pure.

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What are some giveaways that would suggest to you that a female character is written by a male author?  I’m writing an article on female characters for male authors and would really appreciate your help here.

Self-destructive protagonists have become well-known and easily recognizable stock characters, particularly in noir fiction. While this isn’t a problem on its own, the amount of characters that fit this basic archetype have cluttered the field and made it a challenge to create unique ones.

If you’re writing a similar character, to keep your story interesting and hard to predict, you should treat your character with care and a particularly open mindset.

What Is Afflicting Your Character?

Don’t just make your character a shadow of another character that uses the same device. That doesn’t mean you can’t use afflictions that have already been used, like drugs or alcohol, it just means you need to be sure that the affliction you are using is the best fit for your story.

First, did your character acquire the affliction voluntarily?  Drugs, alcohol and gambling debts are voluntary. But Alzheimer’s—which I consider to be an affliction that can lead to self-destructive characters—is not. For example, Joshua Hale Fialkov used a brain tumor in the aptly-named graphic novel Tumor.

The next part of creating interesting self-destructive characters is to have an open mind while indulging in the creative process. All stories and characters are prone to change, and in analyzing your character’s affliction you should question whether or not the affliction you have chosen is the best one for your character and/or story. Please use the most suitable device rather than just the first one that comes to mind.

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From my email: “What Makes a Character Likable? was helpful, but what if the character is serious and a bit of a hardass?”  Here are some ideas that come to mind.

1. The character has a sympathetic goal that calls for seriousness. For example, the protagonist in Silence of the Lambs is an FBI agent pursuing an unusually vicious serial killer and nobody else knows what’s going on besides a serial cannibal. Under these circumstances, it would probably be hard to like the FBI agent if she weren’t serious.

1.1. The character is hard, but has a good reason to be. If a surgeon snaps at a nurse for getting something 95% right, I think readers could probably be persuaded to sympathize with the surgeon because a 95% competent nurse might get somebody killed. It’d be harder to sympathize with a teacher snapping at a student that got a problem 95% right–unless he’s teaching Bomb Defusal 101. I think bigger stakes and stressful situations make it easier to like a hardass.

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1.  If at all possible, give the new character something interesting to do that ties into a plot element that has been major.  For example, maybe the new character has some obvious connection to a major goal or obstacle for the main character.  IE: Maybe your wizard can only graduate from school if he passes telepathy, but there’s only one telepathic teacher’s assistant and he has a reputation for singing about himself in the third person while scrawling lewd graffiti in the cafeteria.  (Sigh, telepaths).  The more you connect the new characters to things we already care about, the easier it will be for us to care about them.

2.  Please use only interesting visuals that help develop the character.  Red flag: The story spends more time on the colors of the character’s eyes, hair, skin and sometimes clothes than on visual details that would help develop interesting and/or important information about the character and/or his role in the plot. 

• UNACCEPTABLE: “Damon the necromancer was wearing black robes that clashed with his smoky blue eyes.”
• BETTER:  “Good God, Damon, is that rabbit’s blood on you?  You’re soaked in it!”  Damon sipped his coffee.  “It was him or me, ma’am.”

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Feel free to discuss anything related to love interests.  For example, which love interests have you found most interesting?  What do you think distinguishes interesting love interests from forgettable ones?  If you’re familiar with a few superhero stories, how do you think their romantic love interests stack up against love interests in other types of stories? 

Some tips for fixing a Mary Sue, a protagonist that is insufficiently challenged by his or her story.

1. Give the character flaws, ideally one he’s accountable for. Most unchallenged characters have a bevy of strengths but few well-developed flaws.  One approach is to play up the character’s strengths so much they sometimes become liabilities.  For example, in Point of Impact, Nick Memphis is unfailingly loyal, even though it ruins his career.  Virtually any strength taken to an extreme could create obstacles for the character.  For example…

• Being too smart could create social obstacles for the character (see Flowers for Algernon or House), impatience with less intelligent people, overconfidence, a willingness to jump to erroneous conclusions on too little information, etc.
• Being too nice could lead to gullibility/naivete, a reluctance to confront someone even when a confrontation is necessary, or a handicap against tougher (and maybe more brutal) foes.
• Being too honorable could result in situations where the character loses because he/she refuses to take the most effective course of action available.  At its most cliche, perhaps a superhero stops chasing a gang of villains so that he can defuse a bomb or free a hostage from a deathtrap.  But that only affects a scene.  More significantly, a villain can manipulate a hero’s sense of honor so that he/she does something that shapes the plot.  For example, Cassius draws Brutus into the assassination plot in Julius Caesar by exploiting Brutus’ honor.
• Being too brave could result in reckless mistakes.  The character’s overconfidence might get him hurt, and possibly bystanders as well.  For example, if a superhero tries to rush a hostage-taker without any sort of plan, hostages will probably get shot.
• Being too committed to one’s goals (even honorable goals) could result in obsession and/or a willingness to sacrifice friends, morals, bystanders, and anything else to achieve the goals.

2.  Have the character make some decisions the audience won’t approve of. If the character is so purely heroic that readers will probably approve of every decision he makes, he probably doesn’t have much moral complexity.  Usually, that’s not as believable or interesting as giving the characters some human edges.

3.  Have the character make difficult decisions. Difficult decisions distinguish the character.  If the character is just making banal decisions that 90%+ of the genre’s protagonists would make in the same situation, the plot probably isn’t giving the hero enough room to distinguish himself.  Let your hero show how different he/she is with some decisions that most other heroes wouldn’t make.  For example, the protagonist in Point of Impact, Bob Swagger, is on the run after he’s been framed for an assassination attempt on the President.  The people framing him planted incriminating evidence in his house, but they had to kill his dog to sneak inside. Almost every action protagonist in this situation would probably have started by trying to take down the conspiracy.  Swagger starts by breaking into the FBI-occupied morgue where the dog’s body is being held as evidence so that he can properly bury it.  It really helps develop his character: the dog is the closest thing he had to a friend and he feels honor-bound to return its loyalty.  It also gives the villains reason to panic and ratchets up the tension.  If this guy is suicidal enough that he’d risk a high-speed chase with the FBI over his dog, his dead dog at that, what’s he gonna do to them?

4. Challenge the character! Raise obstacles high enough that it will be interesting for the character to overcome them.  For example, if your character is the most powerful superbeing in your story, the potential for interesting straight-up action is probably pretty low because he’s more powerful than his opponents.  For example, The Watchmen couldn’t have done much with a straight-up duel between invulnerable hero Dr. Manhattan and semi-powered villain Ozymandias.  Instead, Ozymandias challenged the heroes with his stealth and subterfuge, buying time so that he could make his survival so valuable to the heroes that they wouldn’t dare to kill him.   Another approach would be to try challenging the character in a sphere where his superpowers aren’t very useful.  For example, in a superhero romance, a guy that’s used to solving his problems with violence would have to try a very different tack to wooing the girl of his dreams.

5. Have the character face some morally gray obstacles. I would really recommend against making everyone that opposes the hero a straight-up bad person. For example, maybe the character’s friends aren’t 100% supportive of everything he does, maybe his coworkers/bosses have reasonable disputes with the character, or maybe there’s an antagonist whose intentions are pretty pure, etc.  If there’s no approach for a character to disagree with the hero without coming off as a bad person, the hero is probably not morally complex enough to feel fully believable.  (Hey, even Gandhi and MLK took some flack over their pragmatism).

I read this on a discussion board today: “There are no bad or uninteresting characters, only characters that are written badly or uninterestingly.” What do you think?

1. Everything in your story needs to advance the plot and/or develop something important about a character. Character visualization is one area where many authors stall the story with irrelevant details.

2. 99% of the time, it doesn’t really matter whether a character’s eyes are blue or green or whether her hair is brown or blonde. However, such details could be used to create an impression that does affect the plot and/or characterization. For example, if you wanted to suggest that a character looked mysterious and perhaps a bit dangerous, maybe you’d say that her eyes were a smoky blue, whereas the villain’s eyes might be a sickly or poisonous green. Or you could use some aspect of a character’s appearance to create a mood for a particular scene.  In such cases, I would recommend introducing these details only as soon as they contribute something and not because you think readers are wondering what color the character’s eyes are. (Trust me, they aren’t*).

*Of all the hundreds or thousands of characters you’ve ever read about, how many have eye colors you can remember? Any?

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1. Romance. Villains frequently have ulterior motives (like marrying Aunt May to steal the nuclear power plant she inherited?) and improper means (such as sabotaging rivals). True romances are rare for villains and can make them deeper and more interesting. Mr. Freeze’s romance with his wife Nora in Heart of Ice turned him from a corny ice-themed punchline into an Emmy winner. (He later devolved into a corny ice-themed punchline after being played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, but some things can’t be helped).

2. Revenge. This might be heroic if the crime is particularly heinous and/or the regular authorities are not willing or able to resolve the situation. It might be villainous if the character is overreacting or not being careful enough about hitting only the people responsible.  When working with revenge plots, I think it’s usually more interesting if the revenge develops into something more than just killing/stopping people A, B and C.  For example, in Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, the villain is getting back at the love interest that rejected him, which introduces relationship issues that present their own challenges to a protagonist trying to get over a long-dead relationship of his own.

3. To distinguish oneself. It depends on why the character wants to distinguish himself. A hero whose main goal is fame/status will probably gain a more substantial goal over the course of the story. (For example, Booster Gold). I think it’s seen as a superficial, temporary goal. In contrast, “be true to yourself” is more purely heroic… Unless being true to yourself involves psychically decapitating people and sucking out their brains.

4. To fit in/gain acceptance. A lot of heroes seek to gain the respect of their peers (see any story about “the new guy,” particularly students). However, gaining acceptance might be more sinister based on who the protagonist wants to impress and/or what will impress them. For example, 1984 ends with Winston Smith rather unhappily gaining acceptance by betraying his innocent girlfriend: ”…he had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

5. Justice. This is like revenge, but usually less lethal and targeted more carefully against the perpetrators. Nonetheless, justice can sometimes be villainous. For example, the main goal of the robot antagonist in the I, Robot movie is to prevent humans from getting hurt, and putting them under house arrest seems to be the most logical way to do so.

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1. Please establish the voice and personality early. One possibility is having the character and/or narrator make an unusual observation about something important to the story or giving some unusual personality trait about the character. For example, “It was a pleasure to burn” (Fahrenheit 451) or “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter” (Huckleberry Finn).

2. Another option is having the character start with an action that is typical to him, but NOT typical to most other protagonists. This is why opening a book with the character waking up is usually ineffective. It rarely launches into the unique/interesting aspects of the character and the story quickly enough. You didn’t write a story about this character to show him waking up, so just skip to the part that we WILL care about.

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Whether you’re writing a thriller or a romance, an unbroken chain of victories for the hero is probably not very interesting. Come on.  Even Batman makes mistakes.  Unlike most good decisions, poor decisions and ineptly-executed plans create consequences that the character has to overcome, which lets you raise the stakes for the heroes and make the journey more difficult.

Here are some further suggestions about bad decisions.

1.  Please connect the poor decision to an aspect of the character, like a personality flaw or a fear or a defining attribute. For example, if a superhero is exceedingly self-confident, it makes sense that he’d rush into battle without figuring out whether he’s gonna get beat around the block.  In contrast, if a generally well-prepared protagonist acts uncharacteristically hasty without a good reason, you’ve inadvertently given him an idiot ball.  That’s a problem because it isn’t true to the characterization you’ve given him thus far.

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Hopefully your writing sounds more interesting than this: “I called my agent for lunch.  I went to Panera.  I tried to find him there but he was late.”  This is just a bland list of facts. As a writer, it’s your job to make the story as interesting as possible by bringing in details that shake up the narrative.  One possibility is opinions.

In the above passage, the narrator doesn’t have any interesting opinions or any other thoughts about what’s going on around him.   He doesn’t have to be that invisible.

My agent was late to lunch.  Probably getting seduced by some cold-eyed harpy with a Twilight-meets-Eragon manuscript.  Sparkly dragon vampires.  He fell for bestsellers every time.

Notice that the narrator/author hasn’t said anything about himself, but he has shown much more about his personality and why he’s an interesting character.  We also learn more about the missing agent, even though it’s all just opinion.

PS:  If you can remove unnecessary details, like where they were meeting for lunch, please do so.  Alternately, find a way to make the detail useful.

Your readers have probably read about heroes with any given positive trait, particularly if the trait is commonly associated with a protagonist in your type of book.  (For example, a detective is almost always more cunning than a barbarian).  However, this is not inherently problematic.  If you’re writing a detective story, your protagonist is probably (at least somewhat) cunning because it wouldn’t be much of a detective story if he just bumbled through it Magoo-style.  It’s not a problem that he’s cunning as long as you do something else to make sure that he feels fresh. 

1.  One way to make a character with a conventional trait (like a cunning detective) and take the trait so far it almost becomes a flaw.  For example, Captain Kirk is so brave he’s reckless, Charlie becomes so smart he’s alienated, many lawyers are so slick they’re oily, etc. 

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1.  YOUR READERS NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE.

• Characters should act consistently.  It’s usually better to err on the side of a trait being too strong/consistent than too weak/half-hearted.  When characters grow and change, his change should be caused by something understandable and visible.  Don’t leave your readers wondering why this character is acting like that.
• Powers like time-travel, memory-alteration, impersonation and sometimes resurrection can make it very difficult to understand what is going on.  (Is that memory real or imagined?  Who remembers what? Who’s dead?)  I would not recommend adding these powers lightly.  If readers are confused, they will be jarred from the story.  Don’t make the reader work to understand the basic facts of your story.
• Don’t be coy with readers.  If the point-of-view character knows something relevant (like backstory or something he knows or can observe), the reader is entitled to know the same.  I strongly recommend against trying to create drama by having the POV hide information from the readers.  “Surprise, I was the killer all along!”  If you hide information that the reader feels entitled to, he will probably feel angry rather than satisfied when you finally reveal the truth.

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1. What their eyes look like. Eyes are almost never as interesting to the reader as they are to the author.  Additionally, describing what the eyes look like suggests a level of closeness that often implies romantic intimacy.  Finally, eye-color comes up so rarely in real life that it’s weird to mention it in fiction.  Here’s a mental exercise:  take yourself, your mom, your dad, and your significant other.  How many of their eye-colors can you name with certainty?  If eye-colors are such a minor detail to you that you can’t name your mom’s eye-color, what are the odds are that your readers will care about your protagonist’s eyes?  Very, very slim.

2. What they did when they woke up. It is almost impossible to write an interesting morning routine.  If your book starts with a character waking up, the manuscript is probably dead on arrival.  Just cut to the part where they do something interesting.

3. Extra names. In most cases, I’d recommend a first name or a last name, but try to avoid switching between the two.  Middle names are almost always a waste of time.  (In contrast, secret identities are usually acceptable because they are plot-important and because readers can easily understand why the character is sometimes called Superman even though his name is Clark).

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Which female characters do you think are the most awful? Which are the most excellent? What separates the two? Marissa and I really appreciate your feedback; Marissa’s writing an article for us about how to do female characters well. (You can see our article on male characters here).

Many, perhaps most, real life jobs have a fairly narrow and specialized focus.  For example, most people of a company’s employees work for a particular department and newspaper reports usually focus on stories related to their section of the paper. In general, I’d recommend giving your heroes jobs that are more flexible because it gives more opportunity to entangle the character in the plot and add new developments.

Here are some aspects that can make a job more flexible and plot-friendly.

1.  Get the character out of his office. Offices are mostly bland, forgettable, comfortable and safe.  As far as readers and interesting stories are concerned, they are Kryptonite.  I’d recommend giving your character a lot of work outside the office because the real world is harder to predict and gives you more opportunities to work in new scenes, danger, seedy characters, etc.

2.  Please avoid making the character the boss. Usually, the boss has the least interesting job in the building.  Privates and flunkies usually have more at stake than a general or a business magnate does.  In addition, low-level work is generally more interesting.  I’d much rather read about a platoon patrolling hostile streets or a corporate flack trying to steal corporate secrets than about the men that decided to send the patrols or steal the secrets.

3.  As much as possible, please have the hero spend his time working with people outside of his company. The relationships within a company are usually tidy and well-controlled, especially if the characters share the same goals.  When a boss lays down the law, that’s usually the end of it.  It’s usually more interesting when a character can’t just order other people to give him what he wants.  For example, a police officer has to convince a reluctant witness to testify, which will give you an opportunity to show you how impressive he is.  In contrast, if the cop could just order the man to testify, that wouldn’t be very interesting or impressive.  (Well, technically, cops can order witnesses to testify, but persuasion is often necessary in dangerous cases).

4.  I’d recommend making the hero accountable to a tough boss. Characters like JJ Jameson tend to add a lot more dramatic potential than friendly bosses like Perry White.  They create more of an obstacle for the heroes and usually make the heroes seem more likable.

Here are some of the things that can make a character likable.

• A distinct personality, even if it’s sinister or abrasive. This is one of the reasons that Sylar (a serial killer) and Dr. House (a curmudgeonly asshat) are fan favorites.
• Relatability. Readers are particularly sensitive to age and gender.  Usually, the hero is a few years older than the readers (young enough to be relatable and relevant but old enough to be impressive).
• Relationships. These are particularly important if the character is unrelatable.  If the character has a thought process that is really unusual to readers, we’ll probably get to know him through how he interacts with other people.  If an unusual character isn’t interacting with other people, readers probably won’t find him very interesting because they don’t know enough about him.
• Competence. This is especially important for villains.  Readers usually love the villains that scare them, and competent villains are scary.   See Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader.
• Style. Most stylish characters are competent, a bit clever and witty.
• A sense of humor. Obviously, not every story is a comedy, but even a bit of humor can make a character more likable.   For example, Han Solo only got a few lines like “we’re all fine here now, thank you,” but they were enough to establish his personality.
• Flaws. Often, the flaws make a character more likable than his assets do.  Flaws are more unique and they tend to stand out more.  There are thousands of brave heroes, but what people remember about Captain Kirk and James Bond is that they’re recklessly brave.
• Limit the complaining! Brooding, moping, crying and angst usually make the character sound whiny.  It’s really hard to like a character that whines, no matter how seriously awful his life is.
• Proactivity. This is what distinguishes Sylar (a character dealing with a seriously hard life) from someone that complains about how hard his life is.  Readers would much rather see a character try to solve his problems than talk/complain about them.  This is one of the (many) reasons that Han and Luke are more likable than C3P0.
• Good intentions for the villains. This is a useful way to add depth to the antagonists.
• Variety. This is particularly important for the hero.  Give him opportunities to try different solutions and improvise.
• Stark characterization. Please don’t make your characters “kind of an ass” or “sort of brave” or whatever.  Go big!  It’ll be more distinctive and interesting than a hero that just sort of does whatever is most convenient for the plot.  Also, it will raise the stakes and make the conflicts sharper.
• Growth. Stagnant heroes are usually a bit boring.  If the hero’s quest doesn’t change him in some way, what’s the point?
• Vulnerable. This is particularly important for the hero.  Ideally, he’s a bit less powerful than the villain and might actually lose.   That will force him to be intelligent and will leave readers on the edge of their seats.
• Lone superheroes often benefit from interesting alternate identities. The alternate identity helps establish what’s at stake and makes the character feel real by giving him something to do besides beating people up.  Alter-egos are less important for superhero teams because there’s less time available for each character.

There are many more, I’m sure.  What am I missing?

Generic niceness is a dangerous trait to give a character–particularly the protagonist. First, it’s probably not very interesting if the character is always agreeable and only does things that the audience is meant to sympathize with. That reduces the potential for conflict.  In practice, a character that’s 100% nice is usually boring and/or a Mary Sue.
Here are some traits that suggest that the character may have issues with generic niceness.

• Polite
• Compassionate
• Agreeable
• Kind
• Personable
• Friendly
• Social
• Helpful
• Pleasant
• Nice, of course.

If your protagonist has traits like these, I’d recommend taking them in a direction that they might create some problems for the characters.  For example, perhaps the character is so social that he tries to negotiate even when the audience knows that action is necessary.  A character that is too polite might be stiff or reluctant to speak her mind. A character that is too helpful might try to help even when it’s unwise for her to do so.  Alternately, perhaps the character’s traits lead him into conflict with non-antagonists*.  For example, being agreeable and trusting is generally desirable, but it’d probably be a liability for a prison guard.

*I think non-antagonists would probably work better here because an antagonist conflicting with a hero for being too nice would probably be one-dimensionally unsympathetic.  A conflict with a relatively sympathetic character would probably develop the protagonist more and be more emotionally interesting.  For further details here, please see #5 in How to Fix Mary Sues.

1.  Make it clear who’s narrating which chapter. The biggest problem with multiple narrators is that it’s hard to keep track of who is narrating a given chapter.  One way you can fix this problem is by placing the character’s name below the chapter heading.  Or you can use blatant demographic cues.  (For example, someone that starts a chapter by saying “Damn, I hate high-heels!” is probably not a male).  Some publishers even sign off on a tiny picture of the character below the chapter heading.  Do whatever it takes.

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Here are some tips to help you write a super-intelligent character even if you are pretty ordinary yourself.

1.  Try not to focus on him talking intelligently– what can he do that’s intelligent? When you’re thinking about this character’s actions, he should be able to come up with cunning plans and brilliant moves.  Try to keep these as simple as possible.  After the hero carries out his plan, ideally your readers will say “damn, why didn’t I think of that?”

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In my list of common day jobs for superheroes, I forgot soldiers.  Ack!  How did I miss that?  Anyway, I just added them.  What sort of tips would you recommend for an author writing a story about a superhero soldier?

We’ve already done a general article on the dangers of using children as side-characters, but this article will discuss only the most dangerous kind of child character: The Scrappy.

Generally, a Scrappy is a character that is hated by readers, usually because he’s exaggeratedly inept in a way that is meant to be funny.  For example, instead of having a slight speech impediment, he’ll be Jar-Jar Binks.  Instead of being a bit younger than the other characters, he’ll be Scrappy Doo.  This character usually distracts from the more competent characters, often so much that he becomes a hate figure.

Here are some common misconceptions that lead authors to use Scrappies…

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Sometimes a minor character will “steal” the scene from the main character, taking so much of the spotlight that the main character just seems to disappear.  Here are several scenarios that often to lead to scene-stealing.

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“Keep the change, ya filthy animal.”  Indeed!  If your character changes in some way , it’s usually a good idea to “keep the change” rather than undo the change later on.  Backtracking often makes the characterization feel unsatisfying and usually suggests that there was no reason to make the change in the first place.  If the hero moves from psychopathic to mostly sane, it probably won’t feel right if he suddenly jerks back to psychopathic two episodes later.  (I’m looking at you, Sylar!)

In a novel or comic book, backtracking is best-handled as a major failure for the main character.  For example, it might be a decisive event that sets up the climactic struggle.  As an immature kid, Simba runs away when his father gets killed.  That sets up his return to fight Scar in the climax, establishing that he has finally become responsible.  Alternately, the hero backtracks because the hero loses at the end.  For example, if The Lion King were a dystopian tragedy about Simba failing to become mature, Simba gets hunted down and eaten by the hyenas shortly after fleeing to the desert.  That’ll teach you to try to run away from your problems!

Backtracking is generally not well-suited for traits that aren’t particularly important, or for minor characters. Backtracking tends to take a lot of space (to clear up potential confusion), so it probably isn’t worthwhile unless the character and trait are crucial to the story.

Now I’m going back to watch Home Alone.