i think if you want the mc to be liked then it should be someone you enjoyed creating too. The feeling that the authors has as they write the world that revolves around mc shows up in the story and felt by the readers. You cant make everyone love the mc but atleast those sincerely made ones connects with the audience more..
It might sound obvious, but through good writing. Even evil characters can be liked when the story is molded for there to be a reason why. The part is getting over reader's expectations. Even if we know freedom of choice is a thing, righteous mcs are ingrained as the norm, thus evil mcs aren't tolerated as well. When an author describes their world though, expectation can be shifted. If there is a complaint about an mc, it can be attributed to them not being utilized as much as they should.
I agree. I think some readers also like the human side of a character. the question is whether they like them after when the author makes the MC go into character development. Some readers read on, some drop it. So, it seems to me that there is some disconnect in reader's expectation and the author's depiction of the MC.
Perfect as in someone your readers will like and will have enough attractiveness for them to finish the story. Im s true, I don't have enough neurons for that. It's like running out of ideas to make this MC work.
From the thread, what I can gather is a perfect MC attracts the readers and keeps the reading until the story pans out and ends. So, it's up to the author to keep that audience engaged in the story. Your second statement is usually the hardest part for me when creating a char4acter. Coz MC has to drive the story or even vice versa.
I would like to think that some authors put a small piece of themselves in their MCs or any people they know. Coz it's really hard to create a relatable character if you see it in another human. Your method is very wholesome, and give you a lot of perspective with regards to all your characters
My method is kind of wholesome because I am just a happy playful person in general x3 Most of my writing is done like that, especially for the MC's. From experience when I had to write stuff for college or rps or just writing my own story for myself to read. I've tried to write many kinds of MC's XD Powerful ones, weak ones, perfect ones and imperfect ones and to me it all depends on what I want my story to be like. Like lately I've been writing a little story for my girl friend to read to pass the time and show her how much I love her. Little chapters and paragraphs. She loves reading them and stuff and I like writing them for her cause it brings me joy XD I tend to talk a lot and veer off the topic at hand a lot by the way XD Even when I write so I have to edit a lot but yeah XD Anyways I am writing the two MC's as her and I. I'm the male lead and she is the female lead and it is a little fantasy story about us. x3 The MC's are essentially us but at the same time they aren't us. To me, my MC's are perfect, because it is meant just for her and I and we both know exactly what we like in our main character. The MC's I've written down in the story aren't perfect tho. They are just the two of us basically copied and pasted with a bit of exaggeration. The MC's I created are perfect for my gf and I to read and for me to write but the MC's themselves aren't perfect. I lost the point I was going to make XD XD But I guess what I was trying to say is a perfect MC is something easy or hard to create. It all depends on the writer since everyone is different xD people write for different reasons. I write because I enjoy it and it makes me happy. Other's write for the same reason and many others like trying to make money or getting out some emotions or something so it is all different.
....I meant 'perfect' as most suitable to personal preferences in my thread tho... almost everyone interpreted it wrong...
The perfect MC is someone with imperfections somewhere, or at least someone readers can relate and connect to on some level. If you're not interested in the MC or his/her story, then they'll mean nothing to you no matter how amazing or awesome they are.
Can be, but not most of the time. Most often, authors and readers are at odds with each other, each side their own set of issues. The author writes something, readers don't like it. They drop or critisize to high heaven. Readers want this and that, editors/publishers want the other way or another. Author needs to pay the bills so so screw creativity and passion and go for the one that is practical. If they are lucky, everyone is happy. Most often, it's the author that feel the bite of stress and pressure. It's the extreme case but it happens more than not. And most of the time, readers who cry the most are teh ones getting for free.
There will never be perfect MC, you can't make a pervert and a gentleman at the same time. You can't make a bad guy and good guy at the same time.
Good and evil are so often relative and only in the eye of the beholder. Benevolent tyrants exist, so do they antiheroes. Are they good? Yes. Can you still make them the main antagonist and the prime "evil"? Yes. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" exists for a reason. I can also give an example with one of my own characters. Liur Excelsior Starwing is by all accounts a capable and benevolent ruler. He abolished slavery (except for the really fucked up criminals). He outlawed a certain practice which effectively turns the woman/women with strong bloodlines (read: nobles) but low achievements into literal breeding machines of their respective clans. His territory is one of the few with very very little racism in a setting where other races are pets and other species are vermin and it is simultaniously the most prosperous area on the continent which is also a strict meritocracy. On the other hand he got his title "Vermillion lord" because when he burned down entire cities it looked like a setting sun. Breaking the second point is punished straight up by clan extermination, and he did purge two clans because of it (the rest got the point), including his own. He does hate mankind to the extreme, but since he is an elf (fey species) its not racism (by definition anyway) and given that mankind is trying to invade his turf 24/7 you could say they worked hard for that treatment. And for those fools who attempt to harm his family (twin sister, son and his son's wife, he himself doesn't have any permanent partner) he has some ... creative... solutions. When his daughter in law got shot during pregnancy he turned the empire upside down. By imperial law attacking an eternal elf is high treason beyond high treason, and even their families have a special status. The result would usually be capital punishment for the entire family, but in his rage he went beyond that. Every last assaillant was tortured to death, inluding their families (just as a friendly reminder that suicide is the better option if you are foced into attacking him) but the last one was especially unlucky. Because his wife was pregnant as well and son and father were both seething with rage. Liur used his weapon to inflict a fatal wound which caused her to suffer for hours while the man was forced to watch it with an equally lethal wound slowly killing him as well. Other eternal elfs reacted even worse to similar offenses, just saying. For 99.9999% of his citizens he is a god, and a very nice one in fact. Those who incite his fury are dealing with a complete psychopath instead. So, what is he? Good or evil? Or does it all depend on the point of view?
Ai-chan would like to point out that there is no point in creating a perfect protagonist other than as self-insert delusion. Are perfect protagonists interesting? Definitely not. Are perfect protagonists realistic? Definitely not. Writing a perfect protagonist is actually a bad thing and the author can kiss traditional publishing goodbye because Mary Sues are no longer accepted among publishers. Have been so since the 90s. Although each work is judged on a case by case basis, if you're well-known as an author of Mary Sue, publishers will be less interested in reading your story.