What is a Character?

When I'm looking for something to read, the first thing that catches my eye are interesting covers and

engaging titles. Then I turn to the back of the book or the inside cover and skim the summary. At that point, I don't care who thinks what about the book or if the writer is a New York Times bestseller. What I'm looking for is an adventure, one on which I will follow someone through peril and hardship to victory.

So the deciding factor on whether or not I will read the book is the main character (MC). Many people have the same criteria. A unique plot or clever prose might be enough to satisfy some, but it takes a good MC to bump the story up to the next level.

There are a lot of criteria that can be applied to a good MC. He needs to be likeable. He needs to be the catalyst that moves the plot. He needs to have a character arc – to learn something through his struggles in the story. He needs to be relatable. It can all be summed up in a simple statement:

The character needs to be someone who we can learn through.

It's been said that readers live a thousand lives. If that's the case, that means we're learning the lessons that the characters do. It follows that an MC must be, first, someone who has something to learn (and presumably learns it), and second, someone we are willing to follow as he or she learns.

If you've been studying character building for a while, you've probably come across the terms “Mary Su” or “Gary Stu.” If not, it's a nickname for characters who are too perfect, whether in their looks or personality or both. This violates the law of relatability and eliminates any meaningful character arc, which in turn prevents the development of a quality plot. Finally, readers just don't like them. Perfection doesn't exist in the real world, which makes images of perfection feel false and radiate an aura of “holier-than-thou.” Most people aren't willing to learn from someone they don't like. A perfect character also doesn't provide an opportunity to learn in an intrinsic, meaningful manner, since perfection is where learning stops.

This means that a good character is a character who is flawed. Not suffering from clumsiness or a stutter or an ugly nose, but flawed with things like rage or hate or greed. Deep flaws that cause major problems. But still, the basic principle of a “likeable” character means that there must be other traits to balance out the flaw. A character who struggles with anger can still be loving or generous or unselfish or all three. Once again, readers must be willing to follow the character through that character's learning, which means that there must be – at least – strong hints of that character being someone worth following. The current trends toward antiheroes and outright villains as main characters may seem to contradict this principle, but I'll address that later.

Finally, the character needs to learn. Where's the point in following someone through the story if he never reaches the end of his character arc? Or if he never has an arc at all? There might be things happening, but without emotional stakes in the main character's development, the story doesn't have a heart.

All writing teaches something. It's your responsibility to teach the right things in the right way, and the best way to achieve that is to teach your characters and let them teach the reader.