Are your main characters lurking in the wings and refusing to take centre stage? Are they constantly upstaged by every bit player who walks across your pages?
If so, you’re not alone. It happens to the best of us. There’s always the danger that a little girl in the chorus line will suddenly sing up and attract the spotlight, effectively putting the real main character in the shadow. In a single POV story this isn’t a good thing because your protagonist is supposed to stay in the spotlight all the way through. The real danger of secondary characters who step out of line is that, once allowed a taste of glory, they very often won’t give it up and can send your whole plot off on a tangent.
In an ailing story this might not be a bad thing if it gives a new spark of life and renewed interest on your part, even if it does entail rewriting the parts that went before. But in a story that is otherwise sound, letting a secondary character take the lead can only bring trouble.
The main character needs to grab back the control, and only you, the writer, can give him back that control. If you’re struggling with a sulking or hiding main character, these tips might help.
1. Give your main character the best lines of dialogue. The main character is supposed to be one who makes the smart remarks, is always ready with the quick retort and (in comedy) gets the most laughs. If, for some reason, your main characters are always being upstage by the bit-players it’s possible you don’t know your character well enough, or you don’t like them well enough to really walk in their shoes or live in their heads when you’re writing. Go back to the drawing board of character creation and have a heart to heart talk with them. Find out what makes them tick, makes them laugh or cry, what it is they most want in the world and what they’d die to achieve, or protect, or gain and work with them until you understand them inside and out.
2. Make your main characters work hard for their survival. They’ve got to be faced with overwhelming odds right from the beginning. They can’t carry ray guns in their pockets unless their enemies have bigger and better ray guns. Think back to all the successful books or films you’ve seen over the years and try to think of a single one where the main protagonist was (initially) stronger than the antagonist. There’s no such beast. Even Superman has his weak spots that his enemies know about and use against him at every opportunity.
3. Keep your main character active, not passive. Let him be the one who makes the big decisions, the big mistakes, the big sacrifices. If he’s ever sitting around drinking tea and thinking whilst someone else is fighting his battles you’ve lost him, and the one doing the fighting has stolen the limelight.
If your main character still refuses to get out there and you find yourself still favouring a secondary character when it comes to the best bits in your fiction, you possibly need to make that secondary character your new main character.
Yes, it might take some rewriting and replotting, but if your fiction is going to be successful it’s vital that the character who’s taking top billing in the story is the one who deserves it.
