Do you believe?

In fairies? God? Alien abductions? Love? People? In anything?

When a character believes in something, that belief must be strong enough to draw the audience into it. A truly great protagonist is one with which the audience identifies. They see themselves in the character, whether the flaws or the strengths.

I've been reading an excellent book called, "Writing the Breakout Novel" (and workbook) by Donald Maass. The author cites one of the main problems with debut novels (aside from poor writing) is failure to create memorable main characters. One of the culprits? Protagonists who specialize in humanity without the slightest bit of heroism.

We don't read about real people, Maass insists, we read about the people we wish we were.

The people that populate our dreams have their flaws, their moments of darkness, but they are also MUCH larger than life. They have beliefs and, whether we agree with them or not, we respect their conviction.

Dinara, the main character of my book-in-progress, is so human that she fails to be heroic in any way. Basically, her depression depresses. Trague, her love interest, is SO heroic that he has almost no flaws. The chemistry lags often because the equation is imbalanced.

But when we find the equilibrium between human-ness and heroism, sparks fly from the pen, characters breathe from the binding, and readers cling to the story with every tremulous flip of the page.

I believe. The question is...

...do you?


Book update (please hold your applause) - Second draft of The Outcast is complete!!! Inputting rewrites for chapters 1-6. Salut!