🥑 choose your character

You have your premise. You’ve identified some challenges and defined your designing principle.

Who’s the main character?

Even if you’re writing a ridiculously sprawling epic à la Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive, every book you write will (probably) center around one particular character. Even if you use multiple POV’s, or have a dual-POV romance, one character will be front and center because you love them the most.

The best character might be the most likable. They might not.

They might be the most heroic, or the most charming, or the most cruel.

But the best character is always the one you and your readers want to spent time with.

Your premise will inspire some character ideas—protagonists, antagonists, allies, minor opponents, side characters, etc.

As you develop your idea, ask yourself these questions:

• Who do I want to watch in action?

• Who will make my readers happy when their POV shows up?

• Who will drive the story that’s happening on the page?

If your answer is “none of my characters,” make a better character or move on from this premise.

If your answer is “this guy who’s not the main character in my premise,” redesign the story so that this guy becomes the main character.

Your main character will help you sell your book. Make them matter.

Rounding out the series on Friday: conflict.

Want to choose what we write about? Reply to this email with your question and I may use it in a future Bite.

Thanks for reading Avocado Bites!

^{Avocado Bites is a publication of Avocado Tree Press, LLC, that helps you revise your stories one bite at a time. We love working with indie and traditionally published authors on fiction manuscripts—and if that’s you, welcome to our target audience.}

^{Ready for a sample edit? Here’s our site.}

^{Addison Horner is the chief editor of Avocado Tree Press. Here’s his newsletter. It’s different but still pretty good.}