Protagonist's voice and side plots

Are there other characters besides the MC? What're they doing while the MC is advancing the main plot? How do they relate to the MC?

The best way to avoid your characters becoming thinly veiled versions of you is to create fully fleshed-out characters that are people in their own rights. Give them hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes, fears and phobias, beliefs and motivations. Give them quirks and personalities of their own.

When I first started writing, all my main characters were Mary Sues. (That's the nickname for a character that's actually the author in disguise.) My female characters looked exactly the way I always wanted to look. They shared my interests and hobbies, my dreams, my personality. They were exactly like me, only better! Eventually, I figured out that Mary Sues are not popular with readers, and so I started creating characters that are unique individuals.

One book that really helped me is Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress. She helps you write bios for your main characters, so you can figure out what kind of people they are. What their childhoods were like, how they were raised, what they believe, how they treat others, what their preferences are, what they look like, how they behave--everything about them!

You'll want to have character development, too. Let your characters grow and change over the course of the story. Let them learn from their mistakes. It makes for a more satisfying story.

I can't help wondering if you are perhaps wanting to dot too many i's and cross too many t's before putting pen to paper. Thinking about writing is not writing.

The whole sub-plot issue revolves around the characters involved, so if your supporting characters are dull and just wandering about with the main character with no issues either in their own lives or related to the main character and his predicament you will have no foundations for a sub-plot.

You only have to send one character away to achieve something that the protagonist needs and you have a sub-plot - it's the mini story around that character achieving that particular objective.

All plots head towards a conclusion even though there may be sub-plots involved.

If you know the main plot you know your ultimate destination. That's all you may need, so why not start the most important task now?

Start writing and see where your characters want to take you.

Unexpected characters often appear out of nowhere - they can create their own dramatic entrances. If there's a knock on the door, open it and see who's there. If characters beckon you into uncharted waters don't hesitate to follow them and see where they are leading you - you may be pleasantly surprised.

I assume you have read many books of the type you wish to write.

And be sure you select the correct POV through which the reader can best experience the unfolding story. POV is a powerful tool and should be understood before starting. Don't just fall into the 'I want to tell you a story trap'.

Relax, get writing, and good luck.

Critting the submissions of others in the Share-Your-Work Forum is an excellent way of learning. Just honestly say what you liked or perhaps didn't like or found unclear in a submission.

=dubbauw;9197232]I've had two questions that I've been wondering about, and have been holding me back a little on my novel.

First, I feel the constant urge to morph the protagonist to sound, think, and act more like myself, but I want him to be his own character, not me. Does anyone else have this problem, and how do you avoid it?

Second, I have the main plot down and ready to go, but it seems too straightforward and doesn't really have layers, side plots, or events other than the main plot. I'm having difficulties trying to think of what else might happen besides the exact main plot. I don't want a perfectly linear plot, as in a constant direction towards the conclusion.

Click to expand...

I outline my entire main plot before I start writing. I've got a chapter-by-chapter list on note cards that I follow while writing my first draft of the book.

The thing is, as I get into the meat of the story, subplots kind of... reveal themselves. A secondary character needs motivation to do or say something that moves the plot forward, and in asking why they would do that, I come up with something that happened to them. Or sometimes, a really cool idea just occurs to me.

Even if you're a plotter, there are some aspects of the story that only come out in the writing.

I'd suggest if you've got the big plot points set out that you start your first draft and see what happens.

I agree that sub-plots appear frequently in the lives of other characters besides the MC.

However, they can also appear in your MC's life. Nobody is monolithic. Let's say the protagonist is a detective - just for fun. Give your detective a relationship with his dog, who gets hit by a car and breaks his leg. Now you have a subplot about the vet and caring for the dog.

Or let's say it's close to thanksgiving and his mother wants him to come home for the holiday. Now he has relatives that he doesn't want to see, a mother who's annoying him, and time pressure to solve the main crime before thanksgiving so he can go...or perhaps pressure to not solve the crime so he has an excuse not to go.

People, even protagonists, have lives. The more complexity in the life, the more subplots you have.

Always remember, the plot is part of the story, not vice-versa. The characters will naturally branch off from the main plot as the story develops and sub-plots crop up with them. Obstacles will become sub-plots that need a story arc to resolve and those often lead to ideas you didn't envision as you developed the main plot.

Let the story happen. Revisions and edits can flesh out the side plots later. Looking forward you may only see the main plot, but once written and looking back you will see all of those layers and sub-plots you wanted at the beginning.

Myrealana said:

I outline my entire main plot before I start writing. I've got a chapter-by-chapter list on note cards that I follow while writing my first draft of the book.

The thing is, as I get into the meat of the story, subplots kind of... reveal themselves. A secondary character needs motivation to do or say something that moves the plot forward, and in asking why they would do that, I come up with something that happened to them. Or sometimes, a really cool idea just occurs to me.

Even if you're a plotter, there are some aspects of the story that only come out in the writing.

I'd suggest if you've got the big plot points set out that you start your first draft and see what happens.

Click to expand...

Agree with all this^

Regarding the second question, I had something similar happen to me during NaNo. Some subplots for the supporting characters seemed to come out of nowhere as I wrote, and by putting everyone in a room and having the interact with my MC, a lot of unforeseen conflict developed, making things more layered. Also, some of favorite parts of the process were spontaneous bits where the MC went off-script.

I have a similar problem with side plots. I have the impression I tend to just have the story bone, here's the bone, done. And I am missing flesh. Which is why I usually end up with novellas. And I haven't yet found a way to stop that from happening.

There's nothing whatsoever wrong with having your MC be a thinly veiled version of yourself. It is, in fact, an excellent way of making that character real, and it's a long, long tone-honored manner of writing. Some of the best writers who ever lived wrote protagonists were were thinly veiled versions of themselves. . .or even not veiled at all versions of themselves. Jack London wouldn't have told any of his best stories, had he not used himself as a character.

There isn't even anything wrong with actually making yourself the protagonist, right down to minuscule details. I used myself as the protagonist of a story I sold to EQMM. It was called "The Real West", and it's so much me that the first one third of the story actually happened to me, right down to the other characters and the dialogue.

Unless your story won't work with you as the protagonist, then don't worry about it. The idea is to make the character real, three dimensional, and believable. This is often easier when you do use as much of yourself as possible.

When I do want a protagonist who has as little of me as possible in him, one trick I use is placing another real person in that role. I pick someone I know well, and who roughly fits the traits I want the character to have, and I use him throughout the story.

As for subplots, too many writers stick them in because they believe a novel must have them, or because they think it will help with length. Bull. Baloney. Horse hockey. If you just make the character well-rounded people who have a life outside of whatever the main problem is, a sub-plot will come naturally, and be part of the character. A good, non-intrusive sub-plot is simply a secondary problem the character has to deal with. He's trying to solve a murder, or he's running from unknown assassins, or he has to defeat the evil alien invader, but his ex-wife is a drunk who just took his kids to the other side of the country.

Just make him real, give him real problems, and a good sub-plot will take care of itself. If it's needed at all.