I usually find the main character to be the least interesting. This isn’t always, but it’s often.

Part of it is the sense that sometimes protagonists rest too much on BEING protagonists to be interesting. Everyone sort of falls all over them and they’re special just because and… It feels flat to me.

So most of the fic I write/read centers on secondary protagonist or side characters to varying degrees.

What about you all?

  • @LeGaosaure
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    27 months ago

    Thinking back on everything I wrote… yeah, not a protag writer either x’) Not sure why honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve written for enough fandoms with similar approach to what is a protagonist to see a pattern in my reactions.

    I mean… the fandom I’ve the most fics for have a clear protagonist and I’ve not written him a lot, I focus very heavily on side characters (some would say one of them is a villain and I could write an essay on why this is missing the whole point of the story). I’ve written for a game where you can personalize your player character. I’ve written for stuff where you don’t have a protag because you have like 25 protags. I’ve written for a game with a protag but where other characters are so developed that it feels like they’re as important. My most recent fandom really feels like you have a point-of-view character but no protag at all. So… yeah, these are all very different situations and in some cases “not focusing on the protag” doesn’t even make sense in this specific canon.

    So after typing all of this I guess my sample size for “there is clearly a protag, did you focus on them or not?” is actually one (1) fandom and the answer is no I didn’t focus on him, though I did write him here and there, but I suppose I could focus on a protag in another fandom? I’d need to fall into more fandoms to really know x’)